The Revolution: Fear of Blogging

Blogs are more than political blather and teenage angst



Can the world have too many bloggers?
Could they dirty the gray black water of the great Bloggy River?

Beyond politics, there is life

I have been a journalist, writer and editor for more than 25 years and a publisher for three. I first heard of blogs as online diaries kept by political observers. For many adults who have not yet put hand to keyboard for their own blogs, they remain essentially that: political soapboxes.

When is a blog not a blog?

My attention span for political blather is short, so I was at first delighted, then thrilled, to discover that blogging can—and clearly will—change the world beyond its impact on presidential elections.

The world will only realize what hit it, however, when the focus shifts from content to the underlying technology and the options it offers us.

This week I met with fellow journalists to work through ideas about setting up an online newspaper. It will carry news, information, resources, and now and again opinions. It won't have blog in its name. It won't look like a blog, but it will use the software. It will accept the basic blog principle that what you see first is what was posted most recently.

Fear of Blogging = fear of speed of change = technology fatigue factor, for a lot of people






I have also been reflecting on four recent Fear of Blogging discussions, and I am now convinced that the over-30 population needs to redefine "blog" for itself.

Mother, relax, it's just a blog thing

Here is a scrappy start to redefining blogs:

• blogs, with 30 million people posting them, have become mainstream
• journalists are not being put out of business by instant experts but they will have to work harder to prove their credibility
• you can post the company drivel but you'll get more visitors looking at nice photos
• you won't get kids to stop blogging by scaring parents into thinking these new web things are subversive and dangerous

Subversive but not dangerous, a wall in a storm in Sao Paulo

Taking my own advice, in the longer version of this that follows (printable PDF file), I added photos to keep you reading and I'm keeping this entry relatively short. Read more . . . (1300 words)