The Challenge Rambles and riff raff about all this and that

Food for thought on blogs

For a while now I've been reflecting on how blogs work. What's their intent, their aim, why people write them and why people read them. How is it that something that started as people posting in what can be regarded as on-line diaries, became this massive "movement" embraced by big corporations, individuals, professionals, and so on, with posts talking about every subject you can possibly imagine.

The engine behind it all is peoples desire to communicate. Most of us think we have something that is worth listening (or reading), either for a close family and friends group of people or by a broader audience which might be interested in what you have to say on a specific subject. The internet, as we know, allows unlimited access to what people post. Bloggers are driven by a desire to be listened. This is the one thing all blogs and bloggers share. The internet provides the means to be listened.
Luckily for us, bloggers, there are also a lot of listeners out there. Thus one can build an audience. The interesting thing is that a lot of people are both readers and writeers, as a result "communities" are built. So if someone finds someone else's blog interesting and/or relevant, a link will be added. With some luck users cross link each other and stay in contact visiting each other's blog, commenting and cross-posting.

Cross posting and trackbacks are, I believe, one of the nicest things in blogistan; they allow "threads" to happen and develop around numerous postings and blogs; this way a discussion takes place, and bloggers add to each other's points of view and ideas.

How is this any different from Forums? Well, it differs in many ways. Forums usually have administrators or moderators who monitor postings. They are usually hosted by someone who has complete authority over what happens, who can delete, move or censor entries at will. Blogs, on the other hand are owned by the blogger (even if hosted at places like wordpress.com, blogger and so on);who have complete authority over his/her blog as well as over comments or trackbacks. This gives authors a sense of comfort, quite encouraging at the time of writing, the blog is like "home"; one has some control over it, we feel cosy there, thus we open up our minds (and hearts at times). We feel blog posts belong to us, something that rarely happens on Forums. Besides people post longer entries and take more time to post or reply, since on your own post you can have a text as draft for as long as you need it.

To further expand on trackbacks and replies one could draw an analogy with classical Greek forums. Those could exist and be successful since the community that integrated them was small enough -remember that only free males could participate-. As populations grew larger this concept was no longer applicable (besides not being on the best interest for Emperors and Kings). Of course political decisions are not taken on blogs, but a lot of ideas are discussed and exposed on them. Some threads are very interesting going back and forth from blog to blog involving quite a number of people. Usually such discussions are held on a very friendly manner, even when blogers have opposite opinions.

A lot of attention has already been drifted form mass media to blogs. People tend to rely more on guys they somehow know (since they read them on a daily basis) than in huge media conglomerates that have been subject of questioning since they allegedly serve their own agendas which are, usually, tied up to their owners, investors and advertiser's interests. The golden time for Newspapers was when they could be regarded as truly independent and would write about anyone / anything (I am aware that this is a romantic view on the matter, but Media was much more independent on the turn of the 19th century than it is now). This way, "Mr. Doe's blog" might be more respected by their readers than the Washington Post.

Even companies dare to say things on their blogs that they would never post as a press release. And the more honest (aka, unfiltered) corporate blogs become the more respected by the community they become. If a company were to blog cheep advertising pitch lines instead of from-the-core honest and insightful posts, the attention would quickly divert away form them. Blogs are viral in nature, and if you give the wrong impression with a corporate blog it'll take a lifetime to rebuild the confidence from the audience once people have flagged you as just another advertising channel.

Although Corporate Blogs are Marketing they are not, and must never be regarded as advertising. People already spend good bucks on gadgets like TiVo to avoid publicity, hence they won't doubt in skipping your blog if they even "smell" advertising.

Blogs allow conversation with the audience; this must be unfiltered and honest; otherwise it's the same to have a "news" page than a blog.
Blogs have become increasingly important from any side you look at them. If you belong to a corporation you must think about blogs to keep current and give your potential customers insights on what your company is up to. If you think you are a scholar on a certain subject a blog is a very good way to spread your knowledge (and it could provide some income as well). If you just want to post personal experiences a blog is a nice way to share with the rest of the world, friends and family included. If you just want to keep up to date and informed, watch for blogs, they are usually more up-to-date and more reliable than mass media (if you can find the right blogs... even media-hosted blogs are better reading than many newspapers that host them).

I will do some follow up on this post covering the subjects of how people find blogs, the fuzz and tools around them, and I might even dare to try some futurology.