Friday 17 July 2009

A future in Blogging 2.0

I attended an interesting event yesterday, hosted by the FT Alphaville team. These guys (and gals) are probably the best business bloggers out there at the moment. So they should be, with a staff of six and the FT behind them.

However, the debate was about what to do next and many of the bloggers in attendance were at a loss for what to do. Some fundamental questions still remain unanswered, why blog? Should it make money? What do you want to achieve?

The great thing is that everyone has a different answer, some want fame, some want to just express themselves, others are promoting a product or company of their own; many are journalists.

Perhaps most interesting was the twitter split. When I get the chance I have a great idea for twitter which I want to see if I can make work and whether it is legal. However, the split was on the bloggers' having time to do everything. Fine for those in new media 'journalism' industry to go on about gadgets, widgets and twittering. But for many there is not enough time to try and use every available channel.

In this respect I think the professionals in the end will beat the personal blogs who do it just for fun. They have more time to use the new technologies, more access to good content and better presentation. As such, blogging will stratify with a very long tail. Niche blogs are simply not a business model, but perhaps are useful tool for raising profile.

Let's see how many of the Big Brother contestants start writing blogs when they are evicted to test the theory.

7 comments:

ken from glos said...

I disagree i stick to blogs to tell the truth,certainly about politics. The MSM just stick to lines to take.

CityUnslicker said...

I am not quitting Ken; just looking at the trends.

Letters From A Tory said...

The blogosphere is already approaching saturation point, now that journalists and businesses have got in on the act. I suspect all we will see in future is a refinement of what we have now.

roym said...

but Ken,
who's to determine the veracity of a particular blogger? especially when they are anonymous

Old BE said...

The beauty of not being able to test the veracity of a blog is that one is more circumspect. The papers spout a load of tosh but for some reason people take them as gospel truth. I think the Night Jack affair tells us what the papers think of the blogs!

Judy said...

Three great bloggers that I read have hung up their internets in the past month.

The MSM will go back to dead trees methinks.

Plenty said...

If they want advice about blogging,

why dont they head over to top bloggers Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

http://www.plenty2say.com