Posted by stugotsn at 1/25/07 11:02 a.m.

Pirillo and Mack are talking a "dog bites man" story here.

It's been obvious for years: There are 18 jillion blogs in the world, and let's be honest, 90% of them are drivel. E.g., Why should I care about Jane Doe's opinion of Iraq?

Blogs must be viewed as tools toward an _end_. They're tools. Every blogger should ask themselves, "What's the concrete purpose for this blog?" If you don't have one, you shouldn't publish. (Or if you do, acknowledge that it's a vanity project and don't be surprised if you have three visits a month.)

Most bloggers don't realize that their opinions are just not very interesting. This lack of realization is quite puzzling when you stop to think about it. It's not that their opinions are "wrong", it's just, so what? Person X thinks that issue Y is terrible. So what? I think the US has too many nuclear devices. I think Bush is a moron. So?

And as for social networks, this is another news flash from the Duh department. They're _all_ proprietary. You can't transfer your network from one social network server to another. (E.g., you can't transfer your LinkedIn list to MySpace.) Not unless you are a Python hacker and like writing hairy scrapers. That's been clear from day 1.

It's staggering how many social networking-based sites there are. I think it was either Fast Company or Business 2.0 that ran a story on them a couple of months ago. I opened to it expecting to see a list of, oh I don't know, maybe 10 sites. There were something like *40* listed, and I hadn't heard of half of them. Surely they can't all survive. How many can the market support?

Posted by Steve Mack at 1/25/07 11:59 a.m.

Stugotsn -

We were responding to questions regarding the Time Magazine "Person of the Year" cover story, and we both rolled our eyes. We were just trying to keep everyone's feet on the ground, while also pointing out the fact that podcasting (and of course blogging) are great tools, but if you don't have a good story, no one is going to care.

There's going to be a lot of consolidation in the nascent podcasting industry this year, much like the streaming media wave that preceded it. Doesn't mean it's all going away, more that the good podcasts and god business models will (hopefully) rise to the top. Will do the entire industry a world of good.

My two cents.

Posted by stugotsn at 1/25/07 12:24 p.m.

Ah, OK. I get you.

The Time PoTY was silly. But then most Time PoTY issues are silly. Jon Stewart did a crack-up of it on The Daily Show.

Someone once said, "Life is for people who can't read. Time is for people who can't think." You have to be old enough to remember Life magazine for that quote to make any sense.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/25/07 3:17 p.m.

I think that people should post blogs. The problem is finding the blogs that fit your needs and help you to become a better person in life, politics, and whatever you are interested in. That's pretty much what podcasts do but with audio instead of words.

I think the problem with this (and the entire internet) is how we have to sift through the information and find true, honest, or entertaining items that we will read or listen to. That's why I listen to podcast. I think many podcasters want to bring out something we are interested in and want to find those who like it too. Podcasters also would like to make money from it, but a lot of us accept the notion that they may have to keep their day jobs.

People like social networks because that's what the internet is all about. People talking to others about the information they have. It's now become so easy that everyone can do it. We will have to wait till those who tire of updating 50 sites finally get to a more manageable number.

Also I'm a podcaster so I may have a skewed opinion.

Posted by Steve Mack at 1/25/07 5:29 p.m.

Hah! Love the quote about Time magazine. I'm a big Gore Vidal fan, and his hatred of Time knows no bounds.

As for information overload in the post above, we also talked about that. While I think "Web 2.0" is over hyped, it does point to possible solutions. YouTube is a perfect example of why relying on the "wisdom of the crowds" can be a recipe for disaster. And that's why smaller, more focused communities (I mentioned www.VodPod.com at the meet-up) are far more effective.

And that's why I think podcasting has a healthy future. Folks will congregate around the good ones. Just ask Ze Frank.