This turned up on my eCommerce trends Newsletter but was originally published in the Financial Times
Tom Foremski, publisher of Silicon Valley Watcher and ex-FT correspondent, writes a terrific piece in the Financial Times on a new phase of the Internet that's emerging, fueled by a new class of technologies coming out of Silicon Valley that don't even have a name yet, but have the potential to be disruptive in their application.
Blogs and Wikis are shaping up to become one of the most important features of "Internet 2.0," Tom says, which could become recognized as the "killer applications" of the next few years. Let me explain why I think these technologies are so ground breaking.
[...] The content of blogs is not the interesting part - it is the underlying Blogging software and its ability to automate the many tasks required to run a website. No technical skills are required of the writer, beyond being able to use a browser and the ability to type.
For less than $100, Blogging software such as the popular Movable Type, from Six Apart, is a good enough replacement for online content management systems costing more than 1,000 times as much.
The disruptive potential Tom speaks about is to do with communicating and distributing content via mechanisms such as trackbacks and RSS:
Trackback automatically detects if someone has published a link to your Blog post, and it will publish their comment on your Blog. [...] The response of readers to a news story, for example, can be plainly seen in real-time. It also means that other bloggers, by writing a comment and publishing a link to the original story, become distributors of that content to their readers. And it shows that if the content is relevant, an audience will find it, and also personally recommend it to others through their blogs.
RSS is another way to distribute Blog content. It allows readers to subscribe to a Blog and read the content without having to visit the originating site. RSS makes it possible to aggregate the content from several sites within software called a "newsreader."
The first problem with this whole caboodle is that it takes no account whatever of the dynamics of the businesses that are supposed to be about to plunge into this thing. It doesn't occur to him that the present, clunky, inefficient, bloody annoying tools that are needed to publish corporate websites are just fine with the bosses, whose principal requirement is NOT to get disrupted thanks.
The second problem is that the content, whatever Tom says, matters. It matters to hell and back because if you think you can just dump any old garbage into a Blog and have it linked to, discussed, tracked back etc without the value of the content mattering a whole hell of a lot, you are delusional. What you say, and how you say it, and how quickly you get to say it is the key to bloggery.
To keep scratching the old saw [I know, its pune] the Internet is a conversation, it needs to be an authentic conversation among people who feel comfortable talking in this environment. But sometimes you slip, and stuff gets out, and unless your whole business is ready and able to conduct its entire activities on the front counter, you ain't ready for blogs. And wait till you get a look at folksonomies, technorati, furl and the lot.
Tools have consequences, they also, despite many assertions to the contrary, express agendas. Tom is right there, blogs are disruptive, and they network like fury, and unless your business is that kind of business, you will stick with the current clunkers because they let you feel safe. If Apple can get its pants in a bunch over people releasing details when they weren't supposed to, I'd bet there are very few corporate entities within a bulls roar of being able to cope with a Blog in the house.
Good spot and good comment. BTW, something weird is happening with the formatting of this in my browser. I'd email you a screengrab but can't find your email address.
Posted by: Johnnie Moore | March 14, 2005 at 02:32 AM