A VC - Latest Comments in Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:42:23 -0000

I am counting all blogs not just tech blogs or political blogs. I am counting family blogs, fashion blogs, celeb gossip blogs

And if you do that, close to everyone reads blogs

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

Norbert Mayer-Wittmann — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:55:35 -0000

I agree -- and in the grand scheme of things (zooming out to a geological timeline), popular literacy is a teeny tiny blip... and media literacy is a much much smaller blip... and "new media" literacy hardly even exists at all -- see e.g. http://esh.it/history-of-pr... )

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

Prokofy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:19:54 -0000

No, Fred.

You're talking to your own demographic only, even if outside the technosphere.

Read the polls of Pew Charitable Trust:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/ou...

Only 19 percent of Internet users use Twitter.

Only 19 percent of Internet users are using blogs to work on civil and political issues.

Somewhere on their pages is the 2008 poll about only 30 percent of the electorate reading blogs to get their political opinion to see who to vote for.

These numbers are not changing dramatically.

That is, it depends on what your point is about all this. Perhaps Pew or someone or you can show there are 50 percent or even 80 percent reading blogs. But does that mean just the Shine blog that Yahoo has with the food and shopping tips which is at the Yahoo portal? or what? You're a Better Worldnik, so I would think you'd want not just blog reading, but blog reading that "goes somewhere".

You are forgetting an enormous number of people in this country live off talk radio, and they are not just the conservatives, but the 60-year-olds that turn on NPR first thing in the morning before they read their *paper*.

The only way you could nudge this up is if you start counting sites like the New York Times as blogs. Well, I do.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

JoeJoomla — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:14:06 -0000

I agree that we are not anywhere near the end game when it comes to blogs. This is simply the evolution of communications. Think about it, a long time ago only the very wealthy had books. Newspapers brought communications to a mass audience at a lesser cost. Almost all early communications were one way.

Today we have technology that makes communications easier for common people as well as being reciprocal. Most of my time online is spent in direct communications with people who are experts at what they do and have allowed me into their digital world. This is a great way to become educated. Its far better than signing up for a course being taught by someone who is years out of whatever industry that they were once in.

Blogging changes everything. The best communicators will be in control of content now instead of business people. That makes for an interesting dynamics. There's going to be plenty of mayhem as things sort themselves out.

Birds of a feather flock together. You'll become most like the people you spend time with. They are those who influence you. That includes your online time.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:45:38 -0000

It still says 'the facebook' on my browser toolbar. Never gonna change that

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:52:29 -0000

Not the same but part of the same thing

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

RichardF — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:04:17 -0000

Hi Shana

Thanks, I already have groups set up but as an application Facebook doesn't give me real control of my data stream. It just has a very basic filtering system and you have to dig in to get to that much functionality.

Thanks for the reply because you made me think a little deeper about what I would like from a social application.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

ShanaC — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:07:36 -0000

Go to Friends- you can place a tag (or group) there. Man I miss the days when it was theFacebook and it was all about poking.....

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

Olaf_UCKERMANN — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:07:55 -0000

Hm, why so much reactions from these blog to my post? http://bit.ly/C2j0F

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

ShanaC — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:29:28 -0000

*sigh* don't remind me of my homework. For it to really work, I have to become a facebook star. So not me.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

ShanaC — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:27:00 -0000

Why are you so surprised- I used to quote translations I got from blogposts because they were better than the ones we found in books for school.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

ShanaC — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:25:38 -0000

You know, from this post, I finally understand what the meta tag rel= nofollow means.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

abhic — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:33:40 -0000

I definitely appreciate the vision but I think the new paradigm has got to settle, even if its a forced resting period for the benefit of different industries to catch up.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

abhic — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:31:06 -0000

I noticed that in a weird way just recently, where I would find that after cleaning up my Google Reader I wouldn't have much to read on Techmeme for a bit. I think its still awesome on the go and would love for Gabe to take a cue from BNO News.

Hacker News is a great community more than anything else and I am regular cause of that. As they have intentionally limited stuff like search etc I find myself digging through their archives in G Reader.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

andreaitis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:14:50 -0000

facebook def has a tough challenge. for me, facebook is like a multi-dimensional interactive phone book. i don't have to remember or store email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, etc. i can keep up with what people are doing either passively or actively. but by and large, it's more personal. i'm broadcasting to people who know me from various phases of my life. twitter leans more toward the professional for me. i'm connected to a lot of people i respect professionally but do not know personally. once twitter layers in group and communication options, it will be more useful on the personal front.

with the friendfeed acquisition i thought zuckerberg was positioning facebook as the repository of information, home base for your life stream. twitter could complement that as a communication tool, public and private: one to one, one to select group, one to all. and both integrated into a collective social search.

so, back to your question: will there be facebook stars? i think facebook is yet another marketing platform for stars, but a star emerging from facebook? at this point, less likely.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

CoryS — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:40:55 -0000

Are you implying that blogging and tweeting and/or Facebook updates are the same? I think the two styles and occasions of use are very different.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:44:15 -0000

Let's hope so!

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

CathyWebSavvyPR — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:55:43 -0000

The first two commentors mentioned RSS readers as not being mainstream, therefore blog reading is not mainstream. I think that is misleading. RSS readers are only one way to read blog content, and they are not that user-friendly to non-techies. Many, even tech folks, prefer to receive a blog in our in box (yes via RSS, but not using a reader); or by going to a blog site and still interacting there; or finding out new blogs to read via our favorite flavor of social networking/bookmarking site: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon, Alltop, Technorati, Google Blog search, and even word of mouth or an email from a friend etc.

Before I used Twitter, I used my RSS reader much more, but I have found them cumbersome (although they are improving). So, now, when I find a blog I like I subscribe via email, or check it our manually. My feed reader got too full and busy. I look to my social media connections to feed me new content which I save to Delicuous for future reading and sharing. I think many are using a mix of all of these tools, or just reading ablg and simply bookmarking it on their browser toolbar, like I used to. RSS is not the be all/end all...in my opinion.

Granted my next statement is anecdotal, but people I speak with who re not in the tech world, are less and less frequently asking - so what is a blog. Also blogs and traditional HTML websites are beginning to resemble each other more and more. Social sharing options (share this, add this etc - which began as blogging plug-ins I believe) now offer options to add the feature to an HTML site; many newspapers have added the ability to comment which used to be one main difference that blogs had.

My vote would be, that while it's not mainstream yet, it is certainly much closer to the center than it used to be; just a years a it seemed much closer to the fringes.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

Mark Essel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:40:08 -0000

The game like energy never ends, it just shifts forms. Glad to see blogging is still growing strong. I'm shocked at how many profound blogs there are out there that I don't have time to read :(

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

RichardF — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:37:04 -0000

yup as you say the numbers don't lie.

Off Topic a little - I just wish facebook was not such a mess. I'd use it much more if I had more control and could tailor the content I output to different groups (friends/relatives/professional etc) which must surely be easy enough if they introduced a delicious type of tag system. I'm starting to see the benefit of "my" social stream but I want much more control of what goes out and what comes in.

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:11:14 -0000

Word

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:52:29 -0000

Good points. Coming from both sides

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:48:57 -0000

The numbers tell a different story

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:47:01 -0000

Twitter and Facebook ate itunes for content

Re: Is Blog Reading Mainstream?

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:46:21 -0000

I'm with kid

A hub/blog

Active presence on the impt social nets; fb and twitter (and maybe tumblr now)

And very liberal syndication to get on as many aggregation points as possible

Monetize the hub and do the rest as a marketing cost