Blogging is changing the way we look on the content on the web and the media. It is more and more becoming a way to easy-publish to the web. Yet many blogs are lacking the fundamental design and architecture of a more conventional website. Where will this saga end?
Today everybody (or more honestly speaking an amazing large number of people) want to have a blog. Corporate blogging has turned into a personalized way for CEO:s and executives to release corporate news, and thereby bring the users closer to the company. The interaction is good as they will get direct feedback from the users, even though it is unlikely that they will ever tell you of any problems they face. However, the feeling of being a part or seen is central here and the social part of the blog software becomes obvious. Even though corporate blogging has some child deceases I am confident that the proper structure will emerge.
The true driving force of blogs has undisputable been the political arena, and I think the political arena has changed forever due to it. The debate in blogs during the last presidential election in the US, especially Howard Dean campaign, is a proof that bloggers is a new type of media that will change the political arena and is a true power to count on or fear. Everybody can be their own politician and speak their mind on almost anything. An amazing shift towards the power of the people on both good and bad. That discussion truly deserves an own post, so I will leave it there.
I am working on new ways to deliver news to the web during my time here at Stanford and I will shortly reveal some more details on the project. A question that is quite important when looking at this is what the news media really is, and in particular what a newspaper is. A drastic and maybe controversial approach is to consider a newspaper as nothing else than a well-reviewed group blog. Of course this is quite a simplification of reality, but still very much true in many ways. However, the payed (or unpayed) journalists that are assigned to write about a certain subject, reviewed by editors, approved by the chief editor and then published either on the net or in a paper edition. A blogger does all these steps at least subconsciously too before the blog item is created. A bit ironic, hey? The difference between a newspaper and a group blog then becomes were fuzzy. Therefore blogs cannot be discussed separately from conventional news media. (Conventional media might be a better word as podcasting is bringing both radio and television closer to the web.)
There is a great book “We the media…†by Dan Gilmor covering this topic and almost every aspects of it. If you have not read it, you really should. The book addresses the ongoing “battle†between the blogs and the conventional media.
The future challenges of the blogs are closely linked to the differences between blogs and conventional media. Blogs are uncensored, yet unreviewed (by others before publishing). The commenting system will be some kind of review system however. There is yet a need to address the trust of the content of a blog, which is one challenge for the future blogosphere. “Why? Just plug in a review system and there you go.” Well I am afraid it is not as easy as that. One of the true powers of blogs is the free form. You want to preserve the uncensored feeling of the blog, yet increase the trust of the content. A kind of paradox in itself and in there lies the challenge.
Another challenge of the blogosphere will be to find a way to solve the issue of the ever increasing number of blogs. More and more people start blogs and become active in them. The number of sites is increasing, and the volume of information is exploding. You will have to read more and more blogs whether you like it or not. Time is always limited. How many times have you not wished there were 48 hours per day instead of the always to few 24 hours… The time necessary(?) to read blogs can and will intrude on your work and personal life if nothing is done. Maybe the Darwinistic laws will solve it, but then again maybe not. RSS-feeds were created to solve this matter, but the growth of the blogosphere now really calls for some other approaches to decrease the workload of reading blogs.
On top of reading all these blogs you will have to write almost everyday on your own little blog to spread your message and preserve an active audience. Web traffic is funny. It is hard to obtain it, but it but so easy to loose when you have finally have it. Therefore many bloggers feel the need to constantly publish new posts. Some write many short posts, and some write a lot of “yada yadaâ€. Nevertheless it still is not a sustainable solution. There are too many blog posts that comment with a few lines and linking to another blog post that is commenting on another that is commenting on another that is… Yes, you get the picture. It only contributes to the volume of content noise to be a bit harsh.
Design of the website might partly solve the problem of traffic, even though it is no full-proof way. Notably, I read a comment on this by Jacob Nielsen, who said that one of the most common errors of blogsites is that they hide their “highlightsâ€. When you look at many blogs, the most read blog posts or highest graded blog posts are normally never listed so that the reader can easily retrieve those. Such a list can at least help some to keep the traffic alive and fairly high.
Is all you (Erik) talk about problems, problems, problems… Certainly not and I am not at all pessimistic about the future of blogs. Yet these features and challenges should/will be addressed and solved.
So what is likely to happen in the future? The way I see it the blogosphere and the conventional media will move closer to the each other, very much as Dan Gilmor predicts in his book. However, I do not fully envision the conventional media being “replaced†by the blogs as they fulfill different needs. The conventional media will in a more thorough way cover a story and have a more profound research before publishing the article. Normally blogs are like a tabloid version of a “story†and in many cases lack the proper proof of the content. However, blogs could be consider as an amazing control system of conventional media. Therefore it is likely that more softwares with built-in light versions of review systems to increase the trust of the content will be developed and released.
Group blogs or portals, like the http://www.corante.com, will be more common and will create a wrapper for people with similar topics. This will solve the issue of feeling the pressure of frequent posting as well as keeping the traffic high enough.
Well as the X-files says: The truth is out there…
