The Business of Blogging
Michael van der Galien linked to an article by Rick Moran about the future of blogging. Both seem to find great promise in the business of blogging for the future. While I also have great hopes for the future of blogging as a whole, (though hopefully they find a better name for it at some point), I have to say Michael's vision lacks a great deal in imagination and shows a rather disturbing authoritarian streak.
Take the first point of Michael’s thoughts on the future:
Firstly, we will see hostile takeovers. This means that one blog will ‘buy’ another blog.
When you consider that for the most part, blogs are places for people to express their personal opinions, the idea that somebody could come along and “buy-out” your place in the blogosphere is rather terrifying. What better way to shut down opinions of those you don’t agree with?
The rest of his points are already happening to different degrees; use of new media, original reporting, expansion into traditional publishing and its reverse, and blogs have always been about more than politics.
The reason that political blogs have managed to make their impact felt more than sports or fashion blogs, is because of their effort to fight against the very consolidation tendencies Michael sees as bloggings future.
There is no great call for more accurate reporting of sports scores and statistics. Conservative or liberal, there’s no point to massaging the stats to promote your view; they’re too easily checked. Compare that to a story about climate change, or the economic impact of socialized medicine. Whole worldviews are at stake, and that makes editorial control far more important.
Regardless what side of the blogosphere you find yourself viewing, the distaste for the MSM’s job on political reporting is pretty much standard, and blogs have become increasingly popular because they offer an alternative.
The MSM has increasingly blurred the distinction between news and opinion. Blogs, at least honest ones, don’t bother to pretend there is one.
The problem with the MSM in North America particularly, is the increasingly tiny number of hands controlling it. This story by “thirtysomething” creator Marshall Herskowitz gives an excellent breakdown of how this control is strangling creativity and independence. It also gives a glimpse of where new media may be heading. This vision doesn’t see increasingly consolidated new media with alliances and hostile take-overs. That way leads to the sublimation of independent voices and creativity. Real success comes from diversity. More of a venture capital model than a corporate ladder.
If blogging and related new media is to truly become a force to be reckoned with, it will do so because it breaks down the barriers the big six gatekeepers of traditional television have erected to independent voices.
Going back to MVDG for a moment, he says:
However, we’re the ones who grew up with blogging. When we start our careers, we’re already blogging for years and have already created a (humble but still) name for ourselves. What’s more, we’re more technologically savvy than our older colleagues, we’ve got more energy, and we’ve got our productive years ahead of us, rather than behind us.
In truth, the reason our generation will take blogging to the next level isn’t because of our technological savvy. Most of us are probably less tech-savvy then the previous generation,(of bloggers), because the tools they had were far more limited. They had to know a great deal to create stylesheets and html code and so-forth to produce their webpages.
Now, there are tools out there to allow even the most technologically challenged amateur to produce professional looking websites without knowing the programing language.
Low barriers to entry means more people able to express themselves, and unlike traditional media, its not a zero-sum game where people watching one channel or program will miss the competing channel. You can read or visit as many or as few websites as you please and search through their content whenever you want.
Add to that the fact that we all tend to link to one another, including, and sometimes especially, with those we disagree with, and the ease with which people can find new viewpoints is another great strength.
Anything that makes these activities more difficult destroys the strengths of blogging. Look, for instance, at TimesSelect. Throw up a gate to people reading the content of the paper, and bloggers in large part stopped linking to them.
Add in the increasing threat of big telecoms in North America to move to limited access instead of the open access policies of other nations, which is already decreasing the competitiveness of the US in broadband access and speed.
Corporatize things, or try to regulate the “wild west” aspects of blogging, and it loses that which gives it its strength and relevance. It's diversity and decentralization give it the kind of resilience that top-down corporate models can't compete with.
That's not to say that it isn't worthwhile to explore the business aspects of blogging. I certainly can't argue with the allure of getting paid to spout my opinions, but as with everything, one should be careful what they wish for. It's far more important to me that I can continue to spout those opinions on an equal footing than whether or not the business model is sound.
