Blogosphere Navel-Gazing

There's enough comment about Tim O'Reilly's decision to trademark "Web 2.0" (his response to the controversial issue is here) but the hailstorm of criticism it generated demonstrates how the blogosphere loves to chatter about itself among itself – something one could describe as cyber-navelgazing. The amount of time and energy devoted to whether O'Reilly has the right – or was right – in making a claim onWeb 2.0 (which he didn't invent) has been astounding but perhaps no one should be surprised by it. The blogosphere (and I'm a flag-waving member) loves nothing better to talk about what about people within the blogosphere are talking about to the point where it becomes a vicious circle. Is this a bad thing? No, because it demonstrates how enthusiastic and engaged people are about what's happening. But the O'Reilly firestorm does put the spotlight on one of the blogosphere's annoying habits that many of us who sit very close to the "fire" (or as my friend, Stuart MacDonald says, those us so close to trees we have bark marks), are often blissfully unaware about.