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Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: July 27, 2008
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The Changing Blogosphere and Blogging 2.0

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Is blogging today fundamentally different to blogging five years ago? It’s a topic some smart people have been discussing recently. Darren Rowse bemoans the loss of relational focus where blogs have become more selfish in their participation in the broader community. Richard McManus notes that professional blogging reflects the mainstream media, including the negatives, in what he calls Mixed Messages in The Blogging Landscape.

It’s easy to be sentimental about “the good old days” of blogging, and I could wax lyrical about the community spirit that has seemingly been lost as blogging has grown up. Without being able to quote empirical evidence, take it as a given that the collective sense of community once shared by all bloggers in no longer. This is not to say that community doesn’t exist, but it has become fractured, splintered into group silos where most of the outward linking has been replaced by cross linking within a clique or no linking at all, where trolling has become an acceptable practice, and where the focus of shared experiences have been replaced by the differences that keep us apart.

Mark Rizzn Hopkins notes in a post today that opposition to Blogging 2.0 may be reflective of a more selfish blogosphere. I’ve written a fair bit about Blogging 2.0 previously here at The Inquisitr, but I don’t believe I’ve ever looked at the reasons why Blogging 2.0 has emerged.

Blogging 2.0 is the blogosphere’s first counterculture movement

The origins of blogging go back to pages of shared links highlighting great content outside of the site itself. Over time blogging evolved from outward links into points of content, and the linking ethos that shared traffic outwards was replaced by a culture that focused on inward links. Blogs as a destination for content became focused on pageviews, most often linked to driving advertising, and profit. Blogging as a unselfish act of sharing turned into a self-focused milk every pageview play, with a strong focus on search engine traffic. If in 2003 I had accurately written about what blogs would be like in 2008, I would have been laughed at, the shift in 5 years has been that dramatic.

Blogging 2.0 runs counter to the prevailing ethos in blogging, which is maximize your Google juice, your page views, your links in, and refrain from sharing that traffic with others, without putting the end user first. Blogging 1.0 is all about maximizing the opportunities for the blog owner while ignoring community, where as blogging 2.0 maximizes the experience for the end user (reader).

In focusing on the experience for the end user, via linking, sharing and enabling the conversation across many places, blogging 2.0 rallies against today’s accepted norms.

Embracing Blogging 2.0 isn’t costly

Giving up accepted norms to embrace a counterculture is never easy, and yet embracing Blogging 2.0 doesn’t mean having to give up traffic and comments. See my May piece on Blogging 2.0 and Professional Blogging. The short version: services like Disqus actually encourage more commenting, creating a richer environment for you blog. FriendFeed can help your content be discovered and drive traffic.

Conclusion: Viva la revolution

No counterculture evolved without an unmet need. Blogging 2.0 seeks to fill the void left by the evolution of blogging into a format that no longer focuses primarily on community, a less friendly space. Blogging 2.0 tools are still evolving and emerging to fill this void, and we are still fairly early in to the process. The growing popularity of everything from Twitter through to FriendFeed, Disqus and many other fine services show that people are seeking a change for the better. The counter revolution of Blogging 2.0 has just begun.


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  • July 27, 2008 at 5:09 pm Mitchell Tsai
    Nice article Duncan! I liked the older May article you wrote also... What do you think about new Microsoft search algorithms like BrowseRank http://friendfeed.com/e/88ff1625-5244-3ee9-199a-7c9770d43f86 where the Web 2.0 Google-Microsoft-juice of the future which track dynamic user behavior may reward bloggers who engage their audiences across websites & platforms?
  • July 27, 2008 at 5:11 pm Peter Dawson
    this is a very well written post. Thought Provocation, as well clear and concise. The art of blogging died , a long time ago, when we had bloggers just running their sites to gt money. The Only blog/Blogger that I really have REAL respect is Blogscoped /Philipp Lenssen. He's the ONLY blogger that has well written stuff, innovative and clearly a class of his own. The rest have fallen from their Perch or on the verge of that !
  • July 27, 2008 at 5:11 pm Robert Scoble
    that is great but I am working on blogging 2.13. Waiting for all of you to upgrade. :-)
  • July 27, 2008 at 5:12 pm Peter Dawson
    Scoble's, make sure the herd follows you into Blog2.13 , please don't assume that just because you are going there, we'll follow you there !!
  • July 27, 2008 at 5:30 pm Mo Kargas
    *sigh* Why do people add '2.0' to everything. Any day now I'm expecting Big Mac 2.0 at McDonalds, or Bridgestone Tyre 2.0 or Wrigleys Extra Gum 2.0. Rant aside, excellent article. That said, I don't see any '2.0' with blogging, which I believe has been a fluid, changing, '2.0' entity since almost day one.
  • July 27, 2008 at 5:41 pm Igor The Troll
    Duncan the Social Media networks broke all boundaries of Blogging! Before you had to have a popular Blog like TechCrunch to make a statement, today it is all about synergy and connecting with your followers! One does not need a HiveThink mass to be relevant. An active and prominent micro community listening to what you have to say and spreading the gospel is much more desirable! Werewolf! Enlightened minority is more powerful than ignorant majority! The Revolution!
  • July 27, 2008 at 7:43 pm Duncan Riley
    Mo, in this case it's well suited as it is a new movement distinct from the old. And no, it hasn't been 2.0 since day one, it actually preceded the whole 2.0 social movement. In other posts I've noted that the change today is in some way blogging finally embracing the broader web 2.0 movement
  • July 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm Chris Baskind
    There are over 300 new features in Blogging 2.0.
  • July 27, 2008 at 8:41 pm Mark Trapp
    Chris, I'm waiting until December when they release the featureless update to Blogging 2.0, Snow Blogging, which focuses on security and reliability.
  • July 28, 2008 at 12:50 am Chris Baskind
    See? That's where I'm hurting. Snow Blogging is gonna leave me behind, since I'm still on a PPC desktop. Rats.
  • July 29, 2008 at 3:11 am Daniel Schildt
    Well written post. I think there have been change in mainstream blogging but in smaller circles there are still strong community feeling, at least based of what I have seen in many places. Yes, many more target search engines but for many it's also way of getting new readers and contributors (in form of comments), not just for money or fame. Anyways, there is always change in the world as people do things and get older. New blogs are born and many older ones disappear to endless sea of web.
  • July 29, 2008 at 6:33 am Paul Montgomery
    Mailing lists are where it's izzat.

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