I’m just thinking out loud here…
With all the attention that blogs have been getting from the mainstream media (and not just lately…), I am thinking that online blog style publishing has entered a phase analogous to the period college rock entered in the early 90’s when Nirvana broke into the mainstream radio world. “College Rock” became “Alternative Rock” and let loose in the mainstream music world.
Back in the 80’s there was a thriving college music scene with independent bands touring the country in vans and kids putting on DIY shows in basements and VFW halls. In a separate world there was heavy metal and hair bands all over MTV. When “Smells Like Teen Spirit” began to get major airplay on radio and MTV, you suddenly had all these “grunge” bands from the alternative scene in Seattle and everywhere else breaking out and signing to major labels. The music world was suddenly looking for the next “Nirvana”. Of course there was plenty of great music in the 90’s, but the so called “college rock” music scene became “alternative rock” and thus more homogenized and considered “mainstream” as the 90’s slogged on.
I began publishing a website in 1996 - back when they were called your “Homepage”. These were just a series of static hand coded HTML pages linked together to promote my design skills and showcase some of my portfolio. Now we have blogs. If you’re not using Cascading Style Sheets and an online publishing system like Movable Type, WordPress or some other content management system, you’re considered “old school”. Of course weblogs have been around for a while now—it just seems to me that now that not only just the web savvy or the youngsters are using weblog software to have an online presence—moms and dads are, businesses are in the game, and even Microsoft offers MSN users a blogspace. So—just like the 90’s, will this decade roll on with content management systems and their set of features become similar and homogenized? We’ve just seen the consolidation of blogging companies with Movable Type’s acquisition of LiveJournal and the all powerful Google bought Blogger a while back. What’s next as the “00’s” roll on? (Tags, Folksonomies, and Photoblogs - that’s what…)
So are blogs completely “jumping the shark” just as I’m starting one?
Maybe…oh well.
June 14th, 2005 at 6:51 pm
I think it is so good to have a clear opinion and information about what you like and you think.
This has help me a lot in what I have to do….