Accidentally on Purpose Blog

Robert Scoble celebrated his seventh year as a blogger this weekend, and I’d like to light a virtual candle for the guy — not for his fame and reputation as one of world’s best-known bloggers, but more specifically for his work in helping businesses understand the positive impact of social media. 

Seven years is a long time to put it all out there on a blog.  The things I remember best were from his time at Microsoft — MSFT’s Channel 9 was ground breaking work — it inspired (and is still inspiring) many other new corporate videocasters to give it a go.   That’s not to take away from what he’s doing now, its just that the what, how, why, where and when he did it showed everyone else that it could be done!

Happy “B”-day Robert!

Every now and then I check in on Technorati’s top 100-blog list, rarely are there any real surprises.  But this time I was surprised – I’m referring to the success of the blog di Beppe Grillo (now number 8), the outrageous and comic Italian blog that has ”tackled financial scandals and political corruption.” How does Beppe do it?  I’m not sure, but it can’t hurt that the blog appears in Italian, English, and Japanese.

Hat tip to colleague and consultant Giovanni Rodriguez, who tells me he’s now proud again of his Italian heritage.  But, he’s still wondering about the other half – ”where are all the Puerto Rican bloggers?”

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Please read Paul Glazowki’s recent post on the future of blogging (”Blogs:  A History, A Future). What once was a mostly a “geeky” medium has become mainstream. 

For years, we have seen instances of blogs that have amassed steady readerships well past the million mark. Whether they be political in nature (DailyKos, The Huffington Post) or cover all things gadgetary (Engadget, Gizmodo), they’ve regularly shown, for many, many a season their ability to attract seriously large audiences.

But only recently have such online publications received considerable attention day to day in the realm of typical chatter. Whereas in 2004 and 2005 (in some cases 2006, even) one would tend to think twice before mentioning one’s interest in a particular blog at the lunch or dinner table, today it is more or less accepted that one mention such a reference in an average setting. You know, a setting involving one’s non-geek friends or family members.

What does this mean for the future of blogging?  Who knows, but we are well beyond the “early adopter” phase, at least when it comes to readership.  The big question is whether the masses will ever go beyond reading and participate more meaningfully. 

I think were going to see a second round of blogging growth.  Perhaps not the same “entrepreneurial” style that Paul’s post described but the corporate wave of blogging is still to come and that wave will favorably affect participation.  In the meantime, there are numerous other social-media platforms worth studying.  The rapid growth of social networks and video suggests that there is more than one way for people to participate.

The Daily Telegraph — a leading U.K. tabloid — reports that blogging has gone “mainstream” in Great Britain.  More than 4 million U.K. citizens are now blogging, according to a recent report.  But a more interesting stat appears later in the article — the number of Telegraph readers who are using the newspaper’s blogging platform — MyTelegraph — to create their own blogs.

Since My Telegraph was launched six months ago, almost 4,000 Daily Telegraph readers have set up a blog to interact with other people from across the world.

Shane Richmond, who oversees the operation, said he was not surprised that so many people were getting involved.

Reminds me of the IBM case study — under Chris Barger’s leadership (he’s now at GM), more than 5,000 IBM-employees used an IBM blogging platform to set up external blogs, and more than 20,000 used the platform to set up internal blogs — I don’t know the current numbers but one would have to imagine that those numbers have grown.  We keep hearing about the power of platforms, and here’s a very simple example.  Make it easy for people to use social media, and you will get better returns.

Technorati Tags: My Telegraph, IBM, Chris Barger