Thought a) Some people post too much. Recently I subscribed to 7 Journalist Bloggers – 6 of them post too many items, so I’ve fallen behind already. One of them has 81 unread items sitting in my RSS Aggregator and it’s only 3 or so days worth. It’s too much! I don’t have the motivation to catch up, so I will probably unsubscribe from most of those Journo bloggers. The 1 Journo blogger whose quantity I can keep up with is Jay Rosen, who posts 1 or 2 long essays per week. That’s more my style.
Thought b) Robert Scoble has admitted he’s a “Blog Addict”. He’s taking a 1-week holiday from blogging to clear his mind. While I’m not on the same scale as Robert, I have to admit also that my blogging is beginning to become all-consuming for me. The positives: I’m actively writing and generating ideas because of blogging, I’m watching less tv and reading newspapers less, I’m interacting on an intellectual level with people from all over the world. The negatives: family time does suffer, I’m reading less ‘real’ books, there are too many interesting things to keep up with and so one tends to lose focus.
Thought c) Will blogging ever be anything but an “online diary” to Normal People? I’d like to think it will hit it big sometime soon, but let’s face it – we’re a minority (or is it a cult?).
Thought d) Does Location matter more than than The Blogosphere would like to think it does? Is blogging too American-centric? I live in New Zealand, so I don’t get to attend any of the blog conventions, blogger lunches, etc. And I do feel like I’m missing out on something. e.g. nobody sent me an invitation to Orkut (it’s invitation only). I’m probably not interested in Orkut anyway, but it did make me wonder if living in New Zealand is affecting my ability to actively participate in the blogosphere.
Thought e) Somehow related to Thoughts c & d, but was Howard Dean’s polling failure related to the fact that blogging isn’t REAL enough? Location (of votes in this case) matters.
Thought f) I keep thinking about my Microcontent Wiki idea, which really revolves around trying to keep up with conversations and aiming for a sense of permanance to them which is missing. e.g. when is the tipping point for when blog conversations (via the comments sections on peoples blogs) peter out? Sometimes I want to go back to a conversation two months later and re-start it, but I know that no one apart from the original author will be notified and so the momentum of the original conversation is never regained. We need places where ideas can reside and continue being debated for all time. Wikis are the right tools for this, mostly. Except they aren’t good at the Subscribe part of the PubSub equation. And Wikis to me don’t have the same personal touch of weblogs – Wikis ain’t Avatars.
(this thought is inspired by Erik’s interesting post about effectiveness, which has got my brain spinning – but I don’t know that I’ll have anything further to contribute until a few days, when the conversation will probably be finished).
Thought g) Attention. Where do I start with this one… Pick me, pick me. It may be a democracy of ideas, but sometimes it feels like a Horserace (in the American politics sense of the word).
These are just Saturday Morning thoughts, before the real day starts. Ah, my daughter’s just woken up and needs my attention 🙂