Have we reached a bloggerhead?
Robert Rouse
March 17, 2006
Blogging - it wasn't all that long ago when most people thought you were speaking a foreign language if you mentioned a blog. No one knew what a blog was, what it did, or if it was safe. Now it seems as if one of every five or six people you meet has their own blog or have thought about starting one. I think that's great. It's cathartic and people have blogs about almost any subject you might want to read about or discuss.
Of course along with any good comes a world of bad. In this case - pornography, hate groups, and even blogs about mimes are on the net. Next thing you know there will be a full blown association of accordion player blogs. But I don't want to talk about the seedy underbelly, I want to discuss the good part of the Blogosphere. The positive aspects hopefully outweigh the bad.
To begin with, I respect a heck of a lot of these bloggers out there. Especially the ones who are going it alone without a staff of contributors. I enjoy the fact that I can browse through the various blogs and find an awful lot of intelligent people out there. They may be experts in any number of fields, yet even this can add to the diversity of the Blogosphere. Some experts may only blog in their field of expertise, while another may choose to blog about anything but their job, and yet there are always those who decide to enjoy the best of both worlds and blog about anything up to and including their own fields.
A debate recently stirred up about the longevity of blogging. It apparently began on Slate.com according to an editorial in the Chicago Tribune.
You're forgiven if you cling to the conventional wisdom that blogging, like half-pipe snowboarding, enjoys an unrelievedly rich future. Forgiven, but maybe behind the curve. A new report from Gallup pollsters, "Blog Readership Bogged Down," cautions that "the growth in the number of U.S. blog readers was somewhere between nil and negative in the past year."
Gallup finds only 9 percent of Internet users saying they frequently read blogs, with 11 percent reading them occasionally. Thirteen percent of Internet users rarely bother, and 66 percent never read blogs. Those numbers, essentially unchanged from a year earlier, put blog-reading dead last among Gallup's measures of 13 common Internet activities. E-mailing ranks first (with 87 percent of users doing so frequently or occasionally), followed by checking news and weather (72), shopping (52) and making travel plans (also 52). Gallup concludes that while the amount of time people spend online has risen, "it appears the online public is simply doing more of the same activities, rather than branching out and trying different Internet offerings."
The pixels hadn't faded on Gallup's downbeat report when Slate.com columnist Daniel Grossman chimed in with another requiem, "Twilight of the Blogs." Grossman says: "There are troubling signs--akin to the 1999 warnings about the Internet bubble--that suggest blogs have just hit their top." Among those signs: too much corporate money trying to buy into what could be a fad (including Time Warner paying a reported $25 million for Weblogs Inc.). Is too much money chasing not enough revenue? As Grossman aptly notes: "In the end stages of any investment mania, the clueless and the greedy flood in."
This editorial was answered twice. The first was also in the Chicago Tribune in a piece written by Eric Zorn. Zorn said:
Yes, there are millions of diarylike, special-interest or other niche blogs that, despite their impressive quality in some cases, give blogging a feathery reputation. But however bloggers use the format--I refer to it as a medium to underscore the shiny new combination of print, images and sound, immediacy, depth, and interactivity it allows--it's proven ideal for quickly engaging readers and facilitating dialogue.
This week at Change of Subject, I've started a searching correspondence about the cartoon crisis with Ahmed Rehab, director of communications for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
I've also sparked and hosted an extended conversation with readers in my comments area about the Shani Davis controversy, an exchange that is revealing, yet again, the depressing width of the racial divide in America.
"Blogging has a future," conceded the last paragraph of our editorial, adding grumpily, "however indefinite."
No, it's definite. "Bloggy" is here to stay.
This editorial was answered twice. First in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in an op-ed piece by Nathan Gotsch, who had created the popular blog Fort Wayne Observed (which is now in the able hands of Mitch Harper). Nathan said, in part:
In many cases, local bloggers aren?t just commenting on what?s happening in Fort Wayne ? they?re reporting the story themselves. An example: On Feb. 15th, Harper, who runs Fort Wayne Observed, discovered that Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz?s company had registered the domain name fortwayneexaminer.com, an indication it was interested in entering the Fort Wayne media market. Harper?s post reporting that was picked up by the Rocky Mountain News, which credited Fort Wayne Observed with the story and acknowledged it as a ?media outlet.?
Harper isn?t the only Fort Wayne blogger doing original reporting. A few weeks ago, Left of Centrist?s Robert Rouse was sitting at home when several police cars flew by, sirens blaring. He grabbed his camera and followed them to the scene of a shooting, where he took photos and interviewed a police spokesman about what happened. Minutes later, his report was up on his blog. Rouse has also reported on a Tom Hayhurst press conference (including a video clip) and protestors outside the Allen County GOP Convention.
But let's say the cynics are right and blogging is on the downside, I don't see that as something negative - to the contrary, even if readership is down, and a large number of blogs start disappearing, the good blogs, the ones that have something to say, will continue and I've always believed in quality over quantity. Also, The people who read blogs that make them think are intelligent people and many have something to say. There are many people who begin blogs only to suffer from the blog blahs. The doldrums set in and before you know it, you just don't feel like writing. Most give up and you see fewer and fewer posts, then one day, there are no new posts at all. I can understand the ennui. It's happened to me before, in fact this entire past week has been like that. But rather than give it up completely, I just step away for a few days and I'm ready to go.
I see a great future for blogs. I see blogger associations, blogger news agencies, perhaps even bloggers forming research and consulting services - after all, any good blogger worth his salt is an excellent web researcher. When I see falling numbers, I don't see decline in the blogosphere, I see it reforming itself into something better.
Of course along with any good comes a world of bad. In this case - pornography, hate groups, and even blogs about mimes are on the net. Next thing you know there will be a full blown association of accordion player blogs. But I don't want to talk about the seedy underbelly, I want to discuss the good part of the Blogosphere. The positive aspects hopefully outweigh the bad.
To begin with, I respect a heck of a lot of these bloggers out there. Especially the ones who are going it alone without a staff of contributors. I enjoy the fact that I can browse through the various blogs and find an awful lot of intelligent people out there. They may be experts in any number of fields, yet even this can add to the diversity of the Blogosphere. Some experts may only blog in their field of expertise, while another may choose to blog about anything but their job, and yet there are always those who decide to enjoy the best of both worlds and blog about anything up to and including their own fields.
A debate recently stirred up about the longevity of blogging. It apparently began on Slate.com according to an editorial in the Chicago Tribune.
You're forgiven if you cling to the conventional wisdom that blogging, like half-pipe snowboarding, enjoys an unrelievedly rich future. Forgiven, but maybe behind the curve. A new report from Gallup pollsters, "Blog Readership Bogged Down," cautions that "the growth in the number of U.S. blog readers was somewhere between nil and negative in the past year."
Gallup finds only 9 percent of Internet users saying they frequently read blogs, with 11 percent reading them occasionally. Thirteen percent of Internet users rarely bother, and 66 percent never read blogs. Those numbers, essentially unchanged from a year earlier, put blog-reading dead last among Gallup's measures of 13 common Internet activities. E-mailing ranks first (with 87 percent of users doing so frequently or occasionally), followed by checking news and weather (72), shopping (52) and making travel plans (also 52). Gallup concludes that while the amount of time people spend online has risen, "it appears the online public is simply doing more of the same activities, rather than branching out and trying different Internet offerings."
The pixels hadn't faded on Gallup's downbeat report when Slate.com columnist Daniel Grossman chimed in with another requiem, "Twilight of the Blogs." Grossman says: "There are troubling signs--akin to the 1999 warnings about the Internet bubble--that suggest blogs have just hit their top." Among those signs: too much corporate money trying to buy into what could be a fad (including Time Warner paying a reported $25 million for Weblogs Inc.). Is too much money chasing not enough revenue? As Grossman aptly notes: "In the end stages of any investment mania, the clueless and the greedy flood in."
This editorial was answered twice. The first was also in the Chicago Tribune in a piece written by Eric Zorn. Zorn said:
Yes, there are millions of diarylike, special-interest or other niche blogs that, despite their impressive quality in some cases, give blogging a feathery reputation. But however bloggers use the format--I refer to it as a medium to underscore the shiny new combination of print, images and sound, immediacy, depth, and interactivity it allows--it's proven ideal for quickly engaging readers and facilitating dialogue.
This week at Change of Subject, I've started a searching correspondence about the cartoon crisis with Ahmed Rehab, director of communications for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
I've also sparked and hosted an extended conversation with readers in my comments area about the Shani Davis controversy, an exchange that is revealing, yet again, the depressing width of the racial divide in America.
"Blogging has a future," conceded the last paragraph of our editorial, adding grumpily, "however indefinite."
No, it's definite. "Bloggy" is here to stay.
This editorial was answered twice. First in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in an op-ed piece by Nathan Gotsch, who had created the popular blog Fort Wayne Observed (which is now in the able hands of Mitch Harper). Nathan said, in part:
In many cases, local bloggers aren?t just commenting on what?s happening in Fort Wayne ? they?re reporting the story themselves. An example: On Feb. 15th, Harper, who runs Fort Wayne Observed, discovered that Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz?s company had registered the domain name fortwayneexaminer.com, an indication it was interested in entering the Fort Wayne media market. Harper?s post reporting that was picked up by the Rocky Mountain News, which credited Fort Wayne Observed with the story and acknowledged it as a ?media outlet.?
Harper isn?t the only Fort Wayne blogger doing original reporting. A few weeks ago, Left of Centrist?s Robert Rouse was sitting at home when several police cars flew by, sirens blaring. He grabbed his camera and followed them to the scene of a shooting, where he took photos and interviewed a police spokesman about what happened. Minutes later, his report was up on his blog. Rouse has also reported on a Tom Hayhurst press conference (including a video clip) and protestors outside the Allen County GOP Convention.
But let's say the cynics are right and blogging is on the downside, I don't see that as something negative - to the contrary, even if readership is down, and a large number of blogs start disappearing, the good blogs, the ones that have something to say, will continue and I've always believed in quality over quantity. Also, The people who read blogs that make them think are intelligent people and many have something to say. There are many people who begin blogs only to suffer from the blog blahs. The doldrums set in and before you know it, you just don't feel like writing. Most give up and you see fewer and fewer posts, then one day, there are no new posts at all. I can understand the ennui. It's happened to me before, in fact this entire past week has been like that. But rather than give it up completely, I just step away for a few days and I'm ready to go.
I see a great future for blogs. I see blogger associations, blogger news agencies, perhaps even bloggers forming research and consulting services - after all, any good blogger worth his salt is an excellent web researcher. When I see falling numbers, I don't see decline in the blogosphere, I see it reforming itself into something better.
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