I want to reassure you that there are new people every day just discovering blogs — and even the Internet — for the very first time. You are not the left-behind. I promise.
Don’t listen to the early-adopters, don’t listen to the bleeding-edge. They don’t know what they’re on about. They live in places like New York City and expect the half-life for a popular restaurant to be six to eight months.
In the rest of the country — and the world — most restaurants are passed on from grandparent to parent to child to grandchild. Most of the world is not about the “latest and greatest.” Much of the world isn’t even online yet, to say nothing of the blogosphere!
While early adopters may have moved on somewhat, more and more Americans are adopting the online environment. Just remember how long it took “Middle America” years to stop wearing acid washed jeans an start wearing 7s. Hell, I just have to go into the suburbs and I can’t take a step without tripping over a pair of mom jeans. Come on: mom jeans!
Don’t forget that a majority of people who are using the Internet are still using dial-up. Blogs are not remotely dead — in fact, they are barely-tapped. The wave hasn’t even formed yet.
Just remember, the blogosphere is doubling every five months. Although the Internet is already highly monetized, the next step has to do with penetration.
We have barely scratched the surface even as the bleeding-edge, early-adopting, hipsters are already closing shop, These cool kids announce that Friendster, Orkut, and MySpace is already dead but the truth is that Friendster is alive and well and full of more wonderful, general, non-geeky kids than it ever has.
In other words, the kinds of folks who have money to spend and not such an axe to grind.
That is not to say we should not keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest thing — I mean I am myself a technologist, a strategist, and a futurist myself — but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Right?
Sometimes we are so cutting-edge we forget that there is still an amazing market out there and the stuff we currently know really well still serves up beautiful even though it might be eighteen-months-old.
Market intelligence culled from blogs and other forums for online conversation and discussion is still more relevant and powerful than anything else.
You have my word on that. Good as gold. I am super-excited. There is plenty of crystal-clear water in that well yet! There is plenty oil in the ground and gold in them damn hills.
Actually, the truth is is that the futurists, the technologists, and the strategists are always trying to sell you the latest and greatest, “and here’s why.” Its their business to upsell you then sell you on something different.
I will take the analogy further: oil works, we just need to spend more time and energy figuring out better strategies for using oil: efficiency, discovery, recovery, collection, etc…
In much the same way, there is a lot we have yet to know about the blogosphere and the newmediasphere that we haven’t tapped yet. Slow down and spend more time learning, analyzing, and finding patterns in these truly democratic and accessible forums for conversation and collaboration: blogs.
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Hey Chris, my friend and mentor on quite a few things whether you know it or not: (1) When did the blogospshere “height” happen, anyway? (2) What stage now? Interested in what you have to say. Dan Hull
I am going to use a surfing analogy since I am from Hawaii.
The best surfers can catch just about any wave and is always very discerning as to the quality of the wave and how much life it has in it. Shape, rideability, etc.
Well, the truth is, most surfers can’t even read a wave — not to mention the ocean — with such perception and understanding.
The expert surfer watched from the beach at the garbage surf that the beginner is willing to catch. Shore break and already-breaking waves. Crap. These experts are offended by this sort of behavior. Both the short board shredder and the long board big-wave rider would look at an East Coast “surfer” and see a poseur. Those aren’t waves.
Truth is, in terms of the height of the blogosphere, it isn’t even a wave yet. A few people have caught the wave already, but it is just forming. It certainly hasn’t crested! It is far from curling. The wave is still only accessible to the top 10%, but the real market is always in that 80%.
This is a great time to start paddling but if you get up to quickly you might not get the wave. Spend the time working on your form, working on your skills, waxing your board.
Actually, you need to do what real surfers in Hawaii do before they even pick up their thruster and enter the chop:
Sit there and look at the waves. Sit there and get to know the sets. Sit there and see what other people are doing and learn from their mistakes. Make your own mistakes but in smaller surf on a longer board. Practice before you even get into the water. Pipeline is dangerous but really rewarding but any error is mortal. Make your mistakes in Waikiki on 2-4-foot sets. And wear your sunblock.
Now is the time to take to the waves even though lots of people were up and out even before sunrise. And just because they’re telling you not to even bother, always question their motives.
Question their motives because they might just want all the waves for themselves. At the end of the day, their motives might not be pure.