(Direct) What’s with this explosion of blogs?
Every schoolkid has one. Every would-be author or philosopher has one. Every frustrated lover has one.
That’s why a potentially informative medium already has its waters loaded with mud. The communications parallel is the online newsletter, whose informational value seems inevitably to succumb to either a) issuer boredom; b) an empty useful-information basket; or c) degeneration of intention, from enlightenment to ego satisfaction.
One of those research companies that haunt online direct marketing has named the procedure “RSS,” for “Really Simple Syndication.” (We all know that “simple” has a number of meanings.) Research can analyze, but it’s up to us to implement. The question is whether the blog is a sophisticated next-generation marketing tool or an unproved cry for attention costumed in a technology package.
Tough question, because right now it’s both. Here’s a newspaper headline: “Blog Confession Convicts Youth of Manslaughter.” The youngster mentioned on his personal blog that he had been responsible for a DUI auto crash. Somebody in law enforcement read the blog.
The Pew (that’s its name) Internet & American Life Project, whatever that is, says it studies Internet trends. The Project says some 8 million kids between ages 12 and 17 read and/or write blogs. For a sour taste, take a look at a sample Web site dedicated to blogs, Blurty.com. But first, take some Prozac. To quote a sometime-lawyer friend, Res ipsa loquitur: The thing speaks for itself.
Al Jazeera staffers have a blog—Dontbomb.blogspot.com—and that one typifies the universal problem of blogs: They’re opinion, not fact. If I want fact, I’ll go to Google or CNN.com. What already has shown up repeatedly in the short, dynamic history of blogs is an informational problem I regard as major. No, make that huge: opinion masquerading as fact. The problem intensifies as others who may share those opinions pick them up and re-report them as fact. Ugh.
The proprietress of Accidentalhedonist.com states publicly, “I generally have an opinion about everything.” The fellow who issues Obsessionwithfood.com justifies his opinions with “I spend a lot of time thinking about and learning about food and wine, so I’ve always got something to talk about.” Paralleling those parameters, so does Safeway.
The ubiquity of blogs has to stupefy Tim Berners-Lee and others who originated online information transfer. With an accuracy ratio that probably is as dependable as the guesses by those online “research” authorities (whose “authoritative” predictions seem to change by the hour), I opine that 77.8% of all blogs are ego-pieces whose purpose is to tell whoever is out there, “Look what a deep thinker I am.” It’s the other 22.2% that suffer damage as the river of blogs becomes a flood.
Alert: Paralleling that last comment, most blogs are opinions, propaganda or showoffs. Opinions are as valuable as facts only when no facts exist. Propaganda is opinion masquerading as fact, a despicable ploy. Showoff is a prime indication of self-recognized inferiority. Res ipsa loquitur: The thing speaks for itself.
If you Google the word “blog” you’ll find, unsurprisingly, about half a billion entries. Also unsurprising is the semi-literacy of so many blogs.
Example: A Google paid listing—paid listing—starts, the day I’m writing this (count the misspellings, if you’re as annoyed as you should be), “It has been over 3 months now since I moved from my last place, and since then my roomate and I have made several calls to timewarner, written several letters, and managed to contact the better business bureau of milwaukee, and now we finally have a posibly maybe real date for install of digital cable into the home. Unfourtunitly for TimeWarner, in the 4 months that they have delayed, Apple has delivered a 1,2 punch to the length at which I might have cable. iTunes has just signed NBC’s content, including Battlestar Galactica, for distrobution on the iTunes media store, it may not be long untill I buy all of my once channeled media from online vendors like iTunes. I am expecting to continue buying each commercial free episode of ABC’s Lost, and now I will start paying for my downloads of Battlestar Galactica. The only thing I can hope for now is that Firefly is published right to the iTunes store.”
Ugh.
A site called Blogger.com offers on its home page this explanation of what’s going on: “Since Blogger was launched, almost five years ago, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others. “And we’re pretty sure the whole deal is just getting started.”
The descriptive word: Terrifying. Why? Because this validates the notion that opinion is as legitimate as fact. Politicians have built careers on that flimsy substitution for statesmanship. Now we go a step deeper into this pit.
If we accept political blogs as political and accept personal blogs as a means of self-expression, two different questions arise: 1) What aberration in contemporary society corroborates the narcissistic notion that your blog interests outsiders, who never heard of you and have only a voyeuristic interest in your personal diary or rantings? 2) What personality quotient describes somebody who devotes time and interest to blogs excreted by others he or she doesn’t even know?
I suppose we might add a third question: Why would anyone devote an entire column in Direct to a third-level subject such as this, a minor scratch on the subsurface of communications? The answer, I admit with a grin rather than a confession: Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself. D
Herschell Gordon Lewis (www.herschellgordonlewis.com) is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. His 29th book, “Open Me Now,” was published last year. “Burnt Offerings,” scheduled for fall publication, will explore direct response fundraising. Among his other books are “Asinine Advertising,” “On the Art of Writing Copy” (third edition), “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”
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