Business - Written by Patrick Harnett on Monday, October 27, 2008 13:35 - 7 Comments
In Memoriam – Blogs (1993-2008?)
For a guy who loves reading online, I still feel mild excitement on magazine delivery day. Yes, I’m a Neanderthal who reads print on dead trees (or wheat, which fits the bill nicely for I live in a country whose rockers pay tribute to all things agrarian). There’s something about having a tactile experience with what you’re reading, something decidedly absent when scrolling on my laptop or PDA. Despite my fondness for the printed word, my Google Reader feeds keep me more than busy online (and are partially to blame for my increasing prescription).
I’m fairly confident that print is not yet dead, but what caught my attention was an article in Wired sounding the death knell for the blogosphere. Paul Boutin feels that the medium isn’t the pithy purveyor of pointed polemic, but an impotent (and often “catty”) soapbox for comment trolls and professional spammers. He decries that the medium is now disconnected with what made it popular and that ubiquitous social media sites make it so easy to post pictures and video, that the written word is now a distant second. Boutin believes that those communiqués are better suited for Facebook and Twitter rather than a blog.
But what I took issue with is the argument against sites like Engadget and The Huffington Post, which Boutin says smack more like online magazines, with teams of writers turning out such volume that the little guy gets swept away in the deluge. His point that now it’s become more difficult to find those little nuggets amidst the sea of PageRank-biased semi-professional bloggers. But isn’t that the point of blogs in general? They’ve equipped the masses to spread the word, and now they’ve exercised their “online constitutional right” to assemble and organize in ways they see fit. Yes, the good old days of the “lone wolf” blogosphere may be past (sic transit gloria), but the Internet is still very much a meritocracy. Sites like Digg and human-driven aggregators like Alltop still let the cream rise to the top. Yes, Google’s PageRank favours the Goliaths of the Internet, but it’s shocking how quickly we start acting as if there were no alternatives and that Internet users have lost all of their “animal spirits“ to seek out quality content at the margins.
Yes, Twitter and Facebook feel better suited for our new brand of SMS vitriol, but blog “nuggets” don’t stay hidden long. And I think that is reason enough not to dissuade the next wave of bloggers from having fun with long-form writing. Perhaps I’m advocating patience, something in short supply these days. Very “Field of Dreams”: if you blog quality, the readers will come—in time. In my case, I’ve got some waiting to do.
*Quote:
“Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.” – John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936 (Back to post)
7 Comments
It’s like small stores versus big (or chain) stores in the non-virtual world. Many small stores die out, but the really good ones still thrive. Why? Because they are really good. I have fought off every effort made by blogging conglomerates to add my blog to their empires (mostly because I don’t want ads) and yet, my readership has gone up every single month since the blog started nearly three years ago. Quality trumps quantity.
And that is why I am a regular reader of this blog.
Vasu:
So then maybe Twitter and Facebook are good “mediocrity release valves” for people uncomfortable with traditional blogs. Perhaps their insights translate better when compressed—brevity is the soul of their wit. Literally.
Looking a little deeper, I like the format because I enjoy how it’s a little window in on people’s personalities, something I feel I’m missing from shorter stuff. And from a selfish point of view, when I blog I’ve read religiously decides to close up shop, I feel like a friend is moving away.
I read a neat post just now about “blogging fatigue” on The Blog Herald , and I’m sure some of this is driving some of the better bloggers out.
Dan:
I think you’re spot on. I’m a fan of supporting those “Mom and Pop” blogs, but if I end up seeing an article I like at Seeking Alpha I don’t think it marginalizes other stellar small (and cult-followed) blogs like Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture. As you say, the quality makes survival possible.
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Denis Hancock
I think it’s important for people making the R.I.P. argument to compare the blogopsphere to what preceded it.
Yes, there are a few dominant sites that naturally draw a lot of the attention in the “blogosphere”. This is natural. But back in the day, it was a very few magazines, newspapers and TV channels that dominated the flow of information.
While becoming popular in the blogosphere is by no means easy, it’s far, far easier than the old process where a few select people got to make the decisions on what was able to be heard.
I also find the reference to “cut-rate journalists” in the Wired article fascinating… because I’ve found it interesting that if you ask a REAL journalist to write a blog, the quality of their content suddenly drops precipitously. What I’d really love to see is some great journalists do their best work on an open medium like the blogosphere and see how many people they can reach…
As someone who is an experienced Digger, Digg is hardly a meritocracy. Some good cream does rise to the top and it helps some sites get some Google love and traffic, but equally relevant and engaging stories can get 21 or 210 diggs. Thats hardly a meritocracy–but its maybe better than no love at all.
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Yes. If you paid attention to people who create ‘digital forests of mediocrity’, they kinda give up within 3-4 months of continuous blogging.
But, if you take Seth Godin or Kevin Kelly or any of these smart guys, they cannot possibly compress their messages in a twitter. So, it is R.I.P. for non-serious bloggers. Not for the ones, who really can write and have the passion to write and change the world.
Is it a marketing tool anymore? Maybe, not a popular choice, if you cannot write well.
-Vasu
http://blog.amusecorp.com