Too many blogs
Monday, October 30, 2006
The internet doesn't do understatement.When the dotcom bubble burst people were picking off bits of ill-thought-out website debris all over the world.
Now blogging is the new thing. Most blogs, including I suspect this one, have an average of one reader: the author.
So I was surprised that the Guardian launched yet another blog site today.
The Arts blog looks very much like the Guardian's main blogging space, comment is free, but online editor Emily Bell sees it as an important extension of the paper's arts coverage.
Except there already was a space for arts pieces in comment is free. Those blogs would be seen by many thousands in the Guardian's prime blogging quarters. Now they'll be stuck among hundreds of articles nobody will ever read in an obscure corner of a global blogosphere that's more overcrowded than a Japanese commuter train giving away free sushi.
Today is launch day, and already there are more blogs than the total number of comments.
Couldn't the Guardian have made the most of their prestigious and respected brand to set up a site which would aggregate existing blogs on the arts rather than flooding the market with more of the same?
posted by Blamerbell @ 6:11 pm,
5 Comments:
-
At 4:25 pm,
Rhys Wynne said...
-
Are we already reaching saturation point do you think?
I've only just come across your blog (either through BlogCymru or Welshblogs, can't remember)
I'm quite vain and like it when poeple leave comments. Are you bothered that no-one leaves any comments?
A lot of people read blogs and never leave comments. I've looked at your stats and you get a lot of visitors (but they could all be you as you say!)
There really is a need for a blog (non-BBC) with a focus on the Assembly. It's not all that interesting an isnstitution to blog about at the moment but I hope that will change. -
At 4:43 pm,
Blamerbell said...
-
User comments are probably the sign of a good blog. You've first got to attract the visitors and then stimulate them to debate.
Problem is I'm not sure if there's an audience for a Welsh politics blog yet.
I'll keep plugging away and we'll see.
Thanks, though, for the comment! -
At 10:58 am,
said...
-
It's not just the author visiting... a very interesting site and very thoughtful items. :)
-
At 5:03 pm,
Aran said...
-
I think the term blog is a bit misleading - it implies there's something fundamentally different about a blog to any other kind of website, but it's just another platform for publishing.
The interesting stuff is that blogs are so much more accessible in terms of ease of use, so they're seen as being at the forefront of making information distribution a more independent activity.
Seeing how independent information creators/distributors eat into the market control of the media companies is going to be very interesting - and it's got all sorts of implications for democracy and the political process itself, I reckon.
So keep at it...;-) -
At 10:27 pm,
Blamerbell said...
-
"I think the term blog is a bit misleading - it implies there's something fundamentally different about a blog to any other kind of website, but it's just another platform for publishing."
My word, this is an early thread you've come across.
For me, Aran, a blog is very different to any other website. And that's because of the interactivity it encourages.
Soon the days of politicians simply having websites will be over: they'll have to show they are willing to engage in conversation and that they are thinking, fallible human beings.
It won't be long before a non-interactive platform seems totally abhorrent. That's just the way the media is going.
