Why businesses can’t ignore blogs any longer
A recent issue of Business Week included eight pages about Web logs and how they will change your business.
The cover story is written in a blog fashion, with numerous items in a chronological ordering and individual sections describing the phenomenon’s parts. “Call it Blogs 101 for businesses,” the magazine said. “You cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself.”
With an estimated 9 million blogs on the Web now and 40,000 new ones each day, there’s a lot of bad with the good. But even if 99.9 percent are worthless, that leaves maybe 40 a day “that could be talking about your business, engaging your employees or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush,” the article added.
And it’s no bubble, indicated BW. Venture firms financed $60 million in blog startups last year, according to VentureOne — chump change compared with the $19.9 billion that poured into dot-coms in 1999.
The story identifies blog-related trends such as Podcasts, subject tracking services and consultants who show businesses how to use blogs.
“Blogs could end up providing the perfect response to mass media’s core concern: the splintering of its audience,” the article concluded. (See item below about exploding TV.) “By piggybacking on blogs, (advertisers) can start working the vast blogcafe, table by table.”
Blogger up
Major League Baseball appears to be planning to take advantage of Web logs’ ability to slice and dice passions into pieces.
Om Malik, a senior writer for Business 2.0, reports that the Web domain mlblogs.com has been registered to the league. Delivery of content for the address would be handled by SixApart.com, the company behind the leading blog software tools, Typepad and Movable Type.
“I am not sure what the deal is,” Malik said. “Could MLB have guys like Derek Jeter blog? Or will it be blogs by baseball nuts like me?” Read Malik’s report: http://www.gigaom.com/2005/04/21.
Networks told to ‘change or die’
As television broadcasters meet in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters this week, a research report issued in New York City said the TV business is undergoing fundamental and unstoppable change, and the Internet is a big part of it.
“Change or die,” advised the analysts at Deloitte Technology’s Media and Telecommunications industry group. In a report titled “Critical Mass in a Fragmenting World,” they said audiences are splintering into many smaller pieces, even in developing countries.
“Networks will no longer (be able) to attract mass audiences. Their legacy business model will no longer be viable,” the analysis added.
On the other hand, those multiplying, niche audiences are hungry for new information and content. “New mediums, such as Internet Protocol television, have the potential to drive revenues even higher,” said Tony Kern, deputy managing principal of the Deloitte unit.
The Internet’s strengths are its abilities to deliver programming of unlimited choice, on demand, with interactivity (voting, purchasing and chat) and at high quality.
Virtual news, real problems
For people excited about “citizen’s media,” “stand-alone reporters” and “open source journalism,” a caution. A guy who’s out there actually doing this in real time now, Wayne Saewyc, seems to be having some problems relying on volunteer staff.
After six months, the operator of Wikinews is finding his mission rife with frustrations and challenges, Wired News reported. The offshoot of Wikipedia is facing the same challenges real editors have: Catching fake stories and updating coverage to sweep out the old and display the new has turned into something like work, Saewyc said.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, said the news offerings are also dependent on the writers. “We’ve got five (stories), and two of them are about Romania,” he told Wired News, making the point that this is not your father’s news Web site. Go to WikiNews: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main—Page.