Simon Dumenco says blogs aren't that complicated. He's right.

Simon Dumenco opines in Ad Age that blogging is just writing. He's not wrong — good blogs are well-written and crap ones are not. I've often told business people who seem afraid of blogs that they're really not that complicated — they're simply applications that allow you to create dynamic, instant publishing Web sites.

What Dumenco misses, however, is the conversation that blogs spark. They not only start conversation in the Comments section on the sites themselves, but they fuel the spread of information around the web. Unti it's easy to shoot an opinion to a newspaper reporter — or a network anchor — that's a real point of difference.

Yes, most blogs are only as good as the content they provide, which usually means good, informative or entertaining writing. But one should not discount the fact that conversational media allows everyone to join the party.

I used to mourn the demise of raucous town hall forums and barroom debates about issues more serious than whether or not Peyton Manning really does suck in the playoffs. It seemed we were either getting too polite or too lazy to get off the couch and leave our cable TV universe. I, for one, am glad that conversation seems to have returned on the Internet.