"Blogs are not causing a revolution. Blog are just another Internet communication strategy and tool!"
Just in time for our NTC nonprofit blogging panel. I'm taking a break from searching through Flickr for some visuals for our nonprofit blogging panel. We're going to run through the topic "Blogs: Myths or Facts?" and I need stimulating visuals to illustrate those points.
I entered "blog hype" as a search term and came across a recent article on WSJ online. It asks ...
Are blogs a vanishing fad?
Are blogs this year's digital Pet Rock?
Are blogs a business bubble about to pop?
A sucker's bet for new-media fame seekers?
The article points out some recent articles and polls that suggest a cooling off in the hype around blogs. These include:
New York Magazine: Blogs to Riches - The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom by Clive Thompson. February, 2006. It talks about the disparity of audiences between the so called A-List and other bloggers. My favorite quote: "What’s more, a blog is like a shark: If it stops moving, it dies. Without fresh postings, even the most well-linked blog will quickly lose its audience."
Slate Magazine, Twilight of the Blogs: Are they over as a business? by Daniel Gross. February, 2006. "As a cultural phenomenon, blogs are in their gangly adolescence. As businesses, blogs may have peaked."
Gallop Poll on Blog Readership "Gallup's latest examination of Americans' online habits finds that one in five Web users read Web-logs, or "blogs," either frequently or occasionally. Though this translates into 40 million readers, it relegates blogs to the bottom pack of Internet activities, among the 13 for which Gallup recently measured Americans' use. Like most Web activities, blog readership hasn't increased over the past year or so,even though Americans are spending more time online."
So, this is the backlash hype. The WSJ article offers the middle ground:
"Reports of blogging's demise are bosh, but if we're lucky, something else really is going away: the by-turns overheated and uninformed obsession with blogging. Which would be just fine, because it would let blogging become what it was always destined to be: just another digital technology and method of communication, one with plenty to offer but no particular claim to revolution.
My bet: Within a couple of years blogging will be a term thrown around loosely -- and sometimes inaccurately -- to describe a style and rhythm of writing, as well as the tools to publish that writing. This is already happening: One of the chief problems with some chronicles of blogging's demise is their confusion about definitions, aconfusion that's mirrored in efforts to measure blogs' popularity or to say anything that can apply to bloggers as a group."
Technorati Tags: 06ntc
Hey Beth,
Hope preparation is going well for your panel at NTEN. Keep an eye out for any Aussies - especially Doug Jacquier from my hometown of Adelaide.
Fang - Mike Seyfang - LearnDog
Posted by: Mike Seyfang | March 19, 2006 at 08:05 PM