Blogs as a Barrier to Conversation

There's no doubt that, for the people who like them, blogs are a great conversational media tool. But blogs definitely are NOT for everyone.

Not everyone has the technical abilities, equipment, and access to use the internet much (or well). Not to mention that using the internet at all requires literacy and available time.

Also, some regular internet users simply dislike the blog format. As one friend recently told me, "Blogs are just too busy. It takes too much effort to figure out what's available in a blog and how it works. I prefer sites with a clean, simple design. All that interactivity mostly seems like a waste of time."

Although weblogs get a lot of attention currently, I think it's important to recognize -- and respect -- the spectrum of options and tastes. I really do believe that, when it comes to conversational media, there can (or at least, there should be) something for everyone...

Let's look at the big picture: Blogs are only one type of conversational media tool. There are others, including e-mail lists, web-based discussion forums, chat rooms, call-in talk shows, and even (to a certain extent) podcasts and wikis.

You don't have to like blogs or even read them at all in order to benefit from conversational media. Also, some non-blog options for conversational media offer unique benefits.

For instance, e-mail discussion lists have been extremely popular ever since the net began. I've managed several. One thing I like about e-mail lists is that, generally, they seem to attract a higher proportion of non-geeks. E-mail is a pretty basic and intuitive communication channel. It works on the concept of individual messages, which makes a lot of sense in the context of conversation.

Non-geeks are internet novices, or people generally are not fascinated with technology. These people do have plenty of interesting things to say. In my experience, non-geeks generally seem more drawn to e-mail discussion groups than to other types of online conversational media. It's conceptually comfortable to them.

Aside from the taste/comfort level issue, let's not forget that blogs (and most types of online media) are relatively exclusive -- at least compared to mass media like radio, TV, and newspapers. In a comment to this posting by Beth Kanter (which Beth kindly pointed out to me in a comment to my earlier posting on cross-blog conversations), blogger Steve Shu pointed out:

"Blogging tends to exclude those less advanced at using the internet. Maybe that works OK in the for-profit world, but in the non-profit world, one needs to gather along as many people as one can."

Hmmm, maybe this is partly why (it seems to me at least) most of the nonprofit world has been slow to arrive at the blogging party. This has baffled me for a while, because it seems to me that nonprofits have more directly compelling reasons to use weblogs (their own, and in the larger public conversation) than for-profit organizations.

But Steve's point was one of those "aha" moments for me. If the people that nonprofits need to reach don't generally like or use blogs, then why bother?

...Or maybe that in itself reflects an underestimation or misperception of blogs by nonprofits. I dunno, I'll have to think about this more.

So how about you? What are some of your favorite non-blog ways to engage in conversational media. Why do you like them, and what are their unique strengths and weaknesses? If you don't generally like or use blogs, why not? Comment below!

Comments

[Michael]

Amy,

Maybe it's not so much blogs being the barrier to conversation, but the written word?

More musing on that here:
http://mghiemstra.com/bitsoflife/written-word-as-a-barrier-to-conversation

[Amy Gahran]

Hi, Michael

Well, I'm sure some people prefer not to converse via the written word. However, some people do seem to like text-based conversational media, but not blogs.

For instance, perhaps the most traffic-heavy e-mail discussion lists I belong to are for two writer's groups. One is a Boulder-area media professional's group, and the other is the private list for members of a major national journalism organization.

In both cases, the list members are definitely NOT averse to communicating and conversing via writing. However, it also seems (to me at least) that very few people on either list either blog or read blogs.

So while I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm also saying that I've personally seen ample evidence of people who are into text-based conversational media, but not into blogs.

- Amy Gahran

[Beth]

Hi Amy,

Thanks for this post. It triggered some additional thinking about this on my blog here:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/01/blogs_as_barrie.html

While nonprofit adoption is in the early stages, there are examples of nonprofits using blogging and Web 2.0 tools - if you go over to netsquared (http://www.netsquared.org) check out the netsquared in action, you can read about some case studies

http://www.netsquared.org/catlist/list/1

Better yet, might be interesting to cross post your questions about nonprofit adoption over at netsquared and see what kind of conversation evolves ...

[Marshall Kirkpatrick]

This and related conversation, as summarized by Beth, inspired me to post something that may be of interest titled "13 reasons to use tags"
http://marshallk.com/13-reasons-to-use-tags

[Steve Shu]

Amy,

Thanks for both the thoughts here on your blog and your comment here (http://www.21publish.com/weblogFeedback/ew3tl12iu4ks)

My thinking on Internet conversations is always evolving, but I will say that blogs are not the end all to conversations. As you point out, there are many barriers. At 21Publish, we have tried to intensify conversations through turnkey communities that are weaved together or that are made up by integrating existing blogs into the 21Publish framework.

More generally, I am starting to hypothesize that blog writers and users need to get a more conscious handle on the fact that certain types of conversations are probably best facilitated by certain technologies. For example, transient discussions involving many parties might be best handled on bulletin boards as opposed to blogs. On the other hand, parties interested in channel surfing across world conversation might be more interested in tag clouds provided by Technorati, etc. For conversations that are happening on a 1 to many basis (i.e., one author to many readers), the blog format may work ok. That said, I think some blogging platforms could be enhanced to be more general (ignoring some technical and security issues for a moment) by including some bulletin board-like functionality (e.g., all persons making a comment or any interested party can subscribe via email to a comment update to a blog comment).

My perspective on the bulk of the blog market is that it is good at supporting two types of conversations: channel surfing and one-to-many scenarios. The bulletin board flow is not very well serviced right now. Any for people to reach out to non-technical people, well for right now this requires hard work on the part of the author ...

My $0.02.

[Sekretär des Weltraumpapstes]

I dream of a page, where all my comments I made somewhere on the Internet are collected, plus all the responses.

Shouldn't that be possilbe with trackbacks?

[Amy Gahran]

Beth, thanks for the nudge, and sorry for my belated response.

Chris Lock recently published a NetSquared post relevant to this theme, so I commented on his post just now and linked back to this one. We'll see what he can offer in this regard.

See: http://snipurl.com/lp1k

- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com

[Michael]

Hi Amy,

Looks like the (really smart) guys over at 37signals are having issues following comments as well...

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/dealing_with_comment_threads_at_blogs.php

[Paula]

Hi,

I realize I'm extremely late to this discussion, but I wanted to ad another viewpoint. I read a lot of blogs, most of them written by women for the purposes of showing off their knit designs or other handmade crafts. These blogs are also forums for the author to "vent" opinions and comments about their lives and societal issues. I'm finding the unwritten rule for posting a comment on someone else's blog is: Don't post your own opinions, or comment in a conversational way. Post only comments that are supportive of the authors' views/opinions/etc. This has the effect of stifling conversation while at the same time oversaturating a potentially conversational medium with quasi-conversational content. There is little room for conversation, and an infinite amount of room for self-expression.