Itisi

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed a growing number of bloggers expressing a certain amount of dissatisfaction with certain aspects of blogging, or the blogosphere in general. Complaints, seem to mainly focus on the proliferation of ‘money-making’ blogs, and the number of bloggers who see other bloggers as a means to an end. One of my favourite bloggers, Diddums, stumbled a post that echoed my own thoughts, and it was a relief to see it, because I did think I was the only person who felt this way. A couple of days ago, a post at Problogger asked readers what they missed about the ‘good old days’ of blogging, and a surprising number of people responded with the same complaints – too much emphasis on money, technology and social climbing. This is quite telling when you consider that Problogger is mainly aimed at bloggers who want to make money from their blogs.

I feel I should say, I’m not against the idea of anyone making money from their blog. I’m not against technology blogs, I even read a few. However, over the last year or so, these blogs seem to have become the main focus of a large part of the blogosphere, and other, often better, blogs, are left on the sidelines.

A little aside: The irony is, many of the people who are trying to earn a living from their blogs, will probably fail to do so. Not through any fault of the blogger, but because a) it really isn’t as easy as some would have you believe, it takes a lot of time and hard work, and b) they are in such an over saturated market that one tiny blog can easily go unnoticed. For every blogger who makes $2000 a day, there are dozens of others who struggle to make tuppence.

The focus on money and tech blogs is not limited to those with a vested interest, even Google have been seduced. If you use Google Reader, take a look at the feed bundles you can subscribe to. Do you see a gardening section, or one for personal blogs? Nope. They aren’t there. But, there are umpteen blogs about technology, SEO and related subjects. I’m sure the good folk at Google have added these blogs because they are popular and well known, and they think they are giving people what they want. The question is, which people?

Looking through my lists of subscriptions I do see a number of blogs about various aspects of blogging. However, these are outnumbered by blogs about writing, history, films, books, gardening and of course, the good old personal blogs – my favourite kind*. So why are the blogs recommended to me not in those categories? I don’t know, but I suspect it is because techy and money blogs are much higher profile and have, somehow, become the mainstream of blogging.

Obviously, this isn’t just a problem with Google, pop over to technorati , take a look at the top 100 and you will see the same pattern there. In fact, you will see this mirrored on pretty much every network you visit. The only exceptions are political blogs, which do feature prominently.

I have been blogging long enough to remember a time when personal blogs were the mainstream of the blogosphere, not a much derided backwater. Each blog was an extension of it’s owner’s personality, and they were eclectic, interesting and human. Those blogs still exist, those bloggers still write great content – often better than what you might find on more trendy blogs – and their readers are more loyal and conversational than those on the aforementioned trendy blogs.

Although, blogging has been around for about a decade – depending on who you ask – it is still a minority pastime, and most people do not read blogs. I wonder if it would become more popular if non-blog readers knew that it wasn’t all about technology and money.

Television, which has been a around for considerably longer, does not broadcast programmes about these subjects at prime time. They tend to be tucked away at odd hours, or only feature as a small part of another programme. So what do people like to watch? Soaps are popular, gardening and cookery programmes very much so. Comedy never goes out of fashion and dramatisations of books always attract a big audience. All these subjects are covered in the blogosphere. In fact, many personal blogs make fictional soaps seem incredibly lame. If we want blogging to have the same kind of prestige that traditional broadcasters and publishers enjoy, it is these, less trendy, blogs we should be promoting.

OK, climbing down off my soapbox. Phew! I feel so much better.

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