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Sat. Nov 26, 2005

Blogging For All The Wrong Reasons

A couple of recent “events” in the blog world emphasize to me that despite all the hype, [1] blogs cannot be forced into an effective collective, that’s something that has to happen naturally, as they are the sites of individuals who might happen to agree on an issue … and not much else. [2], though it happens for a few, blogs are not a means for making money, they are a medium for self expression available to all. [3], blogs cannot be conglomerated and rebranded in a Time-Warner-AOL like manner. And [4], 21.8 million blogs cannot be lined up in any particular order. Not without raising a big stink.

Obviously, most of those points come from the learning experience known as Open Source Media, or Pajamas Media, depending on the day you check. If you want, you can skip down to that. But let’s start with “the ordering of the blogs.”

You see, there’s something called The TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem, run by NZ Bear. Using some kind of homebrewed stats hoodoo, some of the over 21 million blogs on this planet are “ordered” into the obvious classifications of Higher Beings, Mortal Humans, Playful Primates, Large Mammals, Marauding Marsupials, Adorable Rodents, Flappy Birds, Slithering Reptiles, Crawly Amphibians, Flippery Fish, Slimy Molluscs, Lowly Insects, Crunchy Crustaceans, Wiggly Worms, Multicellular Microorganisms, Insignificant Microbes.

“Bear” himself has said over the years that his system is imperfect, and just for fun. But there is no fun to be found in Blogville since he “changed the rules,” and some people were demoted from Slithering Reptile to Crawly Amphibian.

You can understand how that kind of disrespect just can’t be tolerated. As Steven Taylor notes, “The move has caused some consternation in the Blogosphere.” James Joyner gives us the inside details (more here) on how “Systemic use of Open Trackbacks wildly distorts” the TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem, and mutates Wiggly Worms into Multicellular Microorganisms.

It’s hard for me to fathom how so many serious people take this all so seriously. I mean, there’s even a freakin’ petition over this. But from what I can tell, people were trying to “game the system.” From the mouth of the Bear himself: “I haven’t announced the change because a) I was still debugging it and b) I didn’t really think anybody would notice so quickly. But it turns out, Don Surber and some others are apparently watching my stuff so closely that they figured out what I was doing almost immediately (which, I think, says something in itself).”

As I’ve said, there are over 21 million blogs out there, and Don Surber is someone I’d never heard of before about a month or so ago. But suddenly his blog was in Memeorandum every day. It was so sudden and so consistent that I figured someone had hit upon the magic combination to lift their blog into that kind of traffic stream. I now wonder if it had to do with the trackbacks and the distortion Bear was seeing in his ecosystem.

I’ll state for the record … I don’t know, and I don’t really care. Those are just separate independent observations by me about a similar phenomenon. But, golly, Don sure does seem to be upset about it. “Of course there is an Open Post today. NZ Bear does not run this site. I do. My rules. But we were not cheating. If we were, he would not have had to change his rules. And if he were right, he would have announced the changes first.”

And it’s not just on his site. Elsewhere he has commented that “the Echosystem is a salve to conservative bloggers who are getting their blogs beat by Daily Kos.” Because that’s what this blogging thing is all about to a surprising number of people. Hits. Popularity. Winning.

Now, I know nothing about Don, and I only focus on him because he’s put himself out there on this one, and, well, he’s so popular. Lots of links to his reaction. Like I said, I never heard of him until about a month ago, and I have no idea what his site is normally like outside of this particular blog-disturbance, but he’ll be glad to tell you, “I have now written more copy today than certain posters will combined today. That’s only fair. I will get as many hits today as they do in a half-hour.”

Although he’s claimed in various places he’s really not mad about this, he also posts an article titled “Et Tu, NZ Bear” in which he claims “OSM, PJM, PB&J whatever seeks to stifle us. Now TTLB follows up…” Which makes it sound like he thinks those entities are conspiring to suppress “us.” But the fact that 99% of Americans do not know or care what OSM, PJM, or TTLB are ... makes them a pretty poor tool for stifling.

My subjective perception is that it seems that “copy” is seen primarily as a means to get hits. Let’s look at the chosen visual hierarchy. What does Don have at the top of his home page, before you get to the content? Today, there’s a hit counter. Until recently, he also had his Technorati ranking right below it. Then the content. Because it’s important to know those things before you start reading.

But in the midst of this mess, you can find some words of wisdom like those left in a comment at Poliblogger by Scott Gosnell of Pros and Cons (emphasis mine):

I put a lot of time and effort into many of my posts; however, many are throwaway posts. I can’t really care too much about who likes what, because I can’t control that — I can only control the fact that I either enjoy writing what I write, and make it the best it can be, or I don’t write. When I start caring about traffic and links (and even the ecosystem, as useful as it is!), the fun evaporates pretty much instantly.

The point: I’m happier blogging with twelve readers who like my stuff, maybe comment once in a while, and never give me a link, than I am (was) as a marauding marsupial who was checking TTLB every ten minutes to see if I was moving up, down or sideways. Blogging can be very stressful, if you let it.

On … the … nose.

In my opinion, if you’re going to have a very long life as a blogger, you’ve first got to surrender to the math. Becoming a “blog star” has now approached the percentage of success one might expect if you tried … really really hard … to become a “rock star.” I know, anybody can have a blog. Well, anybody can learn to play guitar. But not everyone gets to be Carlos Santana. Or even Rick Nielsen (who’s a damn fine guitarist, but about as well known to the average American as, well, Don Surber).

However, along the path of trying really really hard to become a “rock star,” people can do a lot of foolish things. They change the way they act and dress. They try to build an “image.” They try to write “hits” ... that suck. Because they are trying so hard. The bottom line is that you better be doing it for a love of the guitar, or music in general, because the odds are strongly against you if some kind of “fame” is all you seek.

The number of blogs doubles every five months … but the audience does not. Today, Technorati is tracking 21.8 million blogs. If we assume two thirds of the US population is online, that’s roughly 190 million people … or an average of nine potential American readers per blog.

Got more than nine readers? You’re doing above average. Are you doing this for the links, traffic, and your 15 seconds on online fame? Take it from someone who’s been doing this for five and a half years … you won’t last. Links and traffic come and go. And as the number of blogs is increasing exponentially, they mostly go.

If that’s your motivation, it is inevitable that it will dry up. Or decrease to the point you no longer have any interest in devoting the time. Do you feel frustrated over your current level of traffic? Then you’ve already got a problem.

You might as well be writing for money. Which brings us to Open Source Media, changed to Pajamas Media … five days after launch. In particular, we have an attempt at self critique titled “The Turkey That Laid A Golden Egg.”

I wrote about their launch, and said that I was willing to give them some time to “adjust.” But it seems clear that the one thing that OSM/PJM/Whatever has generated in the largest quantity is “ugly reaction and blogfights.”

Their self-critique was as well received as tofu in Texas.

Stephen Bainbridge “At the risk of descending to a level of crudeness to which this blog rarely goes, the only phrase that comes to mind is ‘circle jerk.’ As far as I can tell, they still lack not just a business model but also a raison d’être.”

OSM/PJM Member Laurence Simon: “It’s rather ironic that this is happening on Thanksgiving. On this day, across the land, families are being divided into ‘Adults Table’ and ‘Kids Table.’ Similarly, OSM/Pajamas Media is having the ‘Adult Conversation’ in earshot of the kids, but the kids are not invited to participate because it is assumed they have nothing to learn from such discussions or contribute to such a debate [...] It appears to be public that more thought went into the planning of the launch party than the site itself.”

Joe Gandelman: “Right now it’s as revolutionary to blogging and media as Costco coming out with a new frozen pizza would be to frozen pizza.”

From what I can gather, they made about 300 bloggers sign a no-compete/no-disclosure agreement to join up some six months ago, and then later dumped about 230 of them, which insured a couple hundred immediate critics come launch day. However, it does not appear to me there was anything to “disclose,” nor much with which to “compete.”

If we look back to May when the agreement went out, Steve H. said “It looks like this is the general idea: you put code on your site, and ads appear, and Pajama Media picks good stuff from member blogs and gets it published in newspapers and so on. I may be wrong; I’ve read it twice, but coffee isn’t a miracle drug. Anyway, they took EIGHT PAGES to say that.”

So even back then, it wasn’t clear to people what OSM/PJM was going to be. But they signed up anyway. Six months and $3.5 million in venture capital later, most people don’t seem to be able to figure out the core focus of OSM/PJM, and what sets them apart from 21 million other sites.

And that “self-critique” by four of the members of the OSM/PJM board? It’s a compound satire of some sort. It has to be. Surely after all this time in the center of the blogstorm, people have learned more than is displayed in this “self-critique.”

Let’s start with the most basic thing: function. I previously commented on their validation and structure issues, because, well, that’s what you do when there’s a lack of content on which you can comment. And here in this “self-critique,” the comments each have a permanent link. Or so it would appear.

They don’t work. Oh, all the parts are there, and if you know what you’re doing, you can create one that works for yourself. But my point is, here’s a most basic blog feature, permalinks on comments, a part of most every basic blog software out there, and with six months and $3.5 million, OSM/PJM somehow missed that. It’s indicative.

What, you’d rather hear me critique content than code? OK, here’s board member Cliff May: “Keep the tasks simple and young, underpaid interns can do them just fine. For example, taking a quick survey to see what issues a few dozen key blogs are right now focusing on (or, better yet, obsessing about).”

Is it just me, or does the above sound like what some aging newspaper editor would say from beneath his green visor? “Send some young underpaid interns down to the city library, have them dig through the research stacks, and report back what those durn blogs are talking about.”

Cliff, I have three made-up words for you: Technorati, Memeorandum, Blogsnow. They are your “young underpaid interns,” they work around the clock, and update at least once per hour. Most of us have been using them (or their now creaky ancestors, Blogdex and Daypop) for a very long time.

What else have you got?

Eventually, the two primary co-founders show up in this “self-critique.” Charles contributes some monkey jokes and fixes a link, and Roger flings some more dirt out of the hole they are digging.

Roger Simon: “And speaking of criticism/self-criticism, one of the mistakes (some of it being from time pressure) that we made in putting up our site was not allowing for sufficient possibility for rapid dynamic change. This results in a lot of phone calls from me to Charles like ‘When’re you going to get up the new logo already?’ Or when’re we going to have more simultaneous real time content (that Adam is correctly asking for)? But these things take time and in the blogosphere minutes seem like hours, as the old song goes.”

Where to begin? How about the idea that some of their mistakes are due to “time pressure.” They were sending out contracts six months ago. If they ran out of time to do the job right, it wasn’t for a lack of a head start. During that same time period, I personally, all by myself, have built seven web sites. In addition to the content you see here. For a whole hell of a lot less than $3.5 million. I know it’s not a straight up comparison, but you get my point. We’re not building pyramids here.

At any rate, they say one of their mistakes was “not allowing for sufficient possibility for rapid dynamic change” ... on a site that (supposedly) conglomerates content from blogs that are updated daily (hourly?), sites that are about nothing but dynamic change?!?

The most gracious explanation I can think of for that is maybe they made a very poor choice of content management system, one that doesn’t allow for dynamic change, or even functional comment permalinks. It sounds like they didn’t build the site with the consideration it might have to be rapidly altered, which means there was no contingency plan for failure. It was assumed to be a home run, as is. Or else (it appears) it was going to be a lot of trouble to change.

And when you say “these things take time and in the blogosphere minutes seem like hours,” you expect people to ignore the fact this enterprise has been planned and hyped for half a year or more, and had about 35,000 times the resources of most sites in their pre-launch phase. There’s just no excuse for the first week being such a disaster … except a serious lack of planning, testing, and exposure to Real People.

More dirt flinging from Roger: “Glenn, regarding feedback and comments, we’ve been discussing that internally. We obviously want to avoid spam and junk comments, if that’s possible. One proposal is have everyone register for a nominal fee (say three bucks) with a credit card payment to one of several charities (not to Pajamas). That way people have identified themselves as real human beings… and given some money to something worthwhile. Our thought is they would be less likely to spew hate from whatever angle. What do you think?”

Again, I hardly know where to begin. I guess making people make a credit card payment, even a nominal one to a charity, would indeed be something revolutionary from OSM/PJM. Never been done before.

There might be a reason for that.

Listen, we all have to deal with spam, junk comments, and people spewing hate. If you have a web site, it’s part of the package. Your alternative is to not have comments, one I think is the right choice for many sites. Having regular comments on every post at Instapundit would be insane, purely from the standpoint of server resources, never mind any form of comment moderation.

Unless maybe you’ve got a bunch of venture capital, and can have a staffer ride herd over comment moderation.

I’m just amazed by the seeming cluelessness displayed by people who know better. Perhaps the most glaring example is the lack of RSS. If you are a web content producer of any type, and you do not offer some form of Really Simple Syndication, you’re a dinosaur. OSM/PJM was born that way. I mean, c’mon, even the New York Times and the Washington Post offer RSS feeds. Y’know, the clueless MSM (for those not up on their BlogAcronyms, that’s “main stream media”).

But then many would ask, what would that RSS feed show us? As Davebo says in a comment at John Cole’s, “Live blogging a parade. 3.5 million USD and they’re live blogging a parade.”

I’m still very confused by the use of wire news feeds, at all, whether from China or AP. I can get that from my local paper online, and a dozen dozen other sources on the web. Including via RSS. Why is it such a big chunk of what OSM/PJM appears to offer?

They had to know they’d be subjected to the same criticism blogs subject all new things in this virtual kingdom. Worse, because they’d dumped so many before launch. Yet it seemed to catch them totally by surprise.

On his own site, Roger says “Over at Pajamas Central we’re already working on our site to make it more action oriented and generally bloggy … We’ve heard mucho criticism that there’s not enough there there, to use Gertie Stein’s immortal words. Well, we’re trying to put more there there. Just give us a few days and some time to gobble some turkey of our own. We did get to the name thing pretty quickly, didn’t we?”

Taking a peek today, I do seem to see a bit more of their “compiled” stories, something that would qualify as original content. But not much else in the way of substantive change, when it’s pretty clear their current mix isn’t wowing anyone. In fact, it appears to be pissing off quite a few.

Obviously, I’m no insider on this deal. The only version I’ve heard of the “beginning” of OSM/PJM is from someone who is not an insider any longer either. I’ve had no reason to devote more than about 30 minutes of thought to this over the week or so since they launched.

But here’s what I would have done, aside from name changes and structure issues. The problem is content, as should have been obvious the first time they sat down to talk about building this. The problem is that even on their Best of the Blogs page, the links don’t go to the actual content, they go to a “landing page” with the first couple of paragraphs of that content … and an ad. And, oh yeah, a link to the external site.

This whole web phenomenon is about the fact anyone can publish their own original content, and anyone else can make a link to it. That’s the wheel you do not need to re-invent. So rip off a chunk of Nick Denton’s model, and fertilize it with some steroids. He hires someone essentially part-time to work on one of his empire of sites, pays them (rumors vary) $24,000 to $36,000 per year to make 12 to 20 posts per day on that site. They can even do it in their pajamas.

You could hire five such people, pay them $35,000 a year (10% burn rate of your capital for two years’ salaries times five people), and expect 60 to 100 posts per day. You could even insist they post in their pajamas. Take pictures of it. Revel in it.

Hire two blood red righties, two bold blue lefties, and one gray pale independent. Let them scour the web and excerpt and link the best they find. Not just from your list of “OSM Blogs,” but from anywhere and everywhere. Even then, you’d have the problem of finding the right mix of five people, but you’ve got over 21 million to choose from, so I think it can be done.

The complaint might be that such a model would reduce overall page views and thus the number of ad views. While you could mitigate this somewhat by giving your five site authors their own “sub-blogs” that are only excerpted on the home page, if your primary goal at this point in this train wreck is still ad views, well, those are going to decrease no matter what you do.

Until you have some serious can’t-get-it-elsewhere content.

Well, several thousand words later, I guess I’m glad I got that off my chest. Seems to be a biannual thang. It just disturbs me to see what “blogging” is becoming in various ways, as it becomes a victim of its own popularity. I honestly don’t know what the majority of “bloggers” think they’re doing anymore, but it seems for most it’s a means to an end. For me, this is the end.

I’ve had a web site for nine and a half years. I do this for myself. And I hope you like it, even link to it. But if you don’t, I’ll still be doing it.

People are so eaten up with the “here and now,” and if their latest post doesn’t have an impact meeting their expectations today, it’s of no value. Anyone who has spent time reading the diaries of a woman telling how her life and her surrounding world was during the Civil War knows that isn’t true.

We all are alive during a very historic time. People will argue over who had the first blog, but in relative historic terms, we all do. This era will be viewed as the cusp of the web, or whatever it becomes. No matter which Tom, Dick, or Harriet links to you today, what critter you are in the TTLB Ecosystem, or how many ad views you get.

Fifty years from now, no one will care about any of that. They’ll only care about your content.