Quick Thought About Blogs
Quick Thought: Blogs are like a digital identity. Well, it's more than that. It's more like a digital existence. Or maybe it's like a house. A blog holds my thoughts, my wants, desires, likes, dislikes, etc. If we think about blogs as individuals in the digital world, what would we predict for the future of blogging?
It seems that many people are surprised at the surge in the popularity of blogging. Even more remarkable is the fact that blogging has existed for years before the current swell of attention sprang up (in fact, I like to brag that I am an original blogger from way back, as I held my own text-only version of my blog on my own website for a while, before xanga/blogger came out with their pretty, cutesy versions).
Consider this:
Think about the blogosphere as a new land mass that has just been discovered, let's call it Blogos, kind of like how North America was discovered in the 1700s. In the early days, individuals would make the journey into cyberspace and set up shop with a blog, like early settlers and pilgrims that crossed the Atlantic Ocean. These settlers might even colonize, and bring a few friends along with them, or make friends with other bloggers they've found since arriving on Blogos. A small community forms (Think about any blog and how most have links on the right- or left-hand sidebar to friend's blogs).
Early on, Blogos was full of these small colonies, as groups of friends would keep track of each other's lives via their blogs, before empires like Blogger and Xanga came to Blogos, bringing wealth and gifts into the New World. They staked their piece of land on Blogos in search of starting a large Blogos city, with their pretty web landscaping/formatting and convenient publishing tool. They succeed in attracting newcomers to Blogos and assimilating a few O.G. bloggers along the way. In addition to forming communities with direct links to other bloggers, there arise public groups for affiliating any digital existence to a public label (NoR cAl AZNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!, or California Republicans). Now blogs have even evolved to cover more than just people and their lives, they've become commercial. There are sex blogs and political blogs and techno-blogs, sports blogs, company blogs, you name it. And I think they are all analogous to commercial offices/buildings in the city of Blogos. Recently, and not surprising considering Blogos is such a rapidly growing city/state, we have seen superstars and celebrities spring up in Blogos (think Drudge Report, Boing Boing, Fleshbot, Engadget, and more). What's next?
1) I predict our blogs will one day become intelligent enough to find other people who we should really get in touch with. My blog would go mingle in the digital world and find other blogs that comment on similar topics, or find blogs that would otherwise interest me, and I'll be presented with new people to meet every time I log on. The fact that the world will be blogging in the future and millions and maybe billions of people will be shouting out to the blogosphere will also necessitate this feature, because you can't read EVERYONE's blog.
2) Carrying the city analogy a bit further, I would have expected to see more group blogs, or blogs that describe a clique of friends, for example. It may well show up in the future, when a close-knit group of friends is tired of clicking through any number of different blogs just to catch up on their whole clique of friends. Maybe this will happen, only time will tell.
3) It would be interesting to see if any sort of political system arises from Blogos, in that users will get to democratically vote for changes they'd want Blogger.com to implement, for example. Would Bloggers be able to vote for the next CEO of Blogger.com?
4) Wouldn't it be interesting to have real estate in Blogos? I guess it would be like Geocities of old, but create a landscape with regions separated by both culture and topic or something, and allow blogs to take up shop on a specific lot. There could be a residential area for personal blogs, separate from commercial areas. There could be a mall, political headquarters, you name it. Old blogs that aren't updated can be "evicted" for not "paying rent" (updating), and they can be taken up by other bloggers who want to move to a higher-profile area. Bloggers would have neighbors, communities can form in a (virtual) physical space. You and your friends can live on the same block. Wow I like this idea. Perhaps I shall try to become the Donald Trump of the blogosphere. I can totally picture "taking a walk" around my neighborhood to read my friend's blogs. I can picture "driving to the mall" to go shopping for gadgets. I can picture a posh area of Blogos, where all the nicely-formatted blogs all live, and I can picture a minimalist area, for blogs who think that content is most important ("home is where the heart is").
It seems that many people are surprised at the surge in the popularity of blogging. Even more remarkable is the fact that blogging has existed for years before the current swell of attention sprang up (in fact, I like to brag that I am an original blogger from way back, as I held my own text-only version of my blog on my own website for a while, before xanga/blogger came out with their pretty, cutesy versions).
Consider this:
Think about the blogosphere as a new land mass that has just been discovered, let's call it Blogos, kind of like how North America was discovered in the 1700s. In the early days, individuals would make the journey into cyberspace and set up shop with a blog, like early settlers and pilgrims that crossed the Atlantic Ocean. These settlers might even colonize, and bring a few friends along with them, or make friends with other bloggers they've found since arriving on Blogos. A small community forms (Think about any blog and how most have links on the right- or left-hand sidebar to friend's blogs).
Early on, Blogos was full of these small colonies, as groups of friends would keep track of each other's lives via their blogs, before empires like Blogger and Xanga came to Blogos, bringing wealth and gifts into the New World. They staked their piece of land on Blogos in search of starting a large Blogos city, with their pretty web landscaping/formatting and convenient publishing tool. They succeed in attracting newcomers to Blogos and assimilating a few O.G. bloggers along the way. In addition to forming communities with direct links to other bloggers, there arise public groups for affiliating any digital existence to a public label (NoR cAl AZNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!, or California Republicans). Now blogs have even evolved to cover more than just people and their lives, they've become commercial. There are sex blogs and political blogs and techno-blogs, sports blogs, company blogs, you name it. And I think they are all analogous to commercial offices/buildings in the city of Blogos. Recently, and not surprising considering Blogos is such a rapidly growing city/state, we have seen superstars and celebrities spring up in Blogos (think Drudge Report, Boing Boing, Fleshbot, Engadget, and more). What's next?
1) I predict our blogs will one day become intelligent enough to find other people who we should really get in touch with. My blog would go mingle in the digital world and find other blogs that comment on similar topics, or find blogs that would otherwise interest me, and I'll be presented with new people to meet every time I log on. The fact that the world will be blogging in the future and millions and maybe billions of people will be shouting out to the blogosphere will also necessitate this feature, because you can't read EVERYONE's blog.
2) Carrying the city analogy a bit further, I would have expected to see more group blogs, or blogs that describe a clique of friends, for example. It may well show up in the future, when a close-knit group of friends is tired of clicking through any number of different blogs just to catch up on their whole clique of friends. Maybe this will happen, only time will tell.
3) It would be interesting to see if any sort of political system arises from Blogos, in that users will get to democratically vote for changes they'd want Blogger.com to implement, for example. Would Bloggers be able to vote for the next CEO of Blogger.com?
4) Wouldn't it be interesting to have real estate in Blogos? I guess it would be like Geocities of old, but create a landscape with regions separated by both culture and topic or something, and allow blogs to take up shop on a specific lot. There could be a residential area for personal blogs, separate from commercial areas. There could be a mall, political headquarters, you name it. Old blogs that aren't updated can be "evicted" for not "paying rent" (updating), and they can be taken up by other bloggers who want to move to a higher-profile area. Bloggers would have neighbors, communities can form in a (virtual) physical space. You and your friends can live on the same block. Wow I like this idea. Perhaps I shall try to become the Donald Trump of the blogosphere. I can totally picture "taking a walk" around my neighborhood to read my friend's blogs. I can picture "driving to the mall" to go shopping for gadgets. I can picture a posh area of Blogos, where all the nicely-formatted blogs all live, and I can picture a minimalist area, for blogs who think that content is most important ("home is where the heart is").
posted by Menzies at 2:27 AM
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