I think I am a little fed up with the whole blogging scene right now.
The cover article in BusinessWeek did nothing for me. The cute blogging format, the same stories we all know, Rubel’s first step to blogging sainthood. If I see Stoneyfield Farms get mainstream media ink for their incredible blogs one more time, I am going to scream.
Then you have Scoble deciding to take on Ballmer. Please. Why would he put his employer in a position like that? Either he should have waited 24 hours to see if he still felt strongly or the power of his pulpit has gone to his head.
It may be a little quiet here over the next week as I clear my head.
Don’t worry. I still love blogging. I think it is an incredible tool for businesses. And RSS rocks.
I just need less hype.
Yeah, I agree too, Todd. I look at things from a larger business perspective, (y’know, strategy, not tactics) and am astonished at the hubris and naive optimism of some folk in the blogging community (at least in my opinion). Like anything else, blogging is a *tool*. Nothing more, nothing else. It’s used for cool and interesting stuff (recently found: an art history blog where the author posts a picture of a masterpiece and adds her commentary. brilliant!) and it’s also used to spam the search engines (surf blogger.com some time to see what I mean) and to spam the blogosphere itself (the ‘all hype, all advertising, all the time’ blogs).
Underlying the zeal and enthusiasm, though, I believe that “blogs” are just a milestone on the evolutionary path of the Web and on personal web tools, and right now it’s cool, but we’re already seeing people push in many different directions, some of which are going to smack right into the wall and vanish.
Lisa: “Read you’re weekend list!” power idea, I think I may just try that…!
Hey Todd, if you’re fed up with blogging, try writing a chapter for a book! 😉
I get a little frustrated because I think too many companies are having a negative effect on blogging. To them it’s just another PR tool.
I feel your pain… …I haven’t blogged since January. Call it blogger burnout if you want, but I feel like its more of a lack of direction, whether my part or the blogosphere as a whole. Kinda felt like I needed to sort out exactly what I want to do with this “tool”, where I wanted to go with it, etc. The Blogosphere has changed so much from a few years ago…
Hang in there… …maybe you just need a different perspective.
Don’t worry – it will all blow over. When companies realize that people actually have to WRITE the blog content, and that people can smell a fraud a mile away, they’ll be off the bandwagon pretty quickly. In the meantime all of the nice business blogs we know and love (37 Signals, and many others), will keep doing what they’re doing and we’ll all be fine.
I wonder if we are just in that transition phase from early blog adopters/writers toward a more average or later adopter/writer. Some bloggers got so psyched initially, they have burned themselves out or their content has started to get very thin. Others took their time getting into it and are now, possibly, hitting their stride. It seems like more non-blogger types are making comments on blogs these days, too – which may be a good thing. All of this stuff will help the quality blogs float to the top – and people new to blogging or covering blogging for the media will get a better, more “settled in” view of the potential.
Can you tell that this is what I’m hoping is going on?
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