Update II: A few days after this post, David Permutter e-mailed a response. In fairness, I’ll post an excerpt:
I thank you for your extensive analysis of my short piece on the “blog bust.” I wonder, though, if you are under the impression that I’m anti-blog. I’m anti-hype of all kinds: whether it is for the boxoffice receipts of a Hollywood movie, the fundraising of a prominent Presidential contender, or claims about blogs. The facts are that many statistics bandied about blog usership and ownership are based on questionable criteria and categories. To say that is not an attack on blogs–I don’t think so anyway. I like blogs; I read blogs; I support blogs; I admire bloggers. I just also support truth-in-numbers.
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Mass communication professor David Perlmutter asks, “Will blogs go bust?”
Perlmutter is writing a book on political blogs, and I was one of his interviewees. Based on the article, he thinks the blog hype is overblown because there are several challenges to blogs as independent and authentic “new press.” He breaks it down to three main points:
First, are bloggers truly “the people”? Bloggers tend to come from the higher-education and higher-income portion of the population. This is as true in Egypt or Nigeria as it is in the United States. Peasants don’t blog….
Second, astronomical descriptions of blogging numbers fail to account for that fact that many blogs are rarely updated or are orphans. These are blogs posted by people, as a lark, or as an experiment, typically with free and easy programs like Blogger.com. They put up a few posts, get bored, do not get any reaction, or get lots of the wrong kind of reaction and drop out…
Blog numbers are also falsely inflated by fake blogs, a new form of passive spam that I call “clogs.”
First, I’ll tell you what I “get” about the article. You need a computer to blog, and computers cost money. If you’re “poor,” however that’s defined these days, a computer may be a luxury. There are more computer owners among higher-income people than lower. Consequently, it seems correct on the surface that bloggers tend to come from higher-income brackets. But Perlmutter is probably thinking only of big-time and/or political bloggers like the ones he mentioned in the article. I wonder how broadly he conducted his research.
He’s also correct in his second point. It’s so simple and cheap to start a blog that the medium is bound to attract the dilettante, the curious, and the uncommitted. And a “clog” is an ugly thing to behold. This is an example of a clog. It’s filled with keywords and ads designed to lure visitors searching for information on home businesses. Search engines, especially Google, are attracted to blogs because of the links and frequently updated content, and marketers create spam blogs that are nothing more than online junk mail.
Perlmutter’s overall point is, I think, blogs should be independent and authentic; otherwise, the “optimistic model” of blogs as “the feisty new press…ruling the world” is overblown. If certain blogs are going to serve that purpose, I agree, but not all blogs do.
A blog can be whatever the user wants it to be. The independence and authenticity blogs provide are only two of many aspects of blogging, not the defining characteristics, but he seems to think they’re the only characteristics.
Blogs aren’t merely mainstream media gadflies. They’re a vehicle for communicating, and the message is whatever the blogger wants to say. Perlmutter overanalyzes something as simple and organic as a blog. This is a problem that plagues most non-bloggers, especially academics.
He also compares, strangely, today’s enthusiasm for the blog medium with the dot.com hype of the 1990s. But blogs are not businesses in themselves; they are communication tools. Why Perlmutter ignores the obvious analogy between blogs and other communication tools like the telephone or television is a mystery.
Did the telephone or television go bust? No. The technology used to create them improved, as will blogging technology. Blogging platforms inevitably will become more flexible and even more user-friendly, but they won’t “winnow” out like dot.com businesses. Strange ideas you have, professor.
I got a headache trying to pin down the gist of this article. That frequently happens when I read pieces written by non-bloggers trying to figure out blogs. Don’t analyze them, Professor Perlmutter. Just blog.
Related:
- “Manly” Maney Says Blog Novelty Will Wear Off
- Ken Fuson’s Confusion
- Nick Coleman’s Blog Envy
- The NYT may be coming around a little.
Update: Jeff Javis has some catty words for Perlmutter. The Moderate Voice also reacts. The Captain dresses down another blog player-hater.
