This is an open letter to the blogosphere. I have decided to use this time to take a look at how blogging could fail, and what we can do to prevent it.

Egos

Sometime after the Web 1.0 bubble that most of us managed to survive, technologists the world over, like the good addicts that we are, looked ourselves in the mirror and said we’d never do it again. Pie in the sky idea churning transformed into tinkering and business model building. Great sites like Amazon, Ebay, and PayPal survived and thrived. Blogging came into the fore and pundits starting gaining mindshare in the hearts of web users.

Time passed, lessons were forgotten and the youthful exuberance known as Web 2.0 reared its ugly head. The problem with this new web is not the lack of business models, not the cookie cutter companies without any concept of unique value proposition, not even the lavish VC spending on “products” that have yet to generate anything but losses. The problem is how we react to it.

We climb up on our high horses and complain endlessly about how mainstream media has lost its connection with its reader base, yet we — as pundits, enthusiasts, and bloggers are constantly using the same tools to feed our ever growing sense of self importance. If it wasn’t for people like Ted over at Uncov, half of us wouldn’t even realize how much we have become like the worst terrestrial broadcasters.

We jump on every trend, ride every wave, link bait, lambast, lie and kowtow all in hopes that it will drive up our CPM. Everyone needs to make a living, and I am the last person to tell anyone how to do it but I will say that this egotistical sense that we are on some noble quest to save the written word is a load of bull hockey that we need to stop buying into.

“My traffic has skyrocketed, what are you talking about?” Sure it has and it will probably continue to do that for a while. For the same reason that Facebook’s traffic will spike for a little while longer. The reason? There are just no other decent alternatives.

Third rule of business — never mistake inertia for a blank check, and never assume that just because you have been successful once that it means that you are no longer held accountable. Remember all those people you had to pass to make your way to the top? Well, the reason that you did that was your willingness to work hard and provide value. Carnival side-shows are fun, but they are not a long term business proposition.

The Ugly Truth

Before I begin, the reason that I don’t name anyone in particular is because I think the vast majority of bloggers (including myself) are guilty of a lot of these things. If you really want to understand why “Web 2.0″ will fail, look at it like this.

As we spend more time trying to find a way to build media empire, we spend less time solving real problems. As we grow in fame and recognition, more of our time is spent undermining anyone who criticizes us. We use our readers as weapons, stoking their ire to further whatever agendas we feel like pushing. Worse yet, like good politicians, we provide incomplete facts and hope that our readers trust us enough not to dig deeper. We’ve gone from being creators to being users.

Ok, breath. Lets take a break to point out the good.

Not everyone suffers from these problems. I can name a dozen blogs like ReadWriteWeb, Ken Newsome’s Blog, Publishing2, Boing Boing, GigaOM and most all of the smaller publications that go out of their way to avoid the silliness that slow news days often transform into. Unfortunately, these are becoming the exception rather than the rule.

If you have ever even pretended to be a serious news source, and you want to be seen as the next logical step in reporting, it is time to stop Valleywagging and instead get back to providing your readers with something a little better than the latest Valley blunder.

While I am on the subject, I find it ridiculous that some of the worst purveyors of spin are often the first ones to harp on publications like Valleywag. At least they don’t pretend to be much more than a gossip rag. I’d rather read a pile of tripe from them for a quick laugh than have to wade my way through the complex agendas of more serious technology pundits.

Solutions

Fortunately for most, very few people have actually jumped ship loudly enough to register as of yet. If you look around though, you can see ripples at the seams. People are realizing that something has changed and little things like the weekend blogosphere exercise in self-flagellation have become a running joke.

If you really want to do the blogosphere a service, here’s how.

Be the bigger man. You are a publisher, you have a trust relationship built with your audience, you don’t have to attack every person who rubs you the wrong way. You can get away with this for a while, but here is the deal: the more popular you become, the more detractors you’ll attract. Unless you want to start sounding like you write for TMZ, you better start being able to roll with the punches.

Value. Look back at your archives and compare the posts that you write today with the ones that made you famous. No, trust me, it will be an instructive exercise. If you notice that quality has changed for the worse, it might be time to re-evaluate what you are doing. Growth is great, but it will only last for so long without real value.

Insularity. Do yourself a favor and read a few blogs from writers that you have never heard of. A lot of people do this just because they are really passionate about technology. When the only thing driving you is the hope that someone out there might be reading, the content you produce usually rings more true than the corporate side-shows that we occasionally shill. Once you do that, try to put yourself back into that mindset. Write something from the heart, it will do you good.

Passion. A lot of bloggers are just burnt out at having to constantly defend themselves and the baby they have nursed for years. This leads to the misguided belief that, “if you aren’t with us, you must be against us.” this is not true at all. If people really didn’t care, they wouldn’t bug you with their commentary. Some of your worst detractors are your best readers; most of us know this somewhere deep down in a place that we don’t like to talk about. Try to remember why you started doing this in the first place, it probably wasn’t to spar with other bloggers over the wording of your last post. Reconnect with your passion.

Side-shows. Link-bait is fine, gilding the Lily is alright but huge spectacles designed just to get attention is a trick only effective for carnival barkers and circus clowns. If you get nothing else from this it should be that just because you get away with something, doesn’t mean that you haven’t lost something in the bargain. Treat your credibility like currency and invest it wisely.

Web 2.0 Roundup

No I am not predicting the death of blogging or anything else quite that ludicrous. What I am saying is that the real world doesn’t care about “Lifestyles of the Blogging and Irritated.” If you want to grow your businesses and bring in readership from outside of your still relatively small technology fiefdoms, it might be time to stop trying to be the “cool kid” in school and start giving back to your readers.

If for no other reason than it might just raise your CPM…

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