10 Years of Blogging – Where we are now? Where we may be in the Future
I saw my first blog about 4 years ago. A few of my friends had signed up on MSN Spaces and Blogger and decided that it was incredibly funny to put in anecdotes of their personal lives – be it their girlfriends, their drunken escapades or just some random football match, which they thought was ‘newsworthy’.
Yesterday apparently was the 10th Anniversary of Blogging or atleast the term as we know it. A blog is an ongoing narrative – updated by a user or a group of users.
To continue my story – I noticed that the blogs my friends had were extremely restrictive in nature – they had a niche audience, niche content. That essentially led the immature me to believe that blogs did not really have the potential for too much reach.
That was till I accessed what is think is the richest blog in terms of political content – www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com. I was directed to the blog by a friend – who himself had been directed by a friend. Soon all my friends were recommending the blog to anyone they knew who was remotely interested in the Internet.
There were a few learnings I took back from Riverbend Blog:
- It was consistent in content (quite different from the randomness I experienced on the other blogs I read)
- It was something that concerns individuals
- I actually felt like I was gaining something (generic benefits – for all those who may be reading my ongoing series)
- It was extremely personal, yet in a sense objective.
The key to note here is that blogs have the ability to connect with users on a very intimate level.
There are other macro social changes that blogging has brought about in terms of the Media Space:
- Content is not top down anymore. Not only do news makers, the news media, and ‘the big guys’ create content.
- There are no barriers to entry if you have a brain, a computer, and an internet connection.
- The consumers will essentially be as big creators of content as the ‘creators of content as we currently know them.
- The ‘control’ in terms of who owns the share of voice in the media is changing.
The Blogging revolution must not in no way be confused with the Social Networking phenomenon.
The obvious similarities between blogging and social networking are that both are platforms where consumers are the creators of content.
Social networks however, work on a platform where that content automatically becomes a property of the Owner of the network and hence they can generate data about existing users, target them with ads, and keep all the revenue.
With blogs however, the content rights lie with the creator. Ads can be placed by the creator – and the revenue is also all for the creator.
With blogging, Corporate Blogging too has taken precedence. Corporate blogs are giving established companies and obscure brands alike the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnerships, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation.
Rajiv has written on the 7 keys for Corporate Blogging – check it out here
In a sense, the blogging revolution has also created the marketing sub category of Viral Marketing. As I said earlier – a genuine blogger writes with the enthusiasm and orientation to provide value and connect with his or her audience. The blogger shares useful and engaging content —the latest information, help, discussion topics and ideas. The way audiences responds to that content is key. When customers start commenting, posting or tracking back to a blogging community, it can have a viral effect —spreading out across the blogosphere. And trust me – the unique engagement that blogs provide essentially spreads to all corners of the World.
Here are what I think are the Most Key Technical Developments in the Blogging Scenario so Far:
- Content Management – making it easier to upload content, making it quicker, enabling, the posting of video, photos, and other value adds that make the user hooked.
- AdWords – Quality MUST be paid for.
- RSS Feeds – Synchronize what you read. Get more from one location. Know what blogs are doing without taking the time to actually visit them.
- Trackbacks – people who link to your article can be tracked down – you can connect with people who think on similar lines. Creating a virtual mesh of individuals.
In the future, I think there will be a few changes in the Blogging Scenrio:
- Blogging as we currently know it may have a complete overhaul. There will be less text – theres a certain amount of tediousness with text – I see more multimedia related content.
- We already are seeing ‘video blogs’ on platforms such as YouTube where people have their own shows. Our own WATShow is an example.
- One may also see a lot of MoBloggers – people blogging from their mobiles as mobiles generate capability – random observations, pictures, videos perhaps. I also think that with the advent of MoBlogging, blogs will become even more personal and interactive than they ever were.
- I think there will be 2 ends of the spectrum. 1 of the casual mobile bloggers or casual internet bloggers, and 2nd of the Specialized bloggers such as WATBlog, TechCruch, Alootechie etc. So that differntiation between specialist and generalist will be even more clear in the future and you may even have tools to differentiate the two.
I think the trends of team blogs for specialized blogs will multiply.
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That‘s really an interesting posting.
Hey have you come across MoDazzle. I recently registered for it. It’s about accessing social networking sites through mobile. I registered for free and now I can access Facebook and Linkedin through mobile via SMS and email without internet and GPRS. There are many more other services like Google maps, star bucks etc are available on mobile.
Check this site.
www.modazzle.com/cms/userLogin.html?channel=CM&camp=mobilenetwb
We happen to be in an era where something called the Net allows anyone and everyone to voice an opinion so there is literally tons of production. No one thinks about how all this is going to get consumed. Production-centric thinking is old hat because the publishing dynamics have changed. Consumption-centric thinking is required. When we say to ourselves - I am going to go out there and start writing a blog, we are being production-centric and doomed to failure. 10 years down the line, you would have either a direct or proxy pressure of stringent criteria before you see any of your stuff getting read.
Great insight - how we need to be consumer centric even in a system where consumer centricism is the overall way of thought.
Can you stress more on the direct or proxy pressure of stringent criteria for all our user?
I am no expert. It just occurred to me that satisfaction comes from quality not quantity. How may people visited a blog is less important than how much they gained from it. Naturally the latter cannot be measured. But it can be optimised by using criteria to manage the traffic flow. When I visit abcblog, that is my only criteria - the writer should be abc. Another criteria could be topic. What I am trying to say is that the more criteria involved in deciding my visit, the higher the potential quality of interaction.
I think they have ‘time spent’ in terms of analytics - thats exactly what u are saying. I know that there can be a problem with that because more time spent could be just because someone has left the page open without actually reading things - but i think over time all this filters out. Also the level and quality of interaction on blogs is another thing, if people are enthused and putting 500 comments then its great for the blogger - he has been able to generate qualitative interest. But true - more criteria, higher the potential quality of interaction.
More people are joining the Net, on the other hand, the ones already there are finding more things to do. So there won’t be a sudden squeeze. But the time constraint would keep becoming a more and more important factor. And even then things might not change because consolidation would kick in. So surviving blogs would be doing a 1000 visitors and 100 comments not because of better quality of interaction but because of consolidation in traffic. Only a sudden crash of Adsense servers can stop this dreaded consolidation from taking place. You might be wrong when you say quality must be paid for. Blogs have a peer-like feel to them. This charm cannot be denied and might work for some time to come. Till date blog search like web search is based on machine ranking which is keyword centric. To really experience quality, blog search along with web search would need to become entirely semantic where two paragraphs can have no common words while still having the exact same meaning. Because only then can criteria be formulated for traffic flow control.
I agree wholeheartedly with your idea that blog search needs to be more semantic. But that’s a little difficult as of now isn’t it?
Well, looking at the depth of your comments - i just hope WATBlog can maintain the peer like feel and get you to pour more of your thoughts. You are a perfect example of quality vs quantity
Just curious - what are the criteria that currently decide your visit to a site?
Thats some goody discussion going on here. Lemme be a spectator. I agree with everyone :).
Excellent Posting.
Well i agree with you - but Amol is the Man - we are all waiting for his wise comments.
Thanks guys, I feel like a million bucks. I am just one of those dreamer types who wish all cars had wings. You shouldn’t take me seriously at all. You guys are doing a swell job. This world rewards those who go with the flow, as opposed to my types who go around throwing spanners wherever they someone working.
Well Amol - i honestly think that the dreamer kinds do change the world - seen Taare Zameen Par?
- I think you make one very vaild point though - search that brings forth variety even though there is similarity in meaning, language, and logic. This fundamentally shows how blog search is quite different from other kinds of search.
You write on a wall in a park “Life in unfair, isn’t it?”. I walk by and add “To you, life in unfair. To life, you are unfair!”. There were no CMSes, no browsers, no adwords between us, but there was interaction. It is interaction not content that might be king. Why we can’t ignore the Net is because it happens to be the park with the most walls. It is human nature to get caught up in the jargon. The Net is only an abstraction. Because Google has been able to usurp all traffic, it can dictate what interactions take place. Although it is too late to stop Google or even prove it wrong (gulp!), what we CAN do is always try and put interaction over traffic. This might involve trying to characterize the writers, the readers, the sessions and so on. And even then we would hit the FAKE barrier (ouch!). Because we’ll have a single site optimization view, we would try to optimize only site wide sessions and end up faking our writing. What I seem to be proposing is multisite optimization where sessions are optimized so writers or even readers don’t need to fake. Of course, it is unlikely that thousands of webmasters would ever agree to semantic routing just so opportunity cost can be minimized. The TRAP and NEVER LET GO mentality might remain because even Einstein can’t devise revenue sharing for such setups.
Just a Thought - can the trap and never let go mentality really work in a free market?
I agree with you that conversations and engagement is more important than traffic - thats what we base our business on - consulting as well as blogging.
On second thoughts - as you pointed out, the internet market may not be as ‘free’ as we think
Imagine a ground with producers on one side and consumers on the other. Suddenly the gates open and the producers pounce on the consumers. If a producer has a bigger basket, he is able to corner more consumers. No one waits for any “criteria” before grabbing.
Amol - we interviewed Jimmy Wales Recently - the founder of Wikipedia!
You can check out the interview there - he talks about Semantic Web and i asked him that question specifically keeping you in mind :)!
You can check it out herehttp://www.watblog.com/2008/02/01/watshow-episode-12-exclusive-interview-with-jimmy-wales-wikipedia-founder/
Do let me know me know what you think and maybe we can take forward our conversation there!
P.S. I think Jimmy Wales takes a dig at ‘grand theorizers’ - im sure you’ll enjoy the video
Also id love some feedback on the editing - iv been doing the recent shows
I enjoyed the video. The editing was good. The picture quality especially the lighting could have been better. I liked the silent movie inspired frames in between. The questions were fairly routine. My take on wikipedia is again production centric. You are branding information. If one part of wikipedia is good, it would make us eat the other part which is not so good. But then our whole world is like that, we can’t fight the main paradigm.
Well i agree - sorry i didnt reply earlier but i think they call this the Halo effect - the iPod did that for an entire range of products for Apple. Similarly we have seen it with Wikipedia. But then again - perception is the only reality. Im glad you enjoyed the video - yea more care should be taken with the lighting - it was all a little hushed up.