Bloglash

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I’m waiting for the bloglash (blogger backlash).

Why?

Well, having been – in a tepid way – through the entire Internet boom/bust/rebirth cycle (been with the Web since Mosaic – so that’s 10 years; been with a couple startups), the blog cycle is feeling the same way.

I started blogging just under two years ago; I saw the appeal immediately, but then I got busy at work again….

My “real” blogging — a somewhat consistent blog — has been only the last few months, but I have been following it all.

Blogs are reaching critical mass, and that’s both a good and bad thing.

Good: It’s good because it is a new medium, as the Web was (is?). It’s getting some of the attention it deserves – and this will help it mature. (Bring in new people, new ideas, just the mass of users helps it.)

Bad: At the same time, blogs are getting way more attention than they deserve. That’s not a slam, it’s just that this is its “15 minutes of fame” where every paper etc. writes/talks about them — it is reaching the masses. After this overexposure, there will be a backlash and then it will settle into some sort of normalcy, much like the Web has (you don’t have to like the way the Web has settled; I also fully agree that there is a lot of untapped potential out there, some of which is currently under investigation…). The backlash is coming; very soon now.

OK, what are the signs of the impending backlash?

Basically, the backlash will be a reaction against hype. Overexposure.

In the same way that people got sick of every commercial on TV suddenly proclaiming “See our Web site at blah.com” and companies like “balls.com” getting buttloads of VC money, people are going to start getting sick of hearing about how “blogging will be a seismic event in journalism; there is no turning back” (yeah, I made up that quotation, but I bet you could find one close to it somewhere).

Anything that gets hyped the way the Web was – and, increasingly, blogs are – will suffer a setback, a backlash.

Ironicially, I wrote about this quirk of human nature (at least American humans) re: the Google purchase of Pyra etc. Before, Google was the white hat, the good guy, the cool kid in class. Once it started maturing, it – essentially the same company – turn into another Evil Empire.

This will happen to blogging itself shortly, once the buzz has gone on so long that all people can hear is a buzzing in their ears.

They’ll turn. To the next ‘Net meme. (*shrug*)

Signs of hype:

  • Academic acceptance: Hell, the Dean of Bloggers (Dave Winer) pulled up stakes and moved from the Golden State to Beantown to teach at, of all the uncreditable places, Harvard. This isn’t Smalltown Junior College offering a blogger course for English credit.

  • Interest by companies outside the industry: This goes back to Google’s purchase of Pyra (blogger/blogspot). Yes, both are Internet properties, so it’s not like Mobil Oil purchasing a restaurant chain, but there is a degree of separation. Userland or Moveable Type merging or either partnering with Pyra would have been interesting but in a “so what?” kind of way; Google purchasing Pyra raised eyebrows, increasing the visibility of both companies in everyone’s eyes.
  • Mainstream press latches onto story: Yes, of course the stories will be clueless in many cases. Hey, so is a lot of popular science writing – gross oversimplification to help get a point (often an incorrect one) across. Whatever. The mainstream press – NY Times and its ilk – is starting to catch a whiff of this blogging thing. Oh, they’ve (their more intrepid writers) been well aware of this phenomenon for some time, but until now it was not worth writing about. The unwashed masses didn’t care… All of the sudden, it’s on the News Radar.
  • Proponents are overwhelmed by the task: I’m reading more and more about how established bloggers are getting overwhelmed in some way or another by the Herclulean (sp?) task of keeping up with this all. Concerns about keeping up with the e-mail users send to the blogger to even people concerned about filters on the blog search engines/aggredizers (they want them; not a censorship issue), so they can be more easily used to target what’s interesting (to that user).

The main problem with all this attention is that nothing is good enough to make all this attention valid.

This was part of the problem with the Internet: It didn’t turn water into wine, it didn’t make you look 10 lbs. thinner, it didn’t whiten your smile.

The ‘Net was a new tool; a cool tool.

Not THE tool.

Ditto for blogs.

But now the momentum is beginning, and it’s going to change blogging forever. That’s not a bad thing, by the way – change is good, and blogging is so new it has not really found its role(s). We are entering into the shakeout period, where we find out how valid some of the claims are (my “seismic event in journalism,” for example), what ways this new(ish) tool can be leveraged.

There are other parallels between the rise of the Web and the rise of the blog, as well. Some valid, some just…well, interesting:

  • Humble roots: Whether you want to talk about the actual concept or the tools used to create either the Web or blogs, it’s an effort of a small group of individuals/collaborators. Nobody (until Google/Pyra) was tossing money at blog folks to do stuff; Tim Berners-Lee wrote HTTP just to share documents. Mosaic was a grad school project. They did it because it was interesting and worth doing. Free tools abound; people share ideas.

  • Supposed to “democracize” things: Yeah, what “things” are depends on who you talk to. And while the Internet has done this to a degree, and blogs also give the individual a voice, it’s not the great leveler people rant about. Sorry. It can be, but rarely is. (Note: In those rare cases where it does allow a single voice [person/group/cause] to rise above the institutions, it can be quite compelling. Very compelling.)
  • Not sure of role, despite the “democracize” thing: The Web is still feeling its way around on this one. Since it was hyped – and funded – to basically be all things to all people all the time, it is struggling to figure out how much of that it can really fulfill. Yes, tough row to hoe. Blogs are more targetted, as they are content (not marketplaces, not applications [ASP], not brick-and-mortar killers…). Still, content…how? And why/for what? And for what else? Interesting questions for ‘Net and blogs.
  • The ability for anyone to publish can be a less-than-compelling benefit: Yes, early Web pages were silly, often stupid, usually useless. Ditto today for blogs. I’ve stated my opinion on this one before: Bloggers are, for the most part, navel-gazers. On the other hand, so what? And why not? But just because you can publish does not mean that you should, or that it’s necessary. That’s another great lesson of the Web: While I maintain that every company (with limits) should have a Web site – like a Yellow Pages ad – there is no need to have it robust. Three pages: Page one welcome basic info (phone, address, e-mail); page two “about us” (some on page one, as well); page three whatever works for the company. Price list. Areas of specialty. Portfolio links. Awards won. Whatever. I have a blog; don’t need one. But I like it, and I do it. No one reads it. I keep writing into it. So what???
  • About Itself: Yes, the early Web was filled with dross, navel lint and a lot of pages to help you code, set up a server and so on. Closed loop, in many ways. A Web about the Web. Blogs are similar, but breaking out more quickly (because they are content). While blogs point to other bloggers (vs. CNN/whitehouse.gov etc.) more than other types of sites – a kind of closed loop – this has rapidly changed (OK, over the two years I’ve read blogs…). As noted above, bloggers are starting to even be concerned about filtering blog search/collection areas so they can get to what they want (“You want politics with that?”). This is a very healthy sign. This type of attitude will 1) Meet with resistance (what “change” doesn’t?); 2) Promote initial eye-rolling; 3) Promote progress. My guess…
  • West Coast Phenomenon: I don’t know where blogs were invented. I know that the ‘Net was not invented in California – HTTP at CERN in Geneva, TCP/IP East Coast/BBN, Mosaic Champaign/Urbana IL etc… – but the Net has been embraced on that chunk of America that’s spozed to float off into the Pacific some day. However, like the “About Itself” point above, blogs have done better to move beyond The [Silicon] Valley than the ‘Net has. BIG in NYC, for example, but this is for two interesting (to me…) reasons:

    • NYC tried very hard – because of its publishing roots, which were “threatened” (?) by the Web – to make a Silicon Alley in NYC. So the folks were/are there.

    • As noted somewhere above, blogs are about content (not technology per se). Content capital of US of A is NYC. The intelligensia is there. Bingo.