Lotsa Kool Aid
I have been doing a lot of work and research on the blogosphere recently and I am coming to two conclusions about our new medium that, a priori, may appear contradictory:
1. Everyone is drinking the same kool aid
2. The bloggers of 1005- 2010 are the research analysts of the 1990s.
What do I mean? Topics, companies and stories tend to pick up speed in the blogosphere much faster than they are picked up or cared about in the outside world. This is the result of top bloggers linking to each other and expanding on each others commentary and due to a few very aggressive commenters, pingbackers, diggers and talkbackers.
See this snippet from a great New Yorker article entitled "Blogs To Riches:"
You can follow a story from Gigaom or techcrunch, where they often break out, through the blogosphere, watching as it reaches hysterical escape velocity across all the tech blogs out there (of which there are a lot). The Net Neutrality discussions or web 2.0 company discussions are perfect examples. This point came through to me clearly from a recent post by Dion Hinchcliffe. Here is an excerpt:
In my view , this is the blogosphere drinking its own manufactured kool aid.
The second point is a little more subtle. In the 90s, if you sought credibility as a start up, you needed to get your sector's analysts on board. The likes of Gartner, Meta, AMR became large and ever more important for that reason. For whatever reason, customers felt more comfortable buying your product if it was recommended by one of these firms and good PR or coverage in a major newspaper or magazine was predicated on getting a reputable analyst to say something nice about your company or product and create a space or a magic quadrant around your start up. The research firms were credibility markers.
I find that the same is true today of the blogosphere. If you want to be on the map or picked up in the mainstream press, you need to be anointed by the blogosphere. Truth be told, for a while this was much better. You see, the little secret of the research organizations was that they were essentially pay to play. You need to buy the research to get the analyst's time so that they would know about you. Nobody ever admits this but it is true. For a while, the blogosphere was pure. But recently, I have seen one too many disclaimers of bloggers who are on advisory boards or who have done consulting work for a lot of these companies. The good news is that at least bloggers have the honesty to disclose it. The bad news is that I am sure deep down it influences who these influencers write about, especially in a medium that drinks its own Kool Aid.
Among the reasons, I link to seekingalpha and GigaOM on my blog is because they are dependable and transparent. This is critically important. The blogosphere is a very important place but we need to guard it with transparency and credibility both in terms of what is discussed, how it is discussed and who is funding its discussion.
1. Everyone is drinking the same kool aid
2. The bloggers of 1005- 2010 are the research analysts of the 1990s.
What do I mean? Topics, companies and stories tend to pick up speed in the blogosphere much faster than they are picked up or cared about in the outside world. This is the result of top bloggers linking to each other and expanding on each others commentary and due to a few very aggressive commenters, pingbackers, diggers and talkbackers.
See this snippet from a great New Yorker article entitled "Blogs To Riches:"
"Huffington also neatly intuited the importance of linking, putting scores of A-list bloggers on her blogroll, realizing they would probably return the compliment."
You can follow a story from Gigaom or techcrunch, where they often break out, through the blogosphere, watching as it reaches hysterical escape velocity across all the tech blogs out there (of which there are a lot). The Net Neutrality discussions or web 2.0 company discussions are perfect examples. This point came through to me clearly from a recent post by Dion Hinchcliffe. Here is an excerpt:
The Wall of Hype: This seems to have calmed down a bit but it also might just be moving around. Web 2.0 hype does seem to have diminished in the face of some withering anti-hype and the hype cycle has moved more to Web 2.0-related developments like mashups and the latest round of Web 2.0 startups. Nevertheless, Web 2.0 promotion continues unabated in certain circles (My note: read: blogosphere)... I will give you my point of view one last time; Web 2.0 is real. And for that good reason, and some not so good ones, there is a lot of hype surrounding it.
The Wall of Ignorance. I find that most people in the real world (as in not the blogosphere) have no real idea what a blog is yet, much less a wiki.
In my view , this is the blogosphere drinking its own manufactured kool aid.
The second point is a little more subtle. In the 90s, if you sought credibility as a start up, you needed to get your sector's analysts on board. The likes of Gartner, Meta, AMR became large and ever more important for that reason. For whatever reason, customers felt more comfortable buying your product if it was recommended by one of these firms and good PR or coverage in a major newspaper or magazine was predicated on getting a reputable analyst to say something nice about your company or product and create a space or a magic quadrant around your start up. The research firms were credibility markers.
I find that the same is true today of the blogosphere. If you want to be on the map or picked up in the mainstream press, you need to be anointed by the blogosphere. Truth be told, for a while this was much better. You see, the little secret of the research organizations was that they were essentially pay to play. You need to buy the research to get the analyst's time so that they would know about you. Nobody ever admits this but it is true. For a while, the blogosphere was pure. But recently, I have seen one too many disclaimers of bloggers who are on advisory boards or who have done consulting work for a lot of these companies. The good news is that at least bloggers have the honesty to disclose it. The bad news is that I am sure deep down it influences who these influencers write about, especially in a medium that drinks its own Kool Aid.
Among the reasons, I link to seekingalpha and GigaOM on my blog is because they are dependable and transparent. This is critically important. The blogosphere is a very important place but we need to guard it with transparency and credibility both in terms of what is discussed, how it is discussed and who is funding its discussion.
posted by Michael Eisenberg at 1:55 PM
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