I like blogging. Everyone I know likes blogging. But let’s face it, we are all a bunch of geeks. The question is, will blogging ever go “mainstream”? Will consumers want to post their thoughts and ideas on the Web for all to see, or is blogging really just for exhibitionists, intellectual impressarios, and voyeurs? Are Weblogs the “new homepages” or are they just a fad for the technorati? Does anyone have compelling stats for blogging being something that mainstream consumers will want to embrace?
Social tagging: Weblogs
Huh? Idle thoughts blogging seems like just something to pass the time, technical blogging lets one participate in building the blogosphere.
What we have now is part of the formula that will generate mainstream killer apps. These will be economic.
It all boils down to: 1) what do you want?, and 2) what can you do?. For many if not most people, 2) means get a job, show up every day, get a paycheck, rinse and repeat. A mainstream blog ecosystem will remove massive amounts of friction and stress from this formula.
Consider, what happens when:
1) You can talk to anyone at anytime? (with buffering of conversations), and
2) People can cooperate regardless of their location, or even
awareness of each other?
There’ll be mainstream idle thoughts blogging but I think most will be simple things like shopping lists (for what do I want) to really small but extremely specific value-added work services (for what can I do).
I think there are many, very different “blogspheres” happening at the same time.
In one, a “geeksphere” if you will, much of the conversations/interactions are about the technology itself – as well as other topics, but come back to XML/RSS/Atom etc on an ongoing basis. This will never, I think, hit mainstream.
In another, a “politicalsphere”, blogs are indeed “hitting mainstream” in that stories pushed by this sphere are catching mainstream attention (think Trent Lott for one early example). This would be the land of “Instapundit” “Andrew Sullivan” “blogforamerica” and other politically focused and motivated blogs.
In yet another, blogs are conversations and social tools amongst groups, this is the land of LiveJournal – which inspires passion and group identity, even amongst mostly non-technical, non-geek types (and seems to have a large female following unlike some other blog communities)
There are also non-english language communities which I only know of by reputation – large communities of Iranian bloggers for example. Here I suspect there is a combination of political discourse and social discourse, probably some tech stuff, but not to the same degree as in the “geeksphere”.
shannon clark, all of those spheres you just described are all geek. just different factions of geeks, if that.
Is blogging just for geeks?
Interesting questions posed at Minding the Planet The question is, will blogging ever go “mainstream”? Will consumers want to post their thoughts and ideas on the Web for all to see, or is blogging really just for exhibitionists, intellectual impressar…
Is blogging just for geeks?
Interesting questions posed at Minding the Planet The question is, will blogging ever go “mainstream”? Will consumers want to post their thoughts and ideas on the Web for all to see, or is blogging really just for exhibitionists, intellectual impressar…
i think blogging is already pretty mainstream.from teenagers ,to housewifes,geeks and any number of interest groups anyone could think of.it’s certainly more mainstream then newsgroups for example and an exellent platform for those with no interest in entire homepages.
Internal Corporate Blogging
One of my 12 main categories for this weblog is Corporate Weblogging. I recently wrote my category headings in the form of a manifesto, so here is how I actually phrased it: “Weblog technology can be used to enhance Corporate/Business…
I still scratch my head regarding blogs. The
vast majority are just random musings that
nobody ever reads.
Aren’t blogs nothing more than a higher level
editing tool that sits on top of a regular web
page? Something like FrontPage or Dreamweaver
on steroids?
I do enjoy this blog. But “Minding the Planet” is a far cry from most other blogs.