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The Snarkier, The Better: The Media Trend of Blogging Style
BoingBoing is the Park Place of Blogopoly, better known as the Blogosphere...the blog with the most links pointing to it (more than 12,000 sites and counting). Fark.com (my current favorite) might be Marvin Gardens (always a useful trade).
It's been more than 12 years since the first "weblog" appeared on the World Wide Web (as the Internet was then known) and 6 years since Blogger.com offered the world's first free blogging service complete with templates and easy use. In 2004, the word "blog" was named new "word of the year".
In the world of blogs, the sites with the most links pointing to it win...but that can change in a blink of a new blog.
Today, some 15,000 to 20,000 new blogs are started up every day (although most stop being active within a few days). As mentioned in a Jointblog post earlier this week ("Blog Failure Rates"), there must be an opportunity to recycle these dead blogs. Some blogs are witty, some are geeky, some are newsy, some are gossipy.
What it is that keeps a blog active and, even better, successful? New York magazine has a terrific cover article about blogging last week and should be considered a must-read for the moment (don't worry, the success stories will change once again within six months...that's how fast blogging is evolving).
Great blogs attracts high-quality readership because it targets a valuable niche theme (thank you, Jointbloggers!)...small readerships or large ones, both are valuable.
If there are three rules to remember in creating and maintaining a successful blog, remember these:
1) Consistently and actively publish and post. Once you start, don't stop. Keep feeding the blogosphere. There are so many people out there in blogland as well as in mainstream media (MSM) searching for CNT (cool new things). Call them cool hunters or whatever. Think of any ecosystem, say, the ocean. The biggest fish are search for the smaller fish which are searching for the smallest fish, which are feeding on the plankton and so on. You never know who is going to encounter your blog. Just keep at it and stay fresh.
2) Understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It's not just about the "look" of the site, the content, meta tags, keywords, inside and outside linking, the frequency of publishing -- they all matter. While the "look" of the site may help surfers stop and blink accept your site once, ultimately it is what you have to offer the reader that matters. Is it hard-to-find links to gossipy news? Does it master a certain perspective? Is its "theme" clearly understood? Is it strong enough that people might want to subscribe and/or link to your site because it contains something special and cool? Whatever it is, it needs to have all the search engine pointers in place. Sites need to be submitted to search engines. Whatever you can go to start spreading "word of mouth" recommendations to check out your blog, do it, keeping doing it and never stop doing it.
3) Find your style and stay true to it. The most popular blogs offer a unique style and hyper-focus on a particular niche. Gadgets, Sex, Tech, Gossip, Celebrity culture, Local scene, Pop Culture, Music, TV shows, Politics...in essence, any of the drivers for New Entertainment Culture. Spend time studying the most popular blogs (the Jointblog recommends any of the links posted in our link section to the right). And then make your blog your own thing.
Although blogs successes like the still-new Huffington Report (launched just last May and now the #4 blog in the world based on page views) indicate more acceptance of blogs as mainstream media, the blogosphere is still an underground, wild wild west land grab. Snarky content seems to be most viral, whether is it iFilm or JibJab spoof videos on Brokeback Mountain (for Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback and other top viral videos, click here) or slams on politics or celebrities. How did the mainstream media first get the images of Britney Spears driving with her baby on her lap? From a blog.
Snarky commentary (Fark is the king of new snark) -- especially on pop culture or even skewering popular mainstream media or the popular blogs themselves -- also tends to be popular for viral distribution. Gawker.com, you've been sucking lately, by the way...what's going there, you all on Spring break?
Ultimately, blogging may be the edgiest medium of the moment and a pre-cursor for emerging trends. It IS the street...right-now grass roots stuff. Yes, "content is king" (as the overused and misunderstood dictum states). However, that content still has be first found and always be fresh. Readers want fresh thinking, fresh perspective. It's all about idea sharing. And that is the quickest way modern innovation happens.
If you can do that consistently, you just might be ready to make your blog advertising-ready.
More about that subject in the days ahead...
posted by Unknown @ Thursday, February 23, 2006,
