WEBVTT - The State of the Blogosphere 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:05.480 Get in touch with technologies with book style from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:16.599 Stuff foks dot com. Pay there everyone, and welcome to 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.120 tech Stuff. My name is Jonathan Strickland and joining me 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.720 as always is Lauren Vocabum. And today we wanted to 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:28.920 talk about blogs. Blogs. Yeah, exactly, you know, what what 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.519 are they? How they get started? Kind of? I mean, 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.600 it's it's it's a difficult thing to talk about because 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.680 it's sort of a trend and really it's it was 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.840 a lot easier to identify after it had become a thing, right, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.920 and it's it's really a big thing. I mean, there's 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.320 a whole bunch of them out there. It's basically changed 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.680 the way that we participate in and consume news media 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.200 and uh and even pursue interests that are outside the news, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.560 things that aren't necessarily what what I guess the mainstream 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.080 would consider newsworthy, but depending upon your interests might be 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.840 very relevant to you. Right, So, very specific types of 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.959 interest groups have their own types of blogs, and um, 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.200 they covered just about every subject. And really, when you 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.120 think about it, this is an extension of something that 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.640 people have been doing for centuries, which is mostly just 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.840 recording their own thoughts. Yeah, I think I think that 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.760 for yeah, millennia. In fact, it's about how long people 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.920 have been doing that. You know, caves, the original blogs, 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.640 maybe the cave blogs, but but but digital blogs as 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.280 we know them. It actually kills me thinking about this 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.640 because I sort of grew up using them. I mean 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:38.720 not not when I was a child, but certainly through 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.120 high school and college because they started in about and 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:44.560 this is one of those times what I'm about to 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.640 see Jonathan's I start twitching because that that is not 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:56.640 when he was growing up. Necessarily I got married. Ah yeah. 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.760 But and to be fair, before anyone starts writing in 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:01.840 and saying, hey, I know that there were blogs that existed, 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.600 but that is that is the first time that that 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:10.680 someone called a dated personal content update a weblog, right 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.359 web blog. So so like in the documentary series Star Trek, 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.560 where you had the Captain's log, where the captain would 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.520 keep a log of the events that we're going on, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.840 usually with some sort of snarchy comment directed at some 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.320 poor crewmember who may or may not been known as 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.239 Wesley Crusher, then um, yeah, it's same sort of things. 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.079 In this case, it was generally speaking, at least in 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.200 the early days of a sort of a personal diary 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.320 kind of thing that you just wanted to share with 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.480 a larger audience, or maybe a collection of links to 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.840 things of interest that you had found around the internet. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.560 You know, a little bit curation going on there as well. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.560 But but the person who coined this term was Jordan 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.400 Barger of robot Wisdom. Okay, important, And that was December 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.160 seventeenth actually, And what I what I loved about doing 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.880 this episode is that the dates are so concrete because 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.160 it was on the Internet and it was necessarily recorded, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.960 and so everything is extremely clear cut. It's much easier than, 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.400 for example, when we were researching Tesla and everything was 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:13.440 kind of like how this thing happened? It was yeah, yeah, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.200 and and and before you start asking, well, I'll ask Lauren, Lauren, 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.960 So where did blog come from? A blog came a 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.720 little bit later, I think, uh maybe maybe a ninety nine. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.720 Peter Merholtz joked that he was going to pronounce it 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.560 we blog in instead instead of a weblog, weblog, it's 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.760 blob blog because it was becoming a community. And so yeah, 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.680 so that was shortened down to blog and then bloggers 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.960 were and of course we have variations on this already. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.880 I mean there are people who do video versions of 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.360 a blog, video logs, blogs, blogs, and then, of course 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.800 Felicia Day, the Internet darling, a wonderful person. I've met 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.440 her a couple of times, very nice lady, love uh. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.400 And she has her own video log that she calls 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.680 a flog for Felicia's log, not that she actually flogs people. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:07.760 As far as I know, she has not done that. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.119 But not not not not on the air. I'm gonna 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.640 stop conjecturing about Felicia Day. I haven't seen every single episode, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.320 so I can't say for certain, but none of the 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:21.239 ones I watched involved any actual flogging. Um. But moving 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.039 back into the history of blogging, I'm sorry you just 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.720 shorted out my entire my entire brain with that one. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.920 But it happens. Yeah, yeah, back into it, back into 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.680 the history there. Um But what long before Felicia Day 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.000 was was doing whatever it is that she does on 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:40.680 her her own uh flogs? Uh. Peter Merho coined the term, 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.479 and also the year that basically blogging as we know 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:50.440 it sort of launched, Uh, Pyra released blogger that's h 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.880 V Williams and Meg Horahan. Does that sound like a 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.920 way that you might pronounce that name. That's that's just 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.160 how I would pronounce it. So excellent. Uh, Rock Soup launched, 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:06.360 Brad Fitzpatrick starts started live Journal, a few of those 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:11.000 really basic, original big ones. Yeah, the big platforms, and 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.440 these were important tools because you know, I know it's 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.640 hard for people to imagine it now, people who weren't 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.400 using the web when it first started. Uh, And it's 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.240 it's something that you don't run into these days. But 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.000 when when web pages were first a thing, they tended 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.800 to be static. So you would create a web page 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.000 and you wouldn't really change it very much because for 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.720 one thing, it was a real hassle to do it. Oh, sure, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.120 you might add a page, or you might update it, 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.679 you know, once every once in a while to include 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.560 new information, but it certainly wasn't daily, right, It wasn't 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.080 And it wasn't a log right right. You were generally 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.920 either replacing something that was already there, or you might 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.480 add a paragraph, but you're not creating a log of 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:58.480 of of entries. You are just editing one page over 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.800 and over, maybe adding another page like a link you 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.000 might link to a second page or whatever. But it 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.920 was not easy to record a series of events because 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.400 the tools weren't there. So you start seeing the development 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.000 of these tools and the distribution of these tools that 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.800 make it easier for people to have this outlet to 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.719 to communicate. Right before then, even if you did want 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.359 to create a log, you could certainly do so yourself, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.520 but you had to code it yourself, and so only 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.479 people who were pretty well familiar with that web programming 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.120 languages were going to be doing that, right Yeah, And 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.200 and this is I mean, you know, it's it's easy 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.440 for us to take for granted now, but trust me, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.880 if you had been surfing the web back when I 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.760 was first starting the web, and I know some of 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.960 my listeners, I know you guys were there with me, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.200 it was just such a totally different world. It is 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.080 impossible for me to think of, based on my first 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.480 web page, that I would be able to have an 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.960 outlet that would allow me to update so frequently and seamlessly. 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.720 Oh yeah, absolutely. And I guess it's a good good 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.560 thing to point out that blogs tend to have a 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:02.919 similar UH structure, in the sense that whatever was the 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.839 most recent post tends to be at the top of 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:10.400 whatever the blog is, and then the earlier posts are 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.360 chronologically ordered in reverse order, so the earliest blog post 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.680 is at the bottom of the chain, so it might 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.920 be several pages back, depending upon the layout of the blog. Now, Lauren, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.440 I didn't ask you this before the podcast Excellent pub Quiz. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.480 Did you have a live journal account? I, in fact 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.360 did have a live journal account. I created mine in 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.120 two thousand three. I you know, I don't even know 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.240 when I created mine. I I can't remember the last 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.120 time I logged into mine. I logged into mine while 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.080 researching this article, and that was the first time that 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.680 I had logged in. I switched from from live journal 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.160 to blogger maybe around two thousand seven. I want to say, well, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.360 live Journal, the last time I remember looking at it, 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.160 it looked like it had really started to lose a 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.600 lot of the community that was there. I mean, obviously 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.720 I was not the only person to have drifted away 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.720 from that platform, but I do remember back in the day, 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.200 the live journal was one of those places that almost 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:07.960 all of my friends had an account their. In fact, 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.920 to uh, you know, a lot of us didn't have 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.640 access to things when I first came out, like Facebook, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.840 because we were not in college and Facebook was reserved 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.000 just for college students. In the early days, right right, 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.440 And and Facebook wasn't a blogging platform either, right, Yeah. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.800 I think when I first got on Facebook, and I 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.520 didn't I I also didn't get on Facebook until only 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.280 just a couple of years ago, actually really like two 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.199 thousand nine, I want to say, um, but but when 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:33.560 I was first using it, I feel like a lot 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.360 of people were moving there from live journal, and therefore 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.480 we're using it like they were using live journal. They 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.880 were posting a lot more notes and more long form content, 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.760 and and over time I think that that's really shortened 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.440 down to to this sort of micro blogging that's occurring today. Yeah, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.240 and we'll talk more about that when we get into 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:54.000 what the state of the blogosphere is today. But yeah, 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.320 in those early days, it was really exciting because what 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.720 this blogging world did was it opened up the world 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.360 of publishing in a way online publishing to an enormous 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.200 crowd of a huge audience. It gave voices to people 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.000 who you who you might never have read anything from before, 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.000 and also let you It wasn't until that Opened Diary launched, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.360 which started really allowing people to comment on other people's blogs. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.760 Before then, it was a little bit like the way 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.320 that tumbler is today, Like you might see something and 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.720 then take that link and repost it and post your 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.960 own comments about it and start a conversation that way. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.400 But it wasn't. It wasn't until it was really um 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.480 that there were tools out there for for incorporating comments 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.000 and to create a dialogue as opposed to just shouting 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.959 into the atmosphere and hoping people are hearing you, right, um, yeah, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.480 And that's another really key component to what makes blogs 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:51.800 so enduring. And uh, you know, what was also interesting 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.920 to me is that blogs were being used not just 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.280 by by folks like like me and you, Lauren, before 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.600 we were big time podcast stars. They were being used 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.400 by you know, by by actual celebrities or by writers, journalists, 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.920 people who already had outlets, but they were using blogs 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.880 to express themselves in ways that they might not otherwise 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.040 be able to, or to provide more context to whatever 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.760 it was they were doing. We even began to see 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.360 early early on companies get interested in blogs. It became 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:28.120 a possible outlet for a company to have a dialogue 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.679 with either customers or potential customers, right the same way 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:33.760 that it gave people that you might have never listened 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.800 to a face on the internet. It also gave company 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.760 companies kind of latched onto it and said like, hey, 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.000 we can use this to to allow people to see 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.640 us at a more ground level, a more human level. Yeah. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.200 And and and in fact, a lot of companies, especially in 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.959 the tech sector, which again should be no surprise, but 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.000 in the tech sector, a lot of companies began to 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.160 allow their their employees to blog and even created or 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.920 provided tools for them to do so. Not that it 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.520 was a compulsory thing, but they were allowed to and 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.200 they didn't necessarily have to blog about what it was 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.439 they were doing. So it wasn't like a corporate sponsored 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:11.800 you need to go out here and message that this 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.000 next product that we're coming out with is awesome and 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.400 let people know. It was more like, no, if we 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.280 give them the tools, they'll they'll they'll do it. They'll 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.640 do it themselves. They'll they'll talk about what they're interested in. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.600 Occasionally that might be something that we are specifically doing, 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.400 but if it's not, that's okay. And uh, and so 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:32.600 it really helped engender the spirit of blogging. Yeah. Yeah, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.679 and you know, I don't think that I don't think 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.480 that the original creators of all of this, expected it 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.480 to to grow in such a ridiculous way. Um, I've 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.320 got a quote from from me from Mega Horahan, and 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.800 I really hope that's how you say her name. She said, 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.439 we joked about the idea that people could start change 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.240 in far away places and revolutionary things would happen. But 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.440 to see that it's actually happening, I get a thrill. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.319 I see it everywhere. Yeah, and and that's that's so 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.959 much fun. I mean, that's and and to really understand 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.360 and why blogging is important and to understand its impact, 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.200 all you really have to do. You know, we've been 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:11.640 talking about, well we all know what happened in two thousand. 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.920 That's the dot com crash. So you have all these 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.199 big web companies that started up and uh and and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:24.280 they had inflated stock prices, they didn't have proven revenue 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.479 generating models. There are all these issues that that combined 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.719 to make a bubble that burst, and then you had 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.600 the dot com crash and as a result, lots of 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.920 different companies went under. This is also the dividing line 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.640 between what some people call web one point oh and 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:45.760 web two point oh. Now those are mainly marketing terms. Yeah, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.119 it's it's no riley thing. It's sort of like a buzzword. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.120 But but it does give you a useful shorthand to 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:57.120 talk about certain aspects of web pages that became um 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:03.320 more important than others. So, for example, the old static formula, 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.880 that web page that you put up and you only 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.680 occasionally tweak but you don't really have any dynamic elements 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.480 on it, that was shown to not be a very viable, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.600 long lasting strategy. It was much more interesting to have 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.040 a dynamic kind of web page where things were changing. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.079 It gave people a reason to return to that website. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.280 It gave it which gives you more ad revenue by 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.880 the way, and and I mean, obviously money is one 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.560 of those things that's underlying all this, but even beyond that, 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:37.439 it creates that amazing thing that all companies strive for engagement, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:43.240 where people are wilfully coming to your website and engaging 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.720 with you, hopefully in a positive way. And so the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.959 blogs show they had these elements built in. Like there 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.880 was the element of expression. You are able to blog 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.199 about whatever you like. You can change dynamically. You can 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.960 update several times a day or a week or whatever. 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.360 However your sched to allows and like you were pointing out, Lauren, 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.280 the common ing feature was a huge part of what 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.960 web two point oh is all about. It is this 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.640 idea that there is a dialogue, it's not just a 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.800 one way communication. Another company that we talked about recently, Amazon, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.120 one of the reasons that that people cite it as 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.160 a as a survivor of the dot com crash was 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:26.760 because it had that customer reviews. Yeah, which that that's 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.040 one of those elements that is often associated with web 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:35.320 two point oh. So blogging was really kind of a 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.840 an ideal representation of what web two point oh was 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.720 all about. And uh, I think that's one of the 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:47.600 reasons why the trend was not only surviving through the 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:52.680 dot com crash era, it was thriving so Unlike the 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.400 traditional websites that uh that that did not do so 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.480 well or the startup companies that ended up floundering, blogging 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.960 continued to do pretty well. And we're gonna talk in 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.000 a second all about how it blossomed from that little 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.360 bitty plant of promise back in two thousand into the 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.880 enormous industry it is today. But before we do that, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.440 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.240 so back to the discussion about blogging. So around two 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.040 thousand we had the dot com crash and uh, and 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.080 blogging makes its way through mainly because again this is 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.040 a user generated sort of platform. It's it's not reliant 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.120 on some other company other other than the fact that 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.720 the platforms themselves were developed by other companies, right. But 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:43.680 you know, and someone has to host that web space, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.440 and there was all kinds of advertising that was worked 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.040 in slowly over the years. So in two thousand three, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.280 Google acquired Piro, which again were the people who had 0:15:53.320 --> 0:16:00.240 launched Blogger, and they actually made Blogger free to use 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.520 at that point, right right. I think before then, well 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.200 that there had been paid tiers. I think most most 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.000 blogging platforms had paid tiers. There there was some kind 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.600 of free for use thing and then a premium users 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.040 us get extra space, etcetera. Right right right? Um? Well, yeah, 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.200 that and that was huge. I mean, with Google behind 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.720 the the company that created a blogger, then that meant 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.800 that it definitely raised the visibility even beyond what it 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.600 already was. Yeah, it raised the visibility enough that by 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.400 two thousand four, um, there are about ten million blogs 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.840 in action around the world. Um and blog in fact, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.440 became Miriam Webster's word of the year. It was those 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.440 you know, it was a buzzword. Was everyone was was 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.160 kind of participating this. Uh. It was the year of 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.520 the US presidential election, and both major political parties gave 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.480 credentials to bloggers at their conventions. Well, we'll get into 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.120 some discussions about blogging versus journalism, I'm sure, because there 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.160 are a lot of discussions to be had. Uh, keeping 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.440 in mind that some journalists are bloggers. Some some bloggers 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.359 have graduated if you want to call it, or maybe 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:09.000 it's a lateral move. It's a different things that to 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.119 be a blogger, you just need a platform. Now, to 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.400 be a great blogger, you need lots of talent and 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.480 thoughts exactly, but you but really just to be a blogger. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.040 Anyone with an access to a platform can be a blogger, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.359 you know. But to be a blogger who who creates 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.960 newsworthy or at least information that is interesting to read 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.160 and is useful, then you have to have this talent 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.680 and ability. Um and and journalists, true journalists, if we're 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:38.800 using the word the way it was meant to be used, 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.119 have to go through quite a bit of training to 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.600 get to a point where they are able to craft 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.919 a story properly. Um. And you know, I'm not saying 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.520 that that that I idealized journalists or I don't consider 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.160 myself a journalist. I'm a writer. I'm not a journalist. 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.440 I don't think even I don't think I'm even a writer. 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.120 I mean, you know, it's as I read some cool 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:58.800 stuff online and then I say it to you guys, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.000 hopefully relatively pretty ways. But but yeah, there there is 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.439 a difference, right journalism, especially if you're talking about investigative journalism, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.840 that there's a very specific set of skills that go 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:13.240 along with that. And it's a discipline. And I dropped 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.440 out of journalism in school, so you you know about it. 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.240 You you you lack all the discipline you need because 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.520 you didn't That's okay. I never went to journalism school, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.800 and yet I was occasionally put into the role of 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.199 journalists and I learned how hard that job is. And 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.520 so there's there's not I don't know if it's as 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:35.639 pronounced now as it used to be, but I remember 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:37.639 the first time I went to c e. S. There's 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.159 the reporters section, the press section, and then they had 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.760 a blogger lounge, and your badge determined which of those 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.000 you went into, whether it was the press lounge or 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.320 the blogger lounge. And it just felt like there was 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:54.280 this crazy division there, some class division. I'm picturing free 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.440 martinis and and sorts of things and press side and 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.679 exactly I got the press badge. Yeah, so I was 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.920 in the press section and and I didn't know any better. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.760 I didn't know blogging from journalism. I was. I was 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:11.840 a writer for How Stuff Works, which was, you know, 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.400 writing articles. Uh, But even then, I felt like there 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.119 was a bit of classism there. Um. I think that 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.639 might be less so today. And part of that is 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.840 the changing nature of blogging. And and again we'll talk 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.080 about that. But two thousand four, when that that era 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.280 you're talking about, that was also the same year that 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.800 Technicoty released their State of the Blogger Sphere report. Right 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.159 well around around that election, rather Gate happened. And this 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:39.800 was when I don't know if you remember this or not, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.639 but this this is when um CBS wound up redacting 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.639 a report that had been made off of unauthenticated documents 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.160 after blogs challenged it. And that's crazy, I mean, I mean, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.320 that's that's wonderful. I mean that is driving investigative journalists well. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.800 And there was also the year that we saw started 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.080 seeing reports on events be four of the mainstream media 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.560 picked it up. So bloggers would, especially for very very 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.800 niche oriented blogs. There was, um, there were these blog 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.280 blogs that were all about bicycles, right, so they're all 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.879 about bicycling. You wouldn't think that this would be a 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.240 blog that would break a news story, but they did. 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:22.080 Back in two thousand three two four. Uh, there's a 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.600 bike lock company, uh, and they create a product called kryptonite. 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.440 And back at this time that particular lock, this Kryptonite lock, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.400 it was discovered that you could pick the lock using uh, 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:40.080 pretty handily available materials and without too much trouble. This 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:41.719 is a huge deal. I mean, this is a company 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.080 that's marketing its product as being something to secure your bike. 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.000 And anyone who owns a bike knows like these can 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:53.800 be really expensive and and and very attractive targets for thieves. 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.080 So when that information broke in the blogs, it was 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.960 in the blogosphere for like a week before the mainstream 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.400 media picked up the story. So we're already seeing, even 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:05.920 in these early days, that blogs are playing a role 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.679 in breaking the news, not just you know, regurgitating it, 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.720 which is again another common perception of blogs is that 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.800 they'll they'll look at some news reports only re reporting 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.320 everything right, right, not adding any other commentary, because that's 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.280 not what people do all the time on the internet. Yeah, 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.960 that's not that's not entirely true. But um, but so 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.000 so what did what did this technicraty report this first inaugural? 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:29.720 The first thing it said was that the first inaugural. 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:32.760 The first thing it said was that from June two 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.800 thousand three to October two thousand four, the number of 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.720 blogs increased by a factor of eight eight times the 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.479 number of blogs, so so in in uh, you know, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.320 a year's time essentially, um. And that they reported that 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.679 twelve thousand new blogs were being created each day, not 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:57.359 blog posts, blogs, so it said there's an averagely it 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.920 averaged out to a new blog created every seven point 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.920 four seconds. Four hundred thousand posts were being created each day, 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.800 which averages out to four point six uh posts per second, 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.359 so not you know, not every four point six seconds, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.160 four point six posts every second. We're going up now. 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.480 They did also point out that just under half of 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:24.240