With 2011 being the Year of Web 2.0 (for me, I realise it was probably 2008 for those with their finger on the pulse, but I come from a long line of late adopters – we didn’t get a colour TV until 1979), I’ve been trying to monitor Twitter more regularly of late (pretty sure I didn’t log in once in December, although I joined in November). One aspect I was keen to get to grips with was indeed the whole Web 2.0 ‘n’ social media ‘n’ personal branding area, and where better to start?<\/p>\n
As I result, I discovered, probably from a blog, that WordPress alone spawns something like a million new blogs a month – that might not be quite right, but it’s a bloody astounding figure of that kind of magnitude, whatever it actually is. Many, presumably will not be carried on after initial enthusiasm wears off, but still, that is a lot of blogs.<\/p>\n
The other thing I’ve found, following links (and links from links from links from links) is that many blogs regurgitate the same old crud, particularly in the marketing\/social media arena. I’m thoroughly jaded and blog-weary after only a fortnight. And even the new (to me) stuff is often crap – some self-styled marketing guru (of which there is unfortunately no shortage) I read recently was advising us all to make sure we know someone who knows a billionaire – and in all seriousness. I was little short of dumbfounded. I’m sure having some vague acquaintance with a billionaire is good for business, but it doesn’t follow that all successful businesses need billionaire patronage, does it? Anyway, the blogosphere is full of ill-conceived rancid dick cheese in a similar vein and largely a waste of bandwidth.<\/p>\n
More pertinently, while I can’t be arsed checking traffic on Alexa or wherever, and so have to judge purely on the number of comments, even those with fresh and thought-provoking (in a good way, that is) content seem to get little traffic. In any event, even if they get satisfactory traffic figures, surely the point of those blogs that *are* intended as more than online diaries is to generate some discussion and interest, if only shortlived? Otherwise it’s all so many voices crying out into the hubbub…<\/p>\n
So yeah, not much change from last week; I’m still wondering what the point of it all is.<\/p>\n
Update: I’m not alone. I decided to google my title, for interest’s sake, to see just *how* unoriginal I was being. And lo! I find an outstanding blog post<\/a> making the point I think I probably wanted to make all along before I got side-tracked by billionaires and smegma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With 2011 being the Year of Web 2.0 (for me, I realise it was probably 2008 for those with their finger on the pulse, but I come from a long line of late adopters – we didn’t get a colour … Continue reading