Take a deep breath.
Bear with me and hear me out.
I joined the world of print press in September of last year, and the professional (albeit freelancing) world of blogging later in December (although my first post was right after the new year). I’ve had variations of personal blogs, from blogger to xanga to wordpress, for about five years, and surprisingly I’ve been known to speak the truth as I see it.
So it may (or may not if you know me) come as a bit of a shock when I say that bloggers, specifically tech/web2.0/startup bloggers (I don’t follow many other blogs so I’ll talk about what I ((think I )) know) are often out of touch with reality.
For two simple reasons …
1. Just because you wish something to be true, does not make it so.
If you think I’m referring to the great twitter debate, it’s probably because I am. (Don’t know what Twitter is?)
Kara Swisher’s post, “Twitter: Where Nobody Knows Your Name,” was the straw that broke the camel’s back of the discourse.
Swisher, of popular technology blog All Things Digital, highlights her experience at a wedding in the US capital.
And I conducted a little experiment among the more than 100 folks gathered for the wedding, all of whom were quite intelligent, armed with all kinds of the latest devices (many, many people had iPhones, for example) and not sluggish about technology.
They were also made up of a wide range of ages and genders, from kids to seniors.
And so I asked a large group of people–about 30–and here is the grand total who knew what Twitter was: 0
She goes on to ask for predictions of “when the delta is reached when early adopter interest meets mainstream attention.”
Undoubtedly, there were various responses throughout the blogosphere (read: echo chamber).
And no surprise, many were stumbling all over themselves crying out “just be patient” and “give Twitter a chance!”
Now I use Twitter, so I’m just as un-objective as the next blogger, but I have to ask myself, “what vested interest does Joe Blogger have in Twitter’s rise to glory?”
See, all the bloggers defending Twitter so desperately WANT Twitter to go mainstream. It’s the very essence of web 2.0. — Simple app, built quickly with a small team, millions of dollars raised, adored and used (every second) by bloggers.
Oh, and it has no business model.
(Although in all fairness when Matt Marshall was running me through the ropes, this was the first question he told me I should ask the companies I interview — then again, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal so maybe he doesn’t count).
Put simply it’s an app that’s For Bloggers By Bloggers.
(Some comments on the post from “A-list” bloggers that I would put here, but the post was becoming way too long).
From the look of things, we’ve seen this debate before.
Digg and “social news aggregation.”
Digg, which was once Mike Arrington’s baby, (which YC-baby Reddit unknowingly cloned) doesn’t seem to share the same quality of space as Yahoo Buzz.
(see the whopping boost Buzz gave Techcrunch)
See Yahoo, which has millions upon millions of users, took a very “new” concept of social news aggregation, waited for it to catch on in the tech community, and then provided it to its hundreds of millions of users who never heard of Digg.
(I remember playing a game of Taboo at Thanksgiving, and the word came up Dig, and I said “think a website where you submit and share news stories and links ….. cricket, cricket, cricket).
What’s to stop Microhoo from doing the same thing to Twitter?
Oh, no! The tech world might collapse if millions of users are using a competing service to Twitter (and because most bloggers are driven by the need to draw traffic, they’ll of course –if not make a complete switch –at least utilize dual services).
So many tech bloggers want, in fact, need, Twitter to be worthwhile and sustainable that I wager it clouds their judgment just a tiny bit.
Just because you may wish for it to catch on and go multi-platinum does not mean it will. This desire to see the same tools and apps they (we) love, often times cloud their (our) vision and drags us that much further from reality.
Is there room in the market for more than one competitor? Of course, Twitter already has Pownce, Jaiku, and a range of others snapping at its heels. Even Digg and Reddit can somewhat co-exit, although uneasily, with the entrance of a dominant player like Yahoo.
But really, it’s about our mentality.
We’re not coming to the table to have our needs met, we’re swaggering drunken gluttons coming to eat to our heart’s content on all the hot, hip technology we can get our hands on.
2. The marginal cost of blogging means anyone can criticize a web/mobile application, but how many of the critics can build one?
One of the most cited quotes from the pre-WW II era belongs to Teddy Roosvelt (and in fact this quote hanging on my wall), clipped from his address “Citizenship in a Republic,” at the Sorbonne, Paris, on April 23, 1910:
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
The danger of being a blogger, whether an “A-lister,” a professional blogger, or just a hobby blogger is being that critic. For the longest time in my life, I’ve considered myself the man in the arena. I ran track, played football, and did numerous other scholastic events and a few achievements that meant others wrote about me, not visa-versa. No, I wasn’t a Michael Johnson of course (more precisely Bernard Lagat, but maybe one day…) but I always scoffed at the journalists who would chronicle events and more often than not make a debauchery of quotes, criticism (unfounded or not), and their articles hacked away from the safety of a computer.
I’ve never wanted to be the critic — I’ve always wanted to be the doer, the competitor, or in this case, the tech hacker/entrepreneur.
So naturally, one of the things I fear most about writing for VentureBeat (freelance) — and what I think most other bloggers should think about, whether nor not they do — is that I’ll gain this higher-than-thou status from the perch of my chair, laptop and cellphone, giving death and life with the words mashed together on the tips of my fingers.
What have I — or any blogger — done noteworthy in this particular field to deserve to be the voice of reason or doubt, pride or prejudice, praise or shame on any of the start-ups, Venture Capitalists, angel investors, and existing internet behemoths that we cover?
Knowledge is power — and I imagine that journalism/blogging is a gate keeping of sorts, but there’s always a danger for one who has never been of assuming too much.
For all the gripe about Twitter down-time, how many of those same bloggers has built and scaled a web app to millions of users?
Arrington’s Edgeio certainly didn’t have that problem.
Power bloggers Jeff Jarvis, Dave Winer, AND Arrington’s Daylife again doesn’t have that problem.
I know Eric Eldon has launched a company, through Y Combinator (although it tried to start as a non-profit) that to my knowledge, hasn’t really taken off.
That’s not a knock against Mike or Eric — yet those two are terrific bloggers and seemingly, besides blogging, haven’t launched run-away successes (although neither’s start-ups are in the dead pool).
For this reason I say bloggers are in a constant struggle with reality — the power of the pen (or the keys, rather) is more than just that, it’s also a responsibility.
But there’s a recognition that we all must make: most of us haven’t made it to the promised land yet our passing judgment on those in various stages of their assault into it, and we must be careful not to swing the axe of hypocrisy.
I, for one, have a pretty cool idea I’m working on, that should be ready in the next six months or so — but what if it fails?
I believe in this era, the bloggers are much more closer to closing the chasm –between perception and reality, critique and participation — than journalists have been for the past several decades have been.
Why?
Because Mike HAS had a successful start-up (besides his previous ventures). It’s called Techcrunch.
Ditto for Matt Marshall at VentureBeat, Om Malik, Robert Scoble, and a host of others who have bootstrapped themselves to building companies out of popular blogs.
But the chasm is not closed — not between the echo chamber and reality, nor between entrepreneurship and those who critique — because each person who comes on after the fact (i.e. myself) that is earning bucks probably didn’t go through hell and high water to make the start-up take off.
A little blood and sweat sure — but again the gap is still there.
In fact, in an effort not to drink a bit too muchhaterade, and I certainly don’t want to come across as a better-than-thou type. In fact, the start-up I’m working on is sans-business model (although I do have one in the back of my head).
I simply enjoy telling people the truth: The Starbucks goddess does not rule the world, Facebook is great but not worthy of our worship, and you don’t need to have a Macbook Pro/Air to be cool, kind of truth. (but since you’re probably a “geek” ((awesome cliche word for anybody who reads Techcrunch and Engadget from an iPhone)), having one makes you feel better)
I have a simple piece of advice to make …
Keep a foot in both worlds — whatever you’re most involved in (in this case, the technological/ web/mobile application world) — and the real world. (i.e. people who don’t have a Facebook account, don’t know what Digg is, and send text messages ((how old school)) as well as those who are bootstrapping their existences for their company).
I seriously doubt that the chasm can or will ever fully close, but I humbly stay in pursuit with my words of what we all should …
Truth.
