Navel-Gazing Within the Blogosphere
There's been a huge amount of chatter in the past week or so about how fast the blogosphere is growing (Dave Sifry) and whether there is parallel growth among blog readers (not according to the WSJ). Tom Evslin (hat tip to Michael Parekh) has a nice post on whether the blogobubble is bursting (he contends it isn't but evolving, and "just the beginning of wider use of blog technology and greater blog influence".) To be honest, I believe another key component of the blogosphere's maturation has to be an end to the tremendous amount of navel-gazing and self-obsession happening. There's too much discussion on whether blogging is good, whether it's bad, whether it's replacing or supplanting mainstream media, whether it's no longer possible to become an A-lister and whether it matters, whether blogs are credible or legitimate, and who gets to blog and who doesn't. (Mathew Ingram vs. Scott Karp) Then, there's the blog posts on blog posts on blog posts to the point where there is only a handful of ideas and a massive proliferation of people commenting on those ideas. There are times, for example, when I look at Memeorandum and see dozens of posts on a particular subject. Rather than jump into the fray with everyone else, I usually follow my own path - although sometimes it's hard to resist jumping on the bandwagon. Before this rant goes too far off the deep end, I have to concede that introspection and active discussion are part of what makes the blogosphere so fascinating. It's a new medium and - like anything new - there's plenty of excitement, education and hype-age happening. Maybe this is just part of the maturation process as blogs go from new and cool to just being part of the media landscape. In any event, I think bloggers should think more about expressing their own ideas or their take on what's happening - rather than focusing on who's zooming who.
March 1st, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Megite doesn't maintain A-list. It can auto discover new blogs. So everybody has a chance to be included in the top news.
March 1st, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Hear, hear! I agree and I've been feeling the same way. I think my posting has been way,way too insular.
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To me when I see 20 people commenting on the same thing on tech.memorandum … those are the topics I just avoid like plague.
Maybe we should have a buddy-group to smack each other upside the head if we catch each other navel gazing (too much
March 1st, 2006 at 2:59 pm
I couldn't agree more, Mark. I guess I just love scrapping with Scott Karp and Nick Carr and people like that so much, I just can't help myself. Maybe Tris is right and we should set up some kind of twelve-step program for bloggers — I would post more of a comment, but I have to check and see if I've moved up on memeorandum or not.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:48 pm
“I believe another key component of the blogosphere's maturation has to be an end to the tremendous amount of navel-gazing and self-obsession happening.”
Navel-gazing and self-obsession have been fundamental to blogging since day one. It will never stop. It doesn't stop in other media, either. Newspapers, magazines, tv, all wonder about and talk about where they fit in, all go through periods of “Oh noes! Life as we know it is dead!”
It's just a fundamental facet of being social creatures. Where do we fit in, what circle are we part of, can I get to the top? The A-list today that you're referring to looks absolutely nothing like the A-list of 6 months ago, and if you were to post your list of the top N most influential bloggers, it would be completely different than everyone else's.
There's no single blogosphere, the word should be a plural.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Amen, Brother.
- Stuart
What I *love* about blogs is that people with passion speak about things they are passionate about. The whole blogging-about-talking-about-blogging crapolla is tiresome and serves to diminish the adoption of blogs in total as a legitimate media.
I'd much rather read you, 'thew, Blodgie and Battelle, say, talking about your Things than navel gazing about the blogosphere. But then, that's just me