I mentioned the other day that nobody really cares about Netroots Nation; or rather, nobody really cares what happens on the intertoobs. What I lacked was this excellent article about the rise and fall of the late but unlamented "blogosphere."
The difference between blogs and Twitter is that journalists and politicians can be in Twitter, so of course they think it's important. But really, it's no more important than blogs were.
They'll figure that out soon.*
*Yes, I do use tweets a lot now, largely because I'm on my phone more than on a computer, and I can post Tweets far easier than I can embed links. I have nothing against Twitter, but it's no more a political powerbase than blogs ever were. One thing left out of the article is how Obama reached out to bloggers shortly after he was inaugurated, trying to get them on board, treating them as important. It was the highwater mark of the influence of the blogosphere, and while Obama invited some of the "biggest" names to the White House, absolutely nothing came of it. The White House quickly figured out the bloggers had no power at all, and never looked back. That power dynamic hasn't changed, but people on-line are still convinced they are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
They aren't.
If you narrow your focus enough, a tiny little non-community that is largely imaginary can be mistaken for the whole world. I think I bought into the possibility of "new media" but was pretty much done with that by about 2006, it was The Horse who got me started on the possibility, it was Eschaton, the Science Blogs and some others that led me to realize it wasn't going to be that important.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's been a motivation to do research and to think things out, posting them to who knows what effect other than to help me come change the way I think about things I thought were settled, helping me to understand why the America left went from doing something important (The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) to repeatedly screwing up. And the role that various anti-liberal (in the traditional American meaning of the word) -isms in leading the left into the wilderness where it has lingered longer than Moses led The Children of Israel through one.
I never could get very involved with Kos, I found the navigation of it confusing as I do Twitter, and the portions are so small.
Well, it doesn't say much for the public attention span that blogs are too long and cumbersome.
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