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An Interesting little discussion has begun over at Sean Kirst’s blog entitled Is Facebook Killing Blogging?
It developed out of a phone conversation that I had with Sean about a totally different topic, but morphed into whether or not folks are more likely to post onto Facebook or Twitter than craft a blog post these days. I believe that is the case and I think Brian Cubbison (in the post’s comments) hit on the reason–technology creates easier mechanisms to use–and technology is moving fast these days. As a result, people re-tweet Twitter entries or use the Share This function on Facebook, they do not take the time to write a blog post.
Remember when bloggers were considered half-baked, ill-informed folks writing in their pj’s in their parents’ basements? Now bloggers are practically novelists compared to the folks cranking out 140 character tweets and 25 word facebook status updates.
Believe me, I’m fine with that. I’ve tried both new formats. I’ve largely rejected Twitter and wholeheartedly embrace Facebook. My blog still gets updated regularly for the same reasons it’s always been there–to work through my thoughts on an issue and force me to correct the typos. It’s also a neat way to keep a record of my thoughts, a digital diary of sorts.
The only times I’ve gotten large numbers of people to read this thing of mine is when I’ve inadvertently hooked into an internet meme–the “Jesus Christ was a community organizer” thing being the most prominent example, resulting in 333 hits on a single day. Usually, my hits are in the teens to twenties, but also sometimes in the single digits. Rarely will anyone post a comment.
Contrast that with the fact that I have 83 Facebook friends that presumably get my updates (granted I don’t know how many have turned my status feed off on their Wall, although I suppose I could figure that out.) A better base audience, even if it will never bust loose much further. However, even though I publicize my blog on FB–I don’t think many have made the cyber-commute over here.
To that extent, I’ll probably modify my blogging modus operandi–fewer post where I let people know news updates about things such as Bruce or the Red Sox–those can safely go to FB. I’ll do more longer pieces over here, pieces that do not presume an audience of anyone but myself.
One last note–FIVE pieces on individual candidates positions on the Mayoral race in Syracuse and not one has a readership of over 5 people? No comments? That was surprising.
One final note: Many thanks to the bloggers at the Post Standard: Brian Cubbison, Sean Kirst and Mark Bialczak, as well as independent blogger Ellen at NYCO’s Blog CNY who collectively drive about 99% of my blog’s traffic.
The Post-Standard is working with Syracuse University to create a web-based experiment in civic participation, entitled CNY Speaks. While it is an interesting experiment, I wonder just what it is attempting to accomplish.
Now I’ve been scribbling on these interwebs for several years, but I don’t have any illusion that I’m having an impact on anything. This site is a scratchpad for me to work out the ideas in my head. But the CNY Speaks agenda is much more ambitious. They want to create “a citizen’s agenda for Syracuse and Central N.Y.”
I believe that citizens can change their world when they:
1) Mobilize into a group with a sense of common cause.
2) Develop a coherent and practical list of changes they want to see.
3) Target the folks with power to make the changes, negotiating if possible, protesting if necessary.
None of these points are accounted for in the CNY Speaks world.
group with a common cause? Who knows, the cause was chosen for them. Even though the site has a survey to gauge the opinion of visitors to the site, it’s really meaningless because the blog, since its first post, has been dedicated to making downtown cool for young people to live, work and play. The writers have bought the Richard Florida, “hip downtown=regional economic development” argument hook, line and sinker.
Practical and coherent list of changes? All I see are puff pieces on downtown development, the groups like MDA and their youth auxiliary 40 Below and bland marketing ideas about various development projects on the blocks. Oh yeah, and a bunch of internet trolls complaining about how dangerous it is to venture anywhere near downtown.
targeting those with power? First, this site is a wholly-owned enterprise of those with power, the Newhouse Corporation paper and the University. Secondly, how is even the most pithily worded blog post going to influence anyone? Change only happens offline. You have to mobilize people to put down their mouses, change out of their PJ’s and get out to public meetings. Lastly, many folks are leery of directly challenging those in power when they say no. I don’t see this exercise in PR helping to mobilize people to challenge those in power.
“Who in the hell d’you think you are
A super star?
Well, right you are
Well, we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well, we all shine on
Evryone come on”
–Instant Karma–John Lennon
Things that tripped me up on the blogosphere this week:
What do you need to bring a major United States city to a standstill? Weapons, pollution, disease? No, an embittered IT guy named Maggot617
Maybe the thirsty hordes out west will keep their hands off our Great Lakes water after all. Their secret water stash? From toilet to tap.
Next book to pick up–Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule.” Interesting tidbits in this interview with Frank about how Jack Abramoff started out fighting state bottle bills and then supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Miriam Axel-Lute writes an interesting column in Albany’s Metroland newspaper (their New Times) about getting beyond spite and retribution in order to craft intelligent ways to stem the destruction that vacant houses and foreclosures are wreaking on our neighborhoods. Also, check out her blog The Big Questions on development and housing issues in Albany.
Hot trend in organizing? Small, hyper-local circles of folks connected by shared values and a disdain for authoritative control. Of course, this new trend has been around for ages: think abolitionists and the civil rights movement, first and second wave feminists and has been updated recently by the house church movement and even rock bands building a fan base through touring and social networking media.
Things that made me laugh and/or think this week while I was out and about on the internet:
1) I learned everything I need to know about union activism while watching the Season Three box set of “The Office”
2) Cassette tapes are dead. Except in prisons, where they are thriving and in our memories, where they live forever.
3) Remember the naked kid in the pool on the album cover of Nevermind? He’s now a disaffected teen!
4) Policy debate sweeping housing activist circles: Sudhir Venkatesh’s op-ed in the NYT stating that the best way to fight poverty would be to eliminate HUD, transfer its housing funding programs to the Departments of Commerce and Treasury and develop a new cabinet-level agency focusing on developing new models of regional cooperation and development. Here’s a lefty critique of Venkatesh by Peter Dreier on the National Housing Institute blog.
5) The solution to the problems in the Middle East? ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!!!! Rock is still the music of resistance in some areas and not the bland background soundtrack of consumption it is in America.
Mayhill Fowler broke two big stories during the Democratic political campaign: Obama’s description of marginalized working-class voters as “bitter” and Bill Clinton’s wild tirade against a Vanity Fair journalist in which he described the reporter as a “scumbag” among other derogatory terms.
What’s interesting about Ms. Fowler is her employer. She’s an unpaid volunteer in the Huffington Post blog experiment called “Off The Bus”, where volunteer bloggers follow the campaign and write stories that the mainstream media presumably might miss.
Ms. Fowler got herself into the closed Obama event for donors where he made his impolitic remarks because she is a Obama supporter, donating the maximum $2,300. This is certainly something that mainstream journalists wouldn’t be allowed to do, even those supposedly “in the tank” for Obama. Ms. Fowler muses that she hestitated in releasing the “bitter” comments because she knew the effect it would have on the Obama campaign. She also tried to minimize the effect of the “scumbag” remarks by dumping them onto the internet on Friday afternoon, but to no avail.
The question in my mind is what value does Ms. Fowler add to the campaign? As an Obama fan myself, I was upset at the attention paid to “bittergate” by the media. But its value is the focus that the Obama campaign needed to make on people not naturally inclined to support Barack. Of course, the mainstream media, the Clinton oppo reseach team and the Republican hate machine all tried to spin the story into the mainstream mold: elitist latte-drinking limousine liberal just doesn’t understand real folks. That Obama was able to refocus the campaign on what his Presidency would do to help all Americans was beneficial, despite the short-term blowback.
The Bill Clinton “scumbag” flap was more like the tripe the mainstream media throws out and calls news these days. Yep, Bill was increasingly losing his shit out on the hustings. Bill blames everyone for his wife’s slowly eroding campaign EXCEPT his wife, her handlers and himself. Big deal. The Vanity Fair article was also of questionable merit. Find upset staffers to squeal about the shortcomings inside the campaign and to throw innuendo on the fire about Bill’s personal life. Ms. Fowler’s piece had some staying power because a lot of people have fond memories of our former President and are not used to seeing ex-Presidents being that earthy.
I haven’t read much of the “Off The Bus” stuff, but what I have seen is relatively good–instead of just soaking up the stale campaign circus and reporting on the horserace, some of the bloggers actually seek out real voters and interview them. Now that’s some innovative reporting that I’d like to see spread out of blogging and into the mainstream media. Ms. Fowler’s batting .500: and that’s good in any league.
According to an article on blogs written by Sarah Boxer in the NY Review Of Books: “Today there are, by one count, more than 100 million blogs in the world, with about 15 million of them active. In Japan neglected or abandoned blogs are called ishikoro, pebbles.”
Unfortunately, more and more of the blogs that I like to read have become pebbles. It’s easy for me to find new blogs on the things that interest me–rock’n’roll, baseball and politics–it’s becoming harder to find blogs written about local issues. About the only new stuff being created comes out of the Syracuse.com world: newspaper writers that are reaching beyond the page to extend the conversation.
There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve learned a lot and have been able to have conversations with great journalists like Sean Kirst, Brian Cubbison, Maureen Sieh, Mark Bialczak–something that would have been impossible pre-Internet.
But are we losing the spark of independent voices joining the fray? Look at the blogroll listing of 27 Syracuse area blogs on NYCO’s Blog, the acknowledged hub of local blogging about local issues: 6 are non-profit organizations listing events, 1 is exclusively on national politics and 4 are Syracuse.com blogs by reporters.
Of the 16 remaining independently produced blogs:
5 haven’t posted in 2008 and 3 have only a few token posts in 2008.
That leaves only 8 active, independently-produced blogs talking about Syracuse issues. Please let me know if I’ve missed any blogs or if I’m totally off-base. I’d really like to be wrong on this. Even better, set up a blog to criticize my point and to talk up the state of blogging Syracuse.
