Bloggers = Thought Followers

For all the blogosphere’s self-proclamation of being an alternative voice to mainstream media, I think the sudden eruption of disdain for the Web 2.0 moniker, just because ZDNet said it’s so, has shown in glaringly obvious terms the blogosphere’s continued slavery to traditional media outlets.

The great promise of the blogosphere is for egalitarian opportunity for thought leadership. If I have a great idea or concept, let’s say for example that Web 2.0 is a load of poo, then I should be able to blog about it and stand a fair chance that my thoughts if warranted may drive discussion and eventually change.

The reality is that not enough people, not even bloggers, broadly read enough of what other bloggers read for ideas outside of the accepted domain to gain traction.

Now, if you’re thinking I’m pissed because my anti-Web 2.0 diatribe attracted close to zero attention, while ZDNet’s far-inferior postulating set the blog world on fire, then, flock yeh. But I sure wasn’t the first to suggest Web 2.0 was a dumb, self-defeating, marketing-laden name (I was however the first to compare it to poo). But the point stands that it took a big, mainstream media outlet to lay the idea forward before the blogosphere more widely accepted the idea as worthy of discussion.

If bloggers are serious about advancing the blogosphere they need to start reading their peers far more widely. Their needs to be better content aggregators that make it easier to find new ideas and not simply observations on the latest big story that popped up in NYT, WSJ or News.com. Bloggers need to start taking risks and throwing new ideas out into the blogosphere so as they can see what sticks.

Because until all that happens there will be precious little thought leadership among bloggers and we’ll be stuck with the monotomous bleating of the thought-follower flock.

Filed under: Blogs, Content Aggregation, Traditional Media

Bloggers have higher standards than traditional media. Pffft.

Poor Mark Cuban reckons he was misquoted by the NYTimes and immediately hit back with a detailed blog explaining exactly how the interview he conducted transpired and making clear exactly what he said. We love the  blogosphere for this kind of stuff. Everyone deserves right of reply and now noone is beholden to the media giants if they want to have their say.

But then Cuban seemingly started puffing on something more than his namesake cigar. He went on to ask NYTimes Sunday Business or Bloggers. Who has the higher standards?

Give me a break! To even begin to think that “standards” are inherent to the blogosphere is just totally and utterly ridiculous. Every assertion he makes in his media bash, is flawed. Like “The NY Times is limited by deadlines. They have to get to print and get the product out the door. Bloggers do not”.

Care to time the average time spent researching and writing a typical blog post compared to something that appears in the mainstream media. You don’t think bloggers have deadlines? These beasts need to be fed, mostly in people’s spare time. They don’t allow for a whole lot of fact-checking and thought.

The blogosphere is the wild west. You can write anything you want. It’s the way it has to be. On the other hand, pretty much the only thing that the mainstream media will have left not too far into the future is credibility and it’s reader’s trust. That’s an airball, Marky baby.

Filed under: Blogs, Traditional Media