4 ms·

Who killed the blogosphere?

8 points by bhc3 18y ago

bhc3 18y ago
I disagree that the "blogosphere" is dead. The rise of TechCrunch, HuffPo, etc. have succeeded in increasing blog readership. The personal voices are still out there, are still part of the conversation.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  I wouldn't characterize the "rise" of TechCrunch, HuffPo, etc. as part of the blogosphere. If anything, it's count-productive as those "blogs" are really now magazines that employ professional writers and they promote commodification and conglomeration of writers rather than decentralizing it. A blogosphere -- an ecosystem of people contributing -- is hard pressed to be competing against 50 million pageview monsters like Gizmodo or 15 million pageview monsters like TechCrunch. As time goes on more and more people will tune in to those sites as it's simply a much easier way to keep track of information. You'll notice the trend on TechCrunch to gravitate towards more and more "mainstream" news and once an item breaks every other site has to cover it, even if they have nothing to add just for the sake of maintaining their audience. Like cable news. It's why social media tools like Digg or Reddit or Hacker News are that much more important.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I get what you're saying, but it's not exactly a competition. There's more opportunity to find niche audiences now than there ever was before. Sure, numbers-wise something like Gizmodo or, say, Valleywag, will get more readers, but for every Valleywag there's a hundred Bynkiis and Angry Drunks and Uncovs. And News travels both ways: bigger blogs get their news tips from a lot of smaller sources, and those smaller sources very often get news from even smaller sources, and so on. Every blog is given the same freedom of press.
    - alaskamiller 18y ago
      Ahh... for you see, it is a competition. It's a competition for time and attention. As the mainstream public -- quite different beasts than you and I, geeks and hackers, where we are obsessive with information -- turn to the Internet to consume content their time and attention is quite limited. Most times they will stick to only site or source that they like. It's like community channels versus CNN. With blogging it's like we've lowered the bar for John Q. Public to get on TV and talk about their editorialization of the news, but, most likely people tune in to CNN for 30 minutes at a time. Why? Because it's professionally curated, edited, produced and digestible morsels that has developed a reputation over time. Talent will want to apply for jobs at CNN because they know that's where the audience is. Success begets success. The bigger blogs will only get bigger. Have more revenue from ads. Hire more writers and snowball. Now here's the real question that people should be asking: is this a good or bad thing? I, personally, don't quite know. PS. As for you mentioning the linkage of big sites to smaller sites, I have a whole other diatribe about that and how it doesn't work from my experience working within the Gawker empire. But I'll save that for another time when I feel like having my karma points burnt.
      - brandnewlow 18y ago
        Do tell. windycitizen at gmail.com
        unalone 18y ago
        i.am@me.com, if you're interested in telling.
      - unalone 18y ago
        I get where you're coming from. My question is: does it matter that the average person will read only one or two sites? Especially when social news sites provide a means of aggregating out to many sites rapidly? On Hacker News, for instance, I get the occasional Seth Godin post. I don't like Seth's blog en masse, but one or two posts a week is decent for me. Other people, I'm certain, get Daring Fireball and Signal vs. Noise in similar doses, whereas I follow that more intently. And on Hacker News, at least, when I write something I want to share I've often had a pretty nice discussion following what I've written. And considering it's Hacker News, it means that the people reading it are all people I'm thrilled to have reading my stuff. That means that I, as an independent and an amateur, can reach people. Not millions of people, but I can reach the people I want. Similarly, with politics there are independents like The Seminal that frontpaged reddit once every two weeks. I don't know how many hits that got it, but I'm guessing that meant a good deal of hits. Not the same as something like CNN, but not a completely meaningless amount, too. And that also means that people who like writing longer pieces, people that news stations wouldn't have time for, are given a space to write for the considerable audience that exists for more detailed work. And my generation is much more used to sifting information through several sources. It means that smaller venues will still find their audiences. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the big site-small site connection. If you ever do write about that, keep me informed: that kind of thing fascinates me to no end.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Right. People keep saying this as if personal blogs are competing for some slice of a finite pie with TechCrunch. They're not. Blogs, as people like myself who've been writing them for 5 years would define them, exist in greater numbers than ever before, and have greater readership.
jamesjyu 18y ago
As usual, Nicholas Carr goes on his big rant against what he deems blogs and the blogosphere. Ironically, his rant basically validates blogs as being ubiquitous now, and being embraced by both the average internet user and big publishing companies.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  I don't understand how what you said is related to what he said. His rant is that blogs have grown up and are run as businesses. This community of just random folks talking about something they have an interest in is cast aside for the TechCrunch and Gawker and HuffingtonPost professional publications. Those sites will attract more writers, more content, more viewership and monopolize more time away from the blogosphere. Where is the irony...?
jrockway 18y ago
The blogosphere is not dead. Just like I used to ignore "mainstream media", I now also ignore blogs that are owned by big media companies. The Internet is what you make of it -- if you just do what's popular, then you are only going to see popular things. Duh.
- unalone 18y ago
  Yeah. And that's the big difference between the Internet and other forms of media. Anybody can have a say. Not everybody will have a huge audience, but at least they're allowed to talk, and the whole world is given the option of listening in.
markessien 18y ago
What the 'blogosphere' needs is a service that takes a bunch of personal blogs by several people, and makes a huffington post out of it.
mtw 18y ago
i would be interested in rescuetime publishing aggregated user data, showing the fastest growing web destinations. i mean, if the buzz about blog has died, where are people going to instead? what's the hottest thing?

8 points by bhc3 18y ago

bhc3 18y ago

I disagree that the "blogosphere" is dead. The rise of TechCrunch, HuffPo, etc. have succeeded in increasing blog readership. The personal voices are still out there, are still part of the conversation.

alaskamiller 18y ago
I wouldn't characterize the "rise" of TechCrunch, HuffPo, etc. as part of the blogosphere. If anything, it's count-productive as those "blogs" are really now magazines that employ professional writers and they promote commodification and conglomeration of writers rather than decentralizing it. A blogosphere -- an ecosystem of people contributing -- is hard pressed to be competing against 50 million pageview monsters like Gizmodo or 15 million pageview monsters like TechCrunch. As time goes on more and more people will tune in to those sites as it's simply a much easier way to keep track of information. You'll notice the trend on TechCrunch to gravitate towards more and more "mainstream" news and once an item breaks every other site has to cover it, even if they have nothing to add just for the sake of maintaining their audience. Like cable news. It's why social media tools like Digg or Reddit or Hacker News are that much more important.
- unalone 18y ago
  I get what you're saying, but it's not exactly a competition. There's more opportunity to find niche audiences now than there ever was before. Sure, numbers-wise something like Gizmodo or, say, Valleywag, will get more readers, but for every Valleywag there's a hundred Bynkiis and Angry Drunks and Uncovs. And News travels both ways: bigger blogs get their news tips from a lot of smaller sources, and those smaller sources very often get news from even smaller sources, and so on. Every blog is given the same freedom of press.
  - alaskamiller 18y ago
    Ahh... for you see, it is a competition. It's a competition for time and attention. As the mainstream public -- quite different beasts than you and I, geeks and hackers, where we are obsessive with information -- turn to the Internet to consume content their time and attention is quite limited. Most times they will stick to only site or source that they like. It's like community channels versus CNN. With blogging it's like we've lowered the bar for John Q. Public to get on TV and talk about their editorialization of the news, but, most likely people tune in to CNN for 30 minutes at a time. Why? Because it's professionally curated, edited, produced and digestible morsels that has developed a reputation over time. Talent will want to apply for jobs at CNN because they know that's where the audience is. Success begets success. The bigger blogs will only get bigger. Have more revenue from ads. Hire more writers and snowball. Now here's the real question that people should be asking: is this a good or bad thing? I, personally, don't quite know. PS. As for you mentioning the linkage of big sites to smaller sites, I have a whole other diatribe about that and how it doesn't work from my experience working within the Gawker empire. But I'll save that for another time when I feel like having my karma points burnt.
    - brandnewlow 18y ago
      Do tell. windycitizen at gmail.com
      - unalone 18y ago
        i.am@me.com, if you're interested in telling.
    - unalone 18y ago
      I get where you're coming from. My question is: does it matter that the average person will read only one or two sites? Especially when social news sites provide a means of aggregating out to many sites rapidly? On Hacker News, for instance, I get the occasional Seth Godin post. I don't like Seth's blog en masse, but one or two posts a week is decent for me. Other people, I'm certain, get Daring Fireball and Signal vs. Noise in similar doses, whereas I follow that more intently. And on Hacker News, at least, when I write something I want to share I've often had a pretty nice discussion following what I've written. And considering it's Hacker News, it means that the people reading it are all people I'm thrilled to have reading my stuff. That means that I, as an independent and an amateur, can reach people. Not millions of people, but I can reach the people I want. Similarly, with politics there are independents like The Seminal that frontpaged reddit once every two weeks. I don't know how many hits that got it, but I'm guessing that meant a good deal of hits. Not the same as something like CNN, but not a completely meaningless amount, too. And that also means that people who like writing longer pieces, people that news stations wouldn't have time for, are given a space to write for the considerable audience that exists for more detailed work. And my generation is much more used to sifting information through several sources. It means that smaller venues will still find their audiences. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the big site-small site connection. If you ever do write about that, keep me informed: that kind of thing fascinates me to no end.
mattmaroon 18y ago
Right. People keep saying this as if personal blogs are competing for some slice of a finite pie with TechCrunch. They're not. Blogs, as people like myself who've been writing them for 5 years would define them, exist in greater numbers than ever before, and have greater readership.

jamesjyu 18y ago

As usual, Nicholas Carr goes on his big rant against what he deems blogs and the blogosphere. Ironically, his rant basically validates blogs as being ubiquitous now, and being embraced by both the average internet user and big publishing companies.

alaskamiller 18y ago
I don't understand how what you said is related to what he said. His rant is that blogs have grown up and are run as businesses. This community of just random folks talking about something they have an interest in is cast aside for the TechCrunch and Gawker and HuffingtonPost professional publications. Those sites will attract more writers, more content, more viewership and monopolize more time away from the blogosphere. Where is the irony...?

jrockway 18y ago

The blogosphere is not dead. Just like I used to ignore "mainstream media", I now also ignore blogs that are owned by big media companies. The Internet is what you make of it -- if you just do what's popular, then you are only going to see popular things. Duh.

unalone 18y ago
Yeah. And that's the big difference between the Internet and other forms of media. Anybody can have a say. Not everybody will have a huge audience, but at least they're allowed to talk, and the whole world is given the option of listening in.

markessien 18y ago

What the 'blogosphere' needs is a service that takes a bunch of personal blogs by several people, and makes a huffington post out of it.

mtw 18y ago

i would be interested in rescuetime publishing aggregated user data, showing the fastest growing web destinations. i mean, if the buzz about blog has died, where are people going to instead? what's the hottest thing?