FRIDAY IN FOCUS
Blogs: fad or goldmine?
24-10-2003
by
Blogs, the latest fad on the Internet, may represent an important technological step in the industry, but there is little evidence that they will be very profitable.
The term 'blog' is short for Web log and the rapidly expanding field of blogs has its roots in the explosion of personal Web sites that first appeared in the mid-1990s, when free Web-editing tools and Web space abounded. Like today's blogs, the personal Web sites of the last decade provided a platform for people who couldn't get their musings on everything from hobbies and pets to macroeconomics and particle physics published through traditional media.
But where blogs differ from their digital ancestors is their ease of use. So-called 'bloggers' make entries onto their sites by simply typing their content into a form and clicking "publish." It's quick and painless and managing a blog is a snap, since entries are made in chronological order.
Another blog feature that distinguishes the format from its forerunners are links, lots of links. Bloggers tend to link their own sites to other blogs, which are linked to still more blogs, creating a vast mini-network of prolific and not-so-prolific writers and news junkies, whose combined ideas and opinions float though the Internet like ripples on a pond.
Popular DJ and recording artist Moby maintains a blog on his Moby.com site, which includes informal commentary on everything from the politics of animal shelters to the rules of Scrabble. Karlin Lillington, technology columnist with the Irish Times and The Guardian, maintains a blog that tracks news and current affairs, particularly the issue of citizens' rights and data privacy in the digital age.
In fact, a perusal of the blogs currently on the Web will lead any reader to conclude that there are no standards for quality -- some are excellent and captivating, most aren't. The results of a survey on blogs released by Perseus Development Corporation in early October concluded that the typical blog is written "by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life." It seems unlikely that this group will form the basis of a huge blog-based media market.
Still, privately held search engine Google.com bought blogging pioneer Pyra Labs in February of this year for an undisclosed sum, a move that prompted the mainstream media to look more closely at blogs. The business logic of the purchase is hard to see, but in a rare reversion to pre-dot-bomb business priorities, the company said that the acquisition was based on strategic rather than on revenue considerations. The fact that blogs are rich in content and links seems to fit well with Google's goal to find and organise the information on the Web.
Google gets some cash from ads on its free Web logs, but there is little revenue to be earned from its Blogger.com hosting service. Nor will Google be able to introduce blog hosting charges without witnessing a mass exodus to other companies that are willing to provide a cheap or free service. Organisations such as Blog-City, Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger and Xanga offer blog hosting services for between USD20 and USD100 per annum and many of these also have a free hosting option.
Moreover, although there are many blogs, few blogs are maintained to a point where bloggers would pay to keep them on-line. Of a total of 4.12 million blogs on eight blog services, more than two-thirds, or 2.72 million sites, have been either temporarily or permanently abandoned.
Jeffrey Henning, CTO of Perseus and the author of the company's survey on blogging, suggests that blogs are so easy to create that many creators feel no commitment to their blog. The survey also found that active blogs were only updated on average once every 14 days and only 2.6 percent of blogs were updated weekly. Only 50,000 blogs, slightly more than 1 percent, were updated daily.
Of course the real money-spinner may come from sources unexpected. Mobile phone operator O2 Ireland is offering a FoneBlog service whereby people can send pictures and text from their mobile handsets to their blogs. Although the software is free, O2 charges users EUR2.50 per month to run a blog and generates more cash by charging users small service fees for each over-the-phone SMS or MMS update.
Paddy Holahan, the CEO of NewBay Software, the company behind FoneBlog, reckons every mobile phone company in the world will offer a mobile blogging service within two years, making phone blogging the killer app for MMS, picture messaging and other consumer data services. Others say blogging in general will become a serious media force and that some clever entrepreneur will make billions in the sector.
Perhaps. But it seems more likely that blogs may face the same fate as WAP phones, an overhyped technology with certain uses and staying power but with little potential to change our lives.
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