(Blog) Phenomenon – Dut-Doo-Do-Do-Do

But there's perhaps an argument to say that people who are reading your blog, Steve, are slightly less conservative than you imagine.

Purely and simply because they are online as opposed to going through the normal channels. But, I could be very wrong.

We attract a more designer/architectural metalwork enquiry through our online presence - people you might think of as being more internet savvy. Like I say, there's quite a few in our game who are yet to accept decimalisation.

I do take your point about alienating your audience. I always wonder whether I really should be throwing some of this stuff out there considering it's a company blog and whether it's 'puerile shite'when I do. ;-)

But I've always talked about blogging on here as I honestly think that I should try and help show a few people what I think it's about and how it works. I could obviously do it infinitely better, but the intention is there.

Oh, and don't worry too much about those with only half a brain starting a blog. Even God gave the truly dumb vocal chords.

I agree with your point about Blogs challenging the press Paul, but you only need to look at Newstands to see that there appears to be a new publication launched every week. The magazine section in our local Asda is a mile long!
The printed word is far from dead, but it is changing.

I check the News-feeds daily, to try and drag out the rare ones that are really relevant to my Industry, from the "bot" collection system, that catch all.

The analogy of punk music is an interesting one, but I think its' an over-simplification to class all all "third wave" bands as parodies of their predecessors, every generation brings it's new talent, including today. It's clearly harder as time moves on to be original as it's all been done before, all you can do is try to do it better.

Blogs have a role to challenge the perceived opinion,and some bloggers do a good job. Unfortunately the ease of publishing a blog means that anyone with "half a brain" can sign up with Google's blogger and spew out their puerile shite for the whole world to read (or ignore).

I still view my blog as a "marketing tool", but then I come from a background of thirty years in steel sales. Maybe I will start an unrelated blog where I can express more controversial views without potentially alienating what is a very conservative audience.

I read both of your views with interest, and discussion enables us all to learn. Keep up the good work.

Oh and I am sure you are a "pussycat" at heart Stephen :-)

It's funny you should mention the punk analogy as I actually used it in reference to the MSM going on about the first wave when we're half way through the second wave.

Then I decided not to. ;-)

It's kind of like punk rock, isn't it?

First we have the real thing: Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the Rolling Stones early period, the Standells, the early Who, etc.

Then we have the Next Wave: Sex Pistols, Ramones, Banshees, Bauhaus, Homosexuals, Au Pairs, Television, The Fall, Joy Division, Clash, Dayglo Abortions, Wire, Throbbing Gristle, Camouflage Danse, Pere Ubu, Gang of Four.

Then we get the Third Wave, the dreary dregs, the imitators, the "mainstream" wankers, the "shopping mall punks", the Gap clothed bad teethed hooligans: Green Day, Offspring, Blink 182, Nirvana, Training for Utopia, Rage Against the Machine.

By the time the Third Wave makes its appearance, the true underground fans of innovative and challenging music have moved on.

This 3-wave development seems to hold true for most things.

By my reckoning, we are in the tail end of the Second Wave of Blogdom.

The Third Wave, totally watered down, compromised, a vivid worthless parody of true blogging, is coming on the heels of Second Wave bloggers who have run out of ideas, so blog about being "poly-idiotic", "multi-socially impaired", "blabbermouthed complexities", or simply "burned out".

MSM is having to adapt as newspapers see their circulations dwindling, reporters and news anchors getting fired and their readerships equalled by some of the bigger bloggers.

The media is providing a valuable role in getting the idea of blogs 'out there'. It's just a shame that some of them are a bit clueless whilst doing it.

At least the media can now be challenged and their discussions embellished by anyone who cares to do so in any particular field.

I tried explaining blogs to my Aunt-in-law the other week at a wedding. Booze + accent = confused American.

From a business point of view, I see websites as being the 'factory' and the blog as being the people inside the factory.

You can now make better decisions based on a company's services and their personnel. That is the difference.

You know yourself, Steve, that the vast majority of steel news is made up mostly of press releases. We need to work on various ways to crack this dominance. Although, we're getting there - slowly, but surely.

The point is that we're all bloggerati now. We all have something to say to somebody and we all have somebody to listen to. We always have.

I have no idea what our customers want, but I know what we can offer. If the two find some kind of synergy then we might be talking.

Then I leave the rest of it to John. I haven't got a selling bone in my body. ;-)

The traditional press loves words like Phenomenon, it makes each story look to be of major importance to the daily lives of its readers, who themselves feel “in touch” because they can speak with the authority of the Guardian, etc. on new “happening” things.

The truth is that very few people read Blogs at all, and even fewer give a damn about them. Even though News has been readily available for free on the net for years, an insignificant number of people gather there news from there (in the Western World), compared with traditional media, such as Newspapers, TV and Radio. The internet has not been the killer of traditional media and never will be. “A” list status might be of interest to committed bloggers, but the rest of us don’t give a shit.

Many people do use the internet of course for research, most likely to find a holiday or consumer goods at competitive prices, but their searches will rarely reach a blog. The simple truth is, that if you are near the top of Google, MSN, Yahoo, Altavista et al then no one is going to see you. Who but a blogger is going to search Technorati?

I look upon my blog as an extension of my website, an easily updatable page, which enables me to stay current and add value to the more static nature of the main website. It’s a way to increase traffic from a “targeted” and “specialist” market, who might be interested in buying steel strip. I really do not care what the “Blogsphere” experts think, as long as the people in my marketplace keep visiting, and we get enquiries.

I do not mean to say that Blogs have no place in marketing, on the contrary they are a powerful tool, but they are (In the small business field) a means to an end, and not an end within themselves. It seems to me that Blogs are often judged by the Bloggerati as one might judge a work of literature, and they are all so keen to seek “peer” approval, they lose sight of whatever their original purpose was. I know what my potential customers want, and my job is simply to persuade them to give me an opportunity to supply. That’s all the blog can do for me, give me an opportunity, then it’s over to “old fashioned” selling, and that’s something I can do.

I was talking with our realtor the other day. I told her I'm a web usability analyst, user observation test administrator, and a blogologist.

That went over like fifteen tons of gobbledeegook inside a lead balloon full of heavy wetter water.

She said, "I keep hearing about blogs on television and in magazines, but I don't understand what they are."

That's not the fault of bloggers. That's the fault of the MSM, the morbid stream media. They throw the words "blog", "online journal", "digital diary", etc. out without understanding what the H they're talking about, so the average person is dazed and cornfused.

I just happened to know of some real estate blogs, Curbed and Hotel Chelsea and some others. I hope she looks them up on the web.

There are police, fireman, city planner, etc. blogs.

I think every occupation now has a blog of some sort some where.

I think I'll post on Vaspers a list of bizarre blogs.

The MSM is dead, dead, dead. Their lies have caught up with them and their hegemony is officially over. The anchors are dying, retiring, or getting fired. So unsad.