Blogosphere A.D.D.
Posted on May 18, 2007
Filed Under Reason, Blogging, Web 2.0, Politics |
For those of you who have read and actually understand American history, particularly as it pertains to the founding fathers, you realize that conversation–passionate, sometimes even fiery debate–were the very fiber and filament of the political and social fabric of their time. The idea was revered by all, and discussions and debates about ideas would carry on for weeks and months. It just wasn’t acceptable or even thinkable to leave a debate unfinished, no matter how long it took.
How ashamed they would be of us today.
With a tool as powerful as the blogosphere at the disposal of everyone with internet access–a tool that exists for the sole purpose of engaging an ever-growing, global audience in conversation–one would think we’d be more interested in actual ideas and debate than in publicity.
I blame Google. Google, which is obviously the Xerox of search (meaning the brand that has become the verb), has necessitated that bloggers concern themselves more with frequency of posts than with substance if the blogger hopes to gain any kind of page rank or authority–in other words, exposure–from Google.
I guess Google isn’t solely to blame though; the ever-shortening attention span of the masses contributes significantly to the problem as well. Google authority, after all, relies largely on backlinks, and backlinks in the blogosphere are earned by posting frequently (and to a lesser degree substantively) enough to keep the attention of the public. The more the blogger is able to keep the reader’s attention, the more backlinks the blog will gain, the better the placement in Google search results, the more people will discover the blog and start paying attention to it, which attention the blogger will have to try to maintain…by posting frequently.
The sad truth, however, is that in my experience, very few bloggers, particularly political and social commentators, are interested in carrying on extended conversation about the issues they blog about, nor are their readers who comment on the posts. Over the past several months, I have made it a point to comment on various blogs–mostly liberal blogs–in an attempt to engage both the blogger and the readers in deeper conversation about the issues raised in the blog posts. Those issues are broad in scope, everything from abortion to Mormonism to Mitt Romney and more. Almost invariably, my comments elicit some kind of response, as is typical when a conservative has the nerve to comment on a particularly liberal blog.
I welcome it.
Unfortunately, however, with few exceptions, the conversation on any particular blog post has a life-span of about twelve hours, if that much. So just when the debate is starting to get good, those who once seemed so eager to voice their opinions suddenly fall mute and vanish into oblivion. (For the purpose of this blog post, the term “oblivion” shall be understood to mean “a more recent blog post conversation.”)
It’s a sad fact that bloggers pursue post proliferation much more passionately than progress. No one takes time to really dig into an issue, they just publish talking points, maybe a few follow-up comments, and then move on.
I think the founding fathers would be ashamed of us. Such a powerful communication medium available to basically every citizen, and yet by and large the bloggers are so intent on monetizing their blogs (which requires frequency of posting under current models) that they can’t afford to engage in real conversation.
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