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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Does Weblogs acquisition herald a reintegration of the web?

In workshops and talks, I’ve been suggesting that the web has become balkanized. Three separate entities have emerged:

  • The “reference web”— The traditional web where people go to extract information. Characterized by the receiver-driven model of communication, it’s all about pulling what you want when you want it.
  • The “collaborative web”— Social media, consumer-generated content, conversations. This is made up of wikis, blogs, social networking sites, tag-driven sites, and the like.
  • The “broadband web”— Sites enabled entirely by the prevalence of high-speed access, including vlogs, vidcasts, and podcats.

Of course, these are all websites in the end, and all part of the World Wide Web. However, only in rare cases are blogs (for example) just one element of a larger site. In nearly all cases, the blog is the site. The blogosphere is an entity unto itself, separate and distinct from the rest of the web. Compare that to message boards which, in nearly all cases, have been subordinate elements of a larger reference website. Similarly, Wikipedia is its own site as is TheNewPR. Rocketboom is just a vidcast with supporting links. They are distinct from traditional reference web content.

I have also been suggesting that this balkanization is temporary, that these three elements of the web will eventually reintegrate. I’ve been guessing that this would take three to five years, but the news yesterday that AOL had acquired Jason Calacanis’ blog network Weblogs may lead me to accelerate my estimate. While AOL insists that Weblogs will continue to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary, AOL is planning to integrate the blogs into its web portal by linking to specific entries. For example, according to one report, “Visitors to AOL’s Moviefone, for instance, might see referrals to Weblogs’ Cinematical blog on films.” Hence the blogs become an element of a larger, more traditional website.

Whether this is good, bad, or neutral is something we can debate endlessly. For instance, it’ll be harder to quantify what the buzz within the blogosphere or its influence when blogs are subsumed back into the overall web. Either way, the AOL acquisition may signal the beginning of this inevitable reintegration.

10/08/05 | 2 Comments | Does Weblogs acquisition herald a reintegration of the web?

Comments

  • 1.That's an interesting concept... of course these 3 areas aren't so distinct in all cases. Videoblogs are still blogs, and have an element of conversation, community, and cross-fertilization. Likewise, i was jsut at a conference where the Wikimedia speaker was initially placed on a legal panel, to which she protested, and ultimately ended up on a social networking panel. Wikis aren't really social networks, but there is something of a social element in the act of people writing, editing, and feuding over content. Wikis, along with blogs and podcasts and videoblogs, also represent the "read-write web" of user-generated content, really the evolution of the read-only reference web.

    Chuck Olsen | October 2005 | Minneapolis

  • 2.Shel
    Perhaps the answer to your question is in your analysis. As soon as Usenet was subsumed, discussion lists , IM and chat emerged, as they were subsumed Blogs made their way the front of the que.
    Perhaps it is the nature of the net that its technologies offer the opportunity for a new way. And, does it have to be web based? There are alternative technologies.
    I think Blogs have an immediate future because so many of us are loading blog and wiki software onto our servers which makes them harder to subsume but my feeling is that there is another revolution in the making where mobile and the net meet. Its just a hunch; it will be mobile; it may include sound and vision and its out there now being pushed by a venture capitalist aiming it at the wrong market.

    Citizen journalism is doing well but so too is citizen invention. In a networked society the inventor does not have to make the prototype and the investor does not have to employ the inventor. This means that the pace of new developments is going to step up.

    Meantime in PR land, there are a host of other developments that need our attention. Last year I was taken to night club with a big undergraduate client?le (lecturers of a certain age have to be invited ? you understand) and saw how they use their cell phones to pull music and DJ information ? and the opposite sex. The emerging Internet Protocol TV is going to be interesting. The emergence of IM from under the big companies is making it different when integrated with VoIP.

    We have a lot of new channels for communication and this has big implications for practitioners.

    But we knew that when Usenet was excitingly new!

    David Phillips | October 2005 | United Kingdom

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