Blogs: The New Pollution.
Posted by Paul Woodhouse at August 3rd, 2005
I wish somebody would warn me when I get a little mention in the mainstream media, so that I could write something smart, witty or insightful.
Although, I’m sure there are those of you who’d claim that isn’t normally par for the course and why start now?
There’s a couple of problems with the stories that are thrown out there every time David Sifry takes an inventory over at Technorati.
The numbers have doubled since the last blog-take to the point we now have a blog created every second. That’s no great shakes – it’s just PR for Technorati. And here’s some more Technorati PR – their service has been a little on the poor side as of late.
Anyway, there are a couple of problems with the ‘everybody’s doing it’ mantra:
Problem #1: Not Everyone Keeps Doing It.
The Guardian article does at least point it out, but the fact that only 13% are estimated to update their blog once or more a week is pretty desperate. That means that 87% of all blogs are worthlessly clogging up the internet and it’s getting worse. Blogs are the new internet pollution washing up onto the shore like some indisposable nappy on Blackpool beach. And why can’t we have a better figure for UK blogs than something between 200,000 and 900,000?
Problem #2: The Usual Suspects.
Hells bells. With all these blogs exploding onto the scene, I’d hope to have a few different folks mentioned than we normally do. But, this is something of a moot point. I don’t have a problem with the people mentioned as they are all worthy, but surely we need some new kids on the blog block showing that this blogging thing is expanding as opposed to stagnating. Or, maybe it’s nice to see a little cornerstone developing for British blogosphere even if the nature of the blog beast is that it’s supposedly a non-hierarchical affair. (Note to self: I really should stop moaning about free PR.)
And finally, the most energised sector of the British blogosphere is the political. However, considering the recent sacking of Dilpazier Aslam and the resignation of Albert Scardino at The Guardian after a few of the political blogs ‘ganged up’ on the former, it’s not surprising there’s a lack of transparency and no mention of it.
Some of us still have Ros Taylor’s words ringing in our ears after her sideswipe at the UK political blogosphere for ignoring the Lord Goldsmith affair:
Guys, if you’re going to take political bloging seriously – and fend off these kinds of criticisms – you need to sit down with Lord Goldsmith’s advice and give it a thorough going-over. Or the old-fashioned media will give up on you altogether.
Scalp #1 to blogs, Ms. Taylor.
I suppose it’s an issue of hype. The more people waffle on about blogs and their mysterious powers, the more people will be inclined to try them out for themselves. But, blogs only develop powers when you bust a nut getting them to work. It’s also exponential in so much that the more blogs there are, the harder work it gets.
No wonder 87% give up. I’m rather tempted to do so myself.
UPDATE: Here’s a slightly better response to the article.
Paul,
We have not even begun to see the flood of new bloggers yet, and it doesn’t matter that most will drop by the wayside. What does matter is that the barriers are down for now and talented people like yourself are availing themselves of the opportunity to publish their thoughts to a planet-wide audience.
Just keep blogging about issues that you are passionate about and all will be well. I don’t expect you will have a problem with that. As long as you are authentic and say meaningful things, you will be quoted by the Guardian and other media outlets because of your content. Might as well enjoy it!
You’re right.
I should know infintely better than to simply be contrarian, or controversial, or ungrateful.
I always feel slightly uncomfortable with the MSN’s potrayal of blogging as they’re wanting for it to be a quantifiable phenomenon.
My dealings with media types so far prove that, on the whole, their skills lie in throwing a coherent story together from something they know very little about – certain folks excluded.
I suppose it doesn’t matter how many blogs are started and then given up up every nanosecond – it’s why they’re started in the first place that’s important.
I suppose I do long for the day when nobody bats an eyelid about anything blog-related and we have a nice little place on the internet where people are honestly conversing about all manner of stuff.
Hi paul
Sorry, I’d meant to warn you that you were getting a mention in my story but I was working to an extremely short deadline.
Your point about the selection of blogs mentioned in the piece is fair. I toyed with talking about Tom Reynolds, Zinnia Cyclamen and various other people but in the end space got the better of me – and the reason I mentioned Salam Pax and Belle is that they, for most people, will be the only bloggers they’ve ever heard of, and so they may provide a route into the story.
I’ve been meaning to write a follow up Newsblog post about Technorati’s definition of “active” blogs, and the fact that the number of “dedicated” bloggers is probably still very small. I don’t think one post every three months constitutes active – once a week or once a fortnight, yes.
I know you and Adriana aren’t interested in the stats, but it provided a useful “news peg” that introduced a few more readers to the concept of blogs, which must be a good thing, right? At Guardian Unlimited we also write a lot of stuff about non-stats blog issues – check out our special report at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs.
As always, I really appreciate readers’ feedback, so feel free to email me direct if you have any comments on this or anything else I write. My email’s jane.perroneAT guardian.co.uk
jane perrone
Jane:
I do appreciate the mention and I do appreciate you taking the time to pop on here to comment.
I sometimes think there’s too much of an ‘us vs them’ siege mentality when it comes down to blogging and the media.
As you might be able to tell, the above piece was just rattled off, but then a little conversation develops to embellish the original piece.
I do get frustrated at the UK blogosphere and maybe I should be more mindful that the majority of readers wouldn’t know or care a jot about either the quantity nor the quality of blogs.
In that respect, it is an interesting ‘peg’ and maybe a few more people might be a little bit more enlightened than they were. No bad thing at all.
I do read The Guardian’s weblogs quite regularly, and I I wouldn’t have you in the clueless category by any stretch of the imagination. I was thinking more of certain other publications that have asked me some terribly lame questions.
Granted, they’d probably claim that it was me who gave them some very lame answers.
I’m still dealing with clients, or potential clients, who cling to their rusty, non-galvanized (sorry!) conventional static web sites.
When they visit a blog, they act like they’re completely confused as to what’s going on.
They, I suspect aren’t used to INTERACTIVITY, comment posting, smart-mouthed Triumphalist Blogging (my invention a few seconds ago when I had a few seconds).
Robert Scoble, whom I like a lot, but scolded for all the freaking comment and abuse spam, has “taken a break from blogging”.
When a blogger “takes a break”, they nearly never return. Blog Burnout is on the rampage. Lovely.
I blog even better when no one visits, no one comments, no one invites me to conferences, and I get banned from sites. I thive on misguided hate directed at little old me, the Happy Hate-attracting Blogger from Halo Worldlessness.
Hey, Paul: check out my favorite new personal blogger, and check out his funny tagline:
Disgruntled Car Salesman
http://disgruntledcarsalesman.blogspot.com
…discovered by way of his posting a comment on my blog. How do these cool bloggers find me? Need to check my referer stats today.
I know you dislike sidebars, but not beer bars, but I have a new category for mine:
Triumphalist Blogger Honor Roll
“Bloggers who speak their mind and don’t care what you think.”
that features Dvorak, Tinbasher, Omnamaste (Carrie Snell), Disgruntled Car Salesman, Voix de Michele, Ad Rants, and Dave Taylor.
I hate it when I write something remotely smart in my own comments and then it just vanishes for no apparent reason.
I hate it even more when I forget what I’ve said.
Not to worry.
The disgruntled car chap is good. At least there are some folk left taking the time out to find a new blog once in a blue moon.
I used to write some great stuff too…honest.
At least now I know why my Scoblelizer live message alert thingy hasn’t been bobbing up and down like a bride’s nightie this week.
Not that I ever check it when it does.
Paul,
Great post. Sorry that we aren’t providing you wit the kind of great service that you expect. I’m quite interested in hearing more about how we’re letting you down, and what we can do to make things better for you.
We’ve been putting a lot of time and money on building out a whole bunch of performance and scalability fixes in the next month or two, so I hope that you’ll continue to see increased performance and accuracy from us…
Dave
It’s extremely difficult to track conversations when you keep getting messages saying that the server is too busy.
As you know, this isn’t a problem that is exclusive to me, but to everyone currently using your service.
We use it because it serves a purpose. It also served that purpose infinitely better before the change to the ‘new improved’ version.
The issue of the number of links changing every time you view them seems to have settled down.
We’ll see how the next couple of months goes and wish you all the best in sorting everything out.