blogging: oui ou non?

The meta-discourse round-up. With lists!

From the Guardian, by Sarah Lelic (www.mad.co.uk): a report on the state of blogging. According to a report in December, “Consumer Created Content” “around a quarter of European internet users are now active bloggers and contributors to online forums”. And, to the great joy of marketers, that about that number were taking part in organised activities, e.g. “polls and competitions”.

But then a new study came out claiming that actually only around 2% of UK’s internet users “publish or contribute to a blog”. And more damning, if one sees blogs as the voice of consumers and the voice of the marketers, “only 10% of the country’s online population looks at a blog more frequently than once a month”. And therefore the weight given to bloggers in public discourse, consumer value and media discussion has largely been overestimated.
It’s unclear where the numbers stand. But nonetheless, blogging is growing. And the Guardian offers these critiques/words of advice to corporate bloggers:

• present things honestly (or, cynically, with at least the illusion of honesty)
• avoid blogging as an overt marketing tool
• be aware of crises and use the blog to communicate the problem and diffuse concerns (I’d add, plan for how to use blogs in case of crises)
• figure out how to deal with disgruntled employee or customer blogs
• decide how to take on/ignore complaints
• weigh the risks and benefits

Levin also adds that “While the influence of blogging on the average consumer has perhaps been overstated for the present, it is inconceivable that the power of blogs and bloggers will do anything other than increase as time goes on.” But that’s also up to debate. There’s a whole debate on whether blogging has peaked: see here or here (the comments are interesting) or here.

Over at the Washington Post, the debate is focused on political/news blogs and their implications. The black v. white article “Blogs: Good or Evil?” can be reduced to two lists:

Good:

• blogs aren’t inherently evil
• blogs are interesting because “bloggers have a voice and emotions and are speaking directly to you. Because they’re up front about their biases”.
• blogs are fast

Evil:

• “They elevate analysis over news-gathering; they value speed over judiciousness; and they encourage the practice of journalism to turn in on itself, to tend ever more toward navel-gazing” (says Jonathan Last)
• most blog writing is lousy (I didn’t say it)
• keeps you from getting other stuff done (for Sarah Hepola that means writing a book)

The article goes on to talk about the ideal news blog, that takes a critical, judicial perspective on political behaviour. Which could be easily translated into any blog, and which isn’t too relevant here.

But to go back to Levin, and to the meta-level: what are we (Spreadshirt) doing here (in the blogosphere?). Another list? The idea is…

• to communicate news & info - it’s much less intrusive than mass-mails, and gives us more space to explain what is going on than just the homepage format.
• to showcase shops that are topical - since the fast format of blogs lets us do that. This lets the blog be a source of ideas for partners, news for media sources and promotion for the shops themselves.
• discuss the things that make up Spreadshirt - blogs, web 2.0, shirts, (online) marketing
• to facilitate communication with shop partners, customers, fans, haters
• to have something readable, personable, enjoyable (hence: headline shirts, my ramblings, etc.)

PS: Note to spammers. You’re killing me. Really. Even if I do love the “this site is very cognitive” comment. Could you knock it off?