Missing the Conversation for the Blogs

Lately I've been getting a tad discouraged with the rampant myopia about blogs.

Don't get me wrong: Obviously, I like blogs. I read them daily. I'm thrilled by all the ways they expand the public conversation and push the media envelope. Still, it's getting a bit tiresome to hear various major media thinkers ramble on about blogs, blogs, blogs as if blogs were a huge deal in and of themselves.

Personally, I think they're all missing the point. I'm considering printing up t-shirts or buttons to make it clear: "Don't miss the conversation for the blogs."

Here's why...

Blogs are indeed cool and important, but that's primarily because they're a popular and high-profile aspect of conversational media. In other words, conversational media is the main event. Blogs are only one part of that huge, influential picture.

It's also important to recognize that a "blog" is nothing more than a web site supported by a content management tool that provides a package of popular features. Therefore, if you want a blog that does nothing more than enable one-way online publishing, you can do that. (It's generally pretty boring, but yeah, it's an option.)

This is why, in a sense, Simon Dumenco was not completely wrong when he wrote in AdAge yesterday, "A Blogger Is Just a Writer with a Cooler Name." (Well, he was wrong to imply that the word 'blog' sounds cool.) Indeed, if you really want to you can choose to create a blog that is nothing more than a traditional monologue -- a kind of "content island," in a sense.

...Consequently, it strikes me as peculiarly fitting that Dumenco expressed his "bloggers are just writers" view in a traditional publishing venue that DOES NOT ALLOW COMMENTS.

Shortly after the AdAge article hit the web, Steve Rubel disputed Dumenco's analysis in "Blogging Isn't Just Writing, It's a Dialogue." Rubel wrote, "While some of what [Dumenco] says is true from a structural POV, from a cultural one it's bunk. Blogging more closely resembles conversation, not writing. It's dialogue, while most writing tends to be more monologue in nature. People don't converse with books or magazines on the same scale that they can with bloggers -- oops I forgot that Simon says 'writers.'"

Oh, Steve... you drew so tantalizingly close...   

In that quote, Rubel very nearly addressed the true elephant in the room: the public conversation (and by extension, the rise of conversational media, which is much bigger than blogging). But just before he got there, Rubel veered back into blog myopia.

Oh well, maybe I'll send Steve a t-shirt or button. If I print them up. I need a good design for that, and I'm no designer. (But if you are, and you'd like to contribute a design, please e-mail me.)

In the meantime, I think we'll all have to tolerate a fair amount of very smart people missing the conversation for the blogs. I do understand -- it's always hard to think outside the prevalent context. Fortunately, I think these folks will eventually step back, rub their eyes, and recognize the bigger picture.

That will be a very, very fine day. :-)

Comments

[DrumsNWhistles]

Here's where I'm stumbling over the conversational piece of things -- Blogs are awkward conversation vehicles. Your post earlier this month looking at a blog/message board partnership comes closer to me to being conversational, but following a conversation on blog comments to me is counter-intuitive and kludgy when compared to a message board thread.

What differentiates the two? Couldn't this conversation just as easily happen on a message board as a blog? Why choose a blog over a board?

In the blogs I've been reading, any conversation, per se, happens very soon after the blog post appears in feeds. It is generally in a very compressed time frame (not always, but usually...), mostly because if it isn't happening pretty close to real time, people just forget to look at the comments and/or post again.

This has been the hardest part for me to bend my mind around...I really appreciate the 'conversation' you're having about it.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Drums

I've given this a lot of thought as well. In many respects, a blog conversations is a 'controlled' conversation, or at least focused.

Forums on the other hand have 'level' playing field in the discussion, but can also be lead as thread topics, and moderators will guide the conversation.

Perhaps a forum is a "social mixer" vs blogs as a "soapbox preacher" could be used to visualize the differences.

Are Blog tools awkward conversation tools? Perhaps, as I have to explain how it works to others before they can do it. Don't worry this will evolve, content is separating from the display (amorphous) and redirected in many locations (ubiquity). I expect future conversations using the next generation of blog tools to be closer to real time chat –then evolve to audio then video

Amy, you nailed it again, well put.

[Chris Edwards]

How many blog posts do you see actual conversations on? You see people making points in public but they are not conversations in the conventional sense, they are public debates. A good many bloggers do not reply to commenters even when those commenters ask them direct questions. However, because the points are made and left in place, many commenters feel happy enough that they have made their mark. Blogging, in that respect actually allows the blogger to avoid conversation with visitors rather than get involved directly. You don't even see people correct posts when mistakes are made and pointed out - that the correction is sitting in a comment seems to be enough.

Drums has made the point already: the forum format actively promotes conversation and we have had those online since Usenet. Each forum provides many examples of what are, in effect, recorded conversations.

Blog discussions, on the other hand, often do not resemble the forum model. If you do get conversation in blog comments, that is often only between commenters and not between the blogger and their commenters. Does that make the blog a "conversational medium"? It promotes communication and the airing of views. But conversation? That I doubt.

Now, if bloggers can't tell the difference between a conversation and something else, why criticise someone who looks in from the outside and commments on what they see rather than what they are told to think.

One final point. The lack of comments on AdAge has not stopped people airing their views online and getting other people to notice. A number of bloggers do not have comments or trackbacks enabled (such as Dave Winer). How are they different or better? Or is the lack of a comment facility actually a problem in an environment where intermediaries such as Technorati have stepped in to track responses to blog posts or newspaper articles?

[scott]

Drums: Now, that's a good T-shirt -- "Blogs are awkward conversations."

Amy, you're right of course, but Drums is right also. I think technology will evolve pretty quickly to make blog conversations more fluid and natural -- and when this happens, it will be very clear to most people that blogs aren't simply another form of writing.

[lawrence coburn]

I don't think the technology is the problem when it comes to blog conversations lacking fluidity.

Because a Blog is typically authored/owned by one person - there is an inherent inequality in the conversation that goes on in the comments. One insider, everyone else is an outsider.

It is this dynamic that sort of bugs me about those that say that the blog format will be the ONLY winner in user generated content, and that centralized communities will either need to aggregate what happens in the blogosphere, or die.

I just don't see it. To me, forums and message boards and online communities will always be more conversational than blogs, because of the inherent inequality in the blog format.

[DrumsNWhistles]

Wow, great comments and thanks so much! I guess this would be a shining example of how a blog can spark a conversation, although I have these observations:

1) I had to write myself a note to come back and look at the comments. Now maybe there's a comment feed that I missed, but my experience with comment feeds is that they're confusing because the comments come through out of context. Had I not done a reminder, I'd have missed all of this wonderful insight.

2) I think all of you who mention evolving technology in this regard are right on the money with it -- as the technology becomes more conversation-friendly, the number of conversations will increase.

Jeremiah's analogy of a message board as a mixer and a blog as a soapbox is an interesting one. Soapboxes aren't always conducive to conversations. Maybe more of a town hall?

Finally, I think the t-shirt idea is excellent...I will have to make one! ;-)

Thanks again!

[Amy Gahran]

Catching up on responding to comments, here, bear with me...

DrumsNWhistles wrote: "Couldn't this conversation just as easily happen on a message board as a blog? Why choose a blog over a board?"

Well, my answer to that is that blogging tools provide important features to connect what happens on a blog to the larger public conversation. This happens fast, and automatically.

Namely, blogging tools provide feeds and permalinks.

Feeds allow you to get your postings (although not necessarily comments) indexed virtually instantly in feed aggregation services such as Technorati.

Permalinks are the unique, persistent URLs assigned automatically to every blog posting. This means that people can easily link directly to your blog posting, and that link will work forever.

Therefore, permalinks and feeds indirectly allow the possibility that a blog conversation can be rekindled months or years after the initial posting. I've seen it happen -- something old but relevant pops up in search results, I comment, the author responds (often with an update posting), and we're off and running again.

Neat, eh?

So this contradicts your view that blog conversations only happen immediately after the posting. That's true most of the time, but not always -- and that doesn't take into account threads that get rekindled with fresh postings.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

- Amy Gahran

[Lumpy]

As usual an interesting read with lots of comments worth reading. I agree with much of what is said here and can see your original point. I think something else is worth mentioning. I think it will be interesting to see how wikis will play into the picture.

About the only thing I see differently is I would have used the word "moderated" instead of "controlled" when refering to blog conversation but that is semantic.

While Bulletin Boards, message board or forums, which I feel are the same thing just different terms, certainly allow more freedom for individuals other than the original author. They are, however, almolst always moderated.

I do not know of a lot of sites using wikis at present and have just begun experimentation with them myself. Leo Laporte (leo.am) uses one very effectively to allow others to add to his show notes. I also read in one of my feeds the suggestion that families use them for Christmas wish list and such. I think another good idea of using a wiki would be for families interested in collectively creating a place "about them".

Wikis seem pretty similar to a forum but they allow the posters even more discretion regarding the final look of the posting. I wonder if, as users become aquantied with them, they will become more popular than forums?

As far as conversation goes, I think it is just as much a factor as who the writer is. Your post draw many comments. You tend to write about things that spark thoughts and conversation. When I post an entry about how to prevent spam from flooding you in-box, it is simply much less likely to draw anything more a few suggestions. (Ironically the post I put up about preventing spam get comment spam daily.)

I agree with what I see as your main point though. Too many are caught up in the marvel of CMS and not its purpose. The purpose is to connect and share.

[Chuck T]

It's so nice to know that I'm not alone! I agree entirely that it's more about the conversations than anything else. I also believe that Web sites (like AdAge) will eventually adopt many of the features we now associate with blogs. I wrote a bit about it, but I keep running into resistance from "traditional bloggers" who seem to believe the term has resonance. The fact is, the majority of the world has no idea what makes a blog a "blog." They just see information.

Blog, Wiki, forum, Podcast... does it really matter the form? Or is it more about what's being said to whom?

[raincoaster]

A very good conversation-starter. As someone who started out on message boards and drifted/fell to blogging, I think it's important to recognize the differences between them.

Blogs with comments windows that you have to click to open keep the dialogue under wraps. Blogs like this one which string comments out in the open are much more proactive about sparking dialogue.

Full disclosure: my blog does not have comments enabled, because I wished to be a topic of conversation, rather than a centre of it. Essentially, it was for self-expression and I deliberately avoided comments because I did not want feedback.

Message boards facilitate general, equal-opportunity conversation, but they thrive when either everyone posting is at an equal level or when there are a decent sprinkling of stars. If there is only one, then it should be a blog, not a message board.

Remember Rance? When Rance himself posted to the blog, it was lively and interesting, and very, very busy. A blog needs a strong leader. Once he stepped back and made it a "community" site, people drifted away till only two were left, talking to one another in the void. Sad. Rance wanted his blog to become a message board, or a wiki. But without Rance, there was no compelling reason for people to come back; I mean, Rubber Duckie had its own blog, no need to read it on CaptainHoof.