The Laughing Wolf

It’s The End Of The Blogosphere As We Know It

And I feel fine. Steven Den Beste’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek post has some good points behind it, but change was and is inevitable. In this case, the only thing surprising about it is how fast it is occurring. Indeed, it almost breaks a standard commercial media technology model.

That model is why I am not upset, more amazed at the speed of things than anything else. The model in question is one to which I was introduced many years ago in a media economics class. The model states that for any given media technology, there is a specific driver for the development of that technology, then a maturity cycle in which use of said technology/product moves to generalization and then into specification.

A good example of this model would be news publishing. The impetus for such was the production of broadsheets for specific purposes, such as shipping. These broadsheets held information on the sailing dates and anticipated arrival dates of ships; tides and currents; weather; and other information of use to those in the shipping business or needing to ship items. This expanded, and came to include official proclamations, news of the day, and more. The economic driver here was to make the most efficient use of each sheet of paper, and to increase the consumer base who will pay for said sheets. This eventually led to newspapers and magazines. Over time, particularly within the last century, this technology matured as the customer base grew, such that specialty publications became viable. Doubt it? Just go take a look at the magazine racks in any good book store. Even newspapers have moved into specialty niches, even when they cover a broad range of topics. An excellent example here is the Wall Street Journal: focused on business, but with news of the world and its implications for business.

This specialization curve has been shortening with each new technology. It literally took hundreds of years for publishing; almost 100 for radio; and around 50 years for television. For the Internet, we are looking at about 20 years, and for blogging we are probably talking about only five years total. In that time, blogging has gone from its rough origins to an effectively mature industry with competition not only between blogs for viewership, but also between enabling technologies. The change in enabling technologies, such as the current changes underway in Movable Type and other programs, is a healthy sign even when mishandled from a user standpoint.

Blogging does, however, break the model in that it has never truly gone through a generalization phase at the start. There was no economic demand to do so. Indeed, one can argue that blogging completely bypassed the normal development curve and proceeded directly into specialization. There are a number of sites that provide general coverage, pointers to in-depth coverage of the news and topics of the day. Glenn Reynolds is the undisputed king of this niche in the market. There are others that provide a similar service within a given topic area: The Command Post for war news; MilBlogs for leads to military bloggers; and, Transterrestrial Musings and Rocket Forge provide both gateways to news of space and space commercialization, as well as coverage an in-depth analysis of same. These are just a few samples, and all reflect a new market: generalized coverage of specific topics. This is a very new twist in the old, old, media game and it is a direct result of the technology involved. That technology is also going to continue to change the model, as well as media as we know it.

The end part of the specialization curve is one of extreme specialization, and of weeding out. The fact is, nothing lasts forever and those that don’t deal well with change will die off sooner rather than later. This can be seen in newspapers, magazines, book publishers (the changes there right now are profound, and I find Baen Books efforts to get ahead of this curve well worth studying), and in radio and television stations and programming for same. The blogosphere has had extreme specialization from the start: if you search you can find almost any type of highly specialized knowledge well represented here. There has already been some weeding out. Yet, there is much more to come.

That which comes is going to change the blogosphere and the media. For less than $100.00, any person can purchase a domain, buy the software needed, and establish hosting for a blog. It can be done for a lot less, in fact, so it is well within the reach of even the poorest person in America. This means that almost everyone can establish an op-ed or other online journal. The good news of this is that many divergent viewpoints will be available, along with a great deal of esoteric knowledge that would otherwise not be readily accessible. The downside to this is that quite a few people are going to be starting blogs so they can pontificate upon their viewpoints.

Yet, is this really a downside? In one respect, it will greatly increase the signal-to-noise ratio. In another, it is the realization of a dream of some of the Founding Fathers to have the most possible viewpoints presented. While it will make separation of wheat from chaff a bit more difficult, the technology already provides a means to do so in a fairly economical manner. Nor is technology the only means: already, there are bastions of sorters who provide links to the good stuff as it were. The process of this expansion will, however, do two things.

First, it will tend to move the blogosphere more towards a commercial operation instead of the semi-free model followed today. People value quality, and blogs that provide a needed service, either in acting as a reliable guide to quality information or as a provider of information and analysis, will be rewarded. The final model of this remains to be seen, but arguments can already be put forward for either a fee-based system (subscription), an advertiser-supported system (Blogads anyone?), or both, just as most publications are done today.

Second, it will force a crisis of media. Freedom of the press has evolved from a concept of equal access to technology to that of a self-appointed elite that informs the public. With the exception of certain judges in Texas, the Government has largely stayed away from any official declarations of who is and is not a journalist. To rule in any way on such is a step towards governmental regulation of the press, and wise media moguls and practitioners have worked against this. While there is some de-facto standards set by media accreditation to provide special access for coverage of governmental operations, these have tended to be fairly elastic and most often have been used to ration limited seating and other related facilities.

The expansion of the blogosphere into the mainstream is going to force this issue in ways for which neither the government nor the media are going to care. The government is going to have to face that anyone can be a published reporter, since blogs meet all basic current standards for same. This means either dealing with the legal challenges inherent in such, or in establishing government licensing and accreditation of reporters – something likely to be challenged. The media is going to lose their self-annointed status, and the country club will be open to all. This will not sit well, and I rather suspect we will see some extremely foolish and short-sighted efforts to obtain governmental regulation or licensing in an effort to preserve their special status. This is indeed a huge danger, to free speech, to the concept of true journalism, and to the Republic.

As for the blogosphere, I do see an onslaught of new bloggers and I welcome it. Some will stay, and will become productive and important parts of blogging. Many will be mundane at best, and most of those will likely fall out when they realize how much work it takes to sustain the effort. Given the dynamics of the model, I suspect that this process too will be much faster than in the past. Some will fall out rather quickly. In the process, provided the dangers to freedom and the Constitution can be avoided, we will all be enriched.

As this process spreads around the world, it will also have the benefit of making life extremely difficult for bad governments and extremists. The news will no longer be as easy to manipulate or block. Reporters will no longer be a few individuals who can be controlled, bought, or manipulated. Reporters will be everyone, everywhere, and the news will out. The news will out in ways of which we can only dream, of which the Founding Fathers could only dream. It will mean direct or near-direct access to the source, to the event, such that each individual can determine the event and context for themselves. It will mean a broad range of viewpoints and analysis are available to all. It will mean access to a large number of subject-matter experts. It will mean a global knowledge net.

The meme is already out there, and it is working and growing in ways we cannot begin to imagine. This growth will be interesting and productive, as will efforts to prevent it. For by their actions you will know them, and enemies of freedom will be easy to recognize by their efforts to regulate this new media in any guise.

Yes, it is the end of the blogosphere as we know it, and I do feel fine.

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