Blogs selling out - and then what?

It’s interesting to observe how many of the big international blogs are increasingly going mainstream. What started out as a revolt against ol’school mainstream media seems to have turned into small media entities themselves eager to go big just as their one-time adversaries.

Maybe it’s time we sit down and have a discussion on the future of blogging and its role - if any specific can really be identified - in the world of media and content? Lets give it a shot.

Jeff Jarvis made the point the other day how the perception of blogs have changed with some mainstream media companies during the course of the last three years. Where before it was frowned upon, many media companies are now actively trying to embrace the blog. Not always with great success, but they’re trying.

Blogs have become a way for media companies to engage subject matter experts in a whole different way than before. Using the media company as the launch platform, subject matter experts can reach much broader than before, and the media benefits from it. Especially if the subject matter experts engaged fits well with the overall brand and strategic positioning of the media company itself.

Thus the subject matter expert becomes direct competition to the journalists. Subject matter experts will always have a deeper knowledge of an area than a journalist trying to be the jack of more than one trade, and if they understand communication and ways to engage the audience well, it could work out fine.

But subject matter experts are not the only ones that blog. People do to as subject matter experts on their own lives. Where does this leave them?

Basically I think that this is where the media company itself could use the blog platform. This is an optimal place for journalists to reach out to people and engage in a dialogue with them. Done the right way this could provide a framework for the journalist to stay on the beat with what’s really going on within the areas of that particular journalists coverage, and it could thus provide for better and more relevant reporting. Everybody would win.

So what about companies and their blogs? I discussed this briefly with a business contact yesterday, and the view seems to be that blogs done by companies could have a relevance on niche sites operated in the end by the media company. This could be a way for the companies to get out where their customers are. Perhaps the media company could even charge them for providing the platform for this exposure? Just a thought.

Of course there’s the matter of journalistic integrety, but being in a niche and focusing on the community aspect of it, I think one should give the people the benefit of the doubt as to see through what’s just marketing BS and what’s really useful content. I trust that the public can make the distinction.

All in all, where does this leave blogging. I think it leaves blogging at a place where it is a tool rather than a goal in itself. It’s more of a dart arrow than bulls eye itself.

In saying that I’m also saying that blogging in itself is no revolution, and that bloggers shouldn’t be considered heroes, just because they blog. After all bloggers are just trying to get noticed - just as everyone else out there.

Vad NU! is a consultancy company owned by Mads Kristensen and specialized in helping clients take advantage of the business opportunities created by new media. Click to learn how I can help you and your company.