Courtesy of Jeff Pulver, this essay from Tom Evslin on the tedious debate over whether the blog bubble has burst. Evslin makes the case that the bubble has indeed popped in the sense that, really, it can’t grow much bigger unless we find distant universes populated by blog writers and blog readers.
We’ll have to discover universes full of literate extraterrestrial beings and get them online and set up with TypePad accounts immediately if the growth rate in blogs or bloggers is going to continue.
He also makes the point that unlike other burst bubbles, the blog bubble doesn’t matter because it hasn’t been accompanied by stock market mania, so who cares?
But Evslin raises a crucial point by arguing that blogging, and Web 2.0 applications such as RSS, have changed the rules of the game for traditional publishers and if those publishers fail to adapt, they will die.
I don’t think blogging will destroy traditional media; it’ll both make it better and more accountable and more accessible. But, those information and entertainment companies which don’t adapt to the Internet in general and blog technology and openness in particular, will perish.
I see too many traditional publishers that have hunkered down in the hopes that all this Web 2.0 hoo-haw will blow over, and some have even tried to spit in the wind by becoming even more tightly controlled, more tightly controlling and more closed than ever. They’re doomed, as Evslin points out.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:13 AM|Comments(0)
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