I was following a trail of links (BoingBoing over to Joi Ito where I found a trackback from S A L E S M I N D S E T) and I surfed over to that last blog to see what it was about. I actually never found the post that had tracked back to Ito's blog, but a cursory scan of the topics that were on the site made me wonder what exactly it was. It seemed to be a professional blog--that is, he's paid to post there by a company. So I checked the About Me section to see who he works for, and why.
I discovered that this guy is in charge of Tucows' attempt to branch out into the world of blogging. In his sidebar, you'll see some "example" blogs--they're totally not real, but somebody put a lot of time and effort into making them look authentic (and snazzy). I visited the homepage of the service, Blogware.com, and looked around some more.
I'm still not exactly sure what this service is. I mean, is it just another Blogger/LiveJournal/Xanga/Blog-City/Typepad? Why are the "about us" pages so elaborate? And why do they have so many "example" blogs and hardly any real ones?
It seems a little slimy to me, and I'm not sure why.
I think maybe I have an idea of how blogs are, and maybe I think of them as being more grassroots? Whereas this service seems more like a sell-out. They essentially tell you how to make your blog, including what you might write about. It makes blogging seem less like something for people who have something to say, and more like something for everyone to do, regardless of whether or not they have any insights whatsoever.
Maybe I feel threatened by the potential levelling of the playing field? But I'm not sure about that, because I think it's great for people to have tools that can help them easily create online journals. Maybe, instead, I'm worried that people who are boring will feel like they need to blog--that the blogosphere will become saturated by sleep-inducing diatribes. (Don't we have enough of those already?)
I don't mean to sound elitist, but I guess I can't get behind a company whose strategy is to encourage anyone and everyone, regardless of talent, ability, and insightfulness, to create something which they can then charge for. (Because, ultimately, that's got to be the point of this, right?)
But maybe I'm too harsh. After all, maybe one of those people who never would have blogged without encouragement will develop into a passionate, fascinating writer. It'd be a shame for that not to happen. And somebody's gotta make money off of blogging somewhere, right?
I suppose I'm just concerned about how the blogosphere is evolving, where it's going, why it's going there, and what will happen to it. I hope it grows and thrives. I don't want to see it burn out, or amass into nothing but a glut of mediocre whine-rants.
Of course, saying all of this makes me wonder about my own blog. I've mentioned to others that the main purpose of this journal is to archive myself. (Yes, new readers, I am that arrogant.) This journal will remain after my death as an information archive for my biographers. My links to news stories will tell people what I was interested in. And hopefully my projects and workshops (these don't exist yet, by the way) will help literature students understand my process. But at the same time...I am very much interested in contemporary feedback.
I look back on my more recent journal entries and I see very few comments. Many of the people who have linked to me in the past haven't remarked on anything in quite some time. I wonder why they liked my blog to begin with, and whether or not they still like it. I wonder if I am posting too many links, and not enough commentary. I wonder if what I'm writing about is uninteresting. I wonder if I spend too little time revising and polishing my posts. I also wonder if I'm simply not attracting readers due to a lack of advertising.
If anyone is still out there, won't you chime in? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? Is there a reason you don't comment much? What do you think of my blog in light of my discussion above?
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5 comments:
I've wanted to say something about this topic the last couple weeks, so since you give the opportunity.... Yes you have been linking too much. It's your prerogative, but if I want to read news, I can go to a media source. The kind of posts I have enjoyed from you have had stuff like you going to the garbage bin and enjoying the breeze while you were walking, or riding your bike without your hands and then dissolving in a fit of laughter, or cooking for Thanksgiving dinner. You know, just the real down to earth, fun YOU. Sometimes I read another link and I think, 'I thought this was supposed to be a "compendium of all things [Heather]?' Cuz that's what I come for. I only wish you could've had as much pleasure reading my blog as I have yours.
As a purveyor of "mediocre whine-rants", and "sleep-inducing diatribes" I don't think I'm qualified to comment on the core qquestion of this post. I just don't know. I'm all for Level playing fields. I think talent shines even in a mass.
Beyond that, I've never commented often. It's not my style or my way. I comment when compelled to do so, either by sympathy, disagrement or excitement. In all honest, recent posts haven't inspired any of that. I still read them, and not out of pity or friendship duty. I read them because I care what you have to say and find it interesting. But interesting doesn't always inspire me to post comments.
I don't think you link to much, I think you link in a vacuum. You do a lot of, "I saw this, and found it interesting. I don't know what it really means but I find it (adjective)." That's mildly informative, but what do you REALLY think. There often isn't enough WHY to make it post about Heather, rather than a simple link.
I like Links, m9ind you, but from a point of view of making this an interact "About Heather" that defines you in terms of your thoughts and your aquaintences, it isn't very engaging.
Thanks, you two.
I think I knew that I have been lazy. It's far easier to post a couple of links with a sentence or two of non-commentary than it is to write a story about my day, or an essay on my opinions about something. So I've been doing a lot of the easy stuff, and not as much of the more difficult stuff.
Of course, the more difficult stuff is far more rewarding.
I think I am going to do a clip-blog after all, so I can put links there, out of the way of the main section. That way, it will be more obvious to me when I haven't written something meaty in awhile.
Any other comments?
Well, as an FYI and just to clarify, Tucows pays me yes, but they do not pay me to blog. What I do is consult with retail partners in the ISP / Hosting space who are looking to provide a best of breed blogging solution to their customer base. We are a wholesale dedicated provider and do not offer our services to the general public which may be causing some of the confusion.
As far as sleazy? No, but maybe a bit misunderstood. As far as fake blogs? Absolutely. Those blogs were created by our marketing team to provide our retail partners examples of how a blog may be used. Explaining how a blog works is harder than just showing them an example of they can use one.
From what I see, you appear to have more of an issue with blogging becoming mainstream further diluting real bloggers. Not sure what a "real blogger" is, but IMHO what I do know is that a blog is more of a communication vehicle than it is a podium for any one person.
I personaly believe that this communication vehicle provides more value to the blogosphere the more users there are out there that are using these tools to communicate, whether they are as articulate and entertaining as real bloggers, or whether they are just sharing photos of their children with family members abroad.
There is a revolution reshaping what we know as the Internet, changing it from an archive of the past, to what is happening right now and Through RSS / Moblogging / Trackbacks / Podcasts and other advanced features we and some others support, that Internet connects with you in real time wherever you may go.
Transparency is a key component of our business model as well as my sales approach, so if you have any questions about me or our motives, please feel free to contact me anytime :)
Peter,
Thanks for clarifying what your company does. I think I understand a little better what you guys are trying to do. Marketing blogging software to service providers instead of individuals is probably the best way to make money on it in a market that is saturated with free services. Good luck to you guys.
I'm not sure that the Internet was ever simply an "archive of the past", but it is definitely true that more and more realtime content is available now, and two weeks is more than enough time to render something "old news".
I'm all for people being able to share and communicate with each other. I just don't know if blogging is the right solution for every person. I'm not sure, in other words, that blogging is the end-all communications solution. It's definitely interesting, and with trackbacks its potential has shot through the roof. However, there is one fatal flaw, and that is that blogging is a written form.
The Internet will only be an ideal place for all people to communicate when other forms of communication are equally represented.
In the ideal situation, people like me, who are most comfortable communicating through writing, would be able to write a post about something interesting. Then, a group of people who happen to be online at the same time and who prefer discourse to essay-writing should be able to have a real-time voice chat about it. This chat would be archived with a trackback to the original post. People might listen in on the discussion and leave voice or text comments. Maybe someone else took a photo that fits in. And maybe someone else is inspired to paint a picture. Eventually someone who prefers to express herself through film could then arrange the text and chat with images and make a documentary on the subject.
All of these are valid forms of communication, and come easier to many people than does writing. To truly level the playing field, other forms of media will have to be represented.
Can blogs handle multimedia? They're trying, but as the myriad photoblogs out there can attest, they have serious limitations. I think that completely new architecture, compatible with the existing Internet infrastructure, is needed to be able to support all the communication possibilities. (And of course, we need bigger hard drives and more bandwidth.)
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