No one is going to read your blog...

Roughly 30-50 people read this blog every day. It is very unlikely this number will ever rise. The reasons (lack of original thought, style etc) aren't important. I actually write another blog for my psychotherapy studies which only my tutor has access to. Its only for me. Only for personal reflection. A diary.

The reason I blog, and I think millions of others do to, is because somehow we know the process of refining and distilling our thoughts is useful to us. Not for our careers - hate that f**king word and concept (why in god's name would anyone chose a "career" over living, loving, hanging out with their children?) Baffles me...But for us. For us as people. To make our own worlds richer, more interesting.

Seth Godin calls it meta cognition. He's usually right....

makes you stink, makes you think

Is the online world being driven by a vocal, disruptive, opinionated minority who share what might be considered a collective world view?

Previously I’ve wondered whether certain character types are disproportionately represented in the active, online community. More recently I’ve been struck, in much of my reading, something of a “Makes you stink, makes you think" sentiment – whiffs of that haughty mantra of the confirmed, intellectual smoker type - ergo – the burden of awareness is borne only by those, of a slightly depressed character, who, self medicated on nicotine, see the world for what it is, through a cancerous haze.

In fact, I’ll go further and bet a statistically significant percentage of bloggers, either smoke, or smoked for long periods of their life.

blogging visualised...

the solution to newspapers problems...

It occurred to me that the reason I don't buy papers anymore isn't because of the format, or the time lag in between the news occurring and them reporting it. I have grown apart from newspapers, because essentially I don't trust them. Or to put it another way. I've found a source of news I trust more

I've begun to call this lack of trust the "right to lie" - the permission the existing system gives media (and brands) to tell fibs. We now live in a society where the practice is so endemic, it is so widespread, we are no longer conscious of it. The theory of the big lie, really has been borne out in practice. Here

Deep down, we know Starbucks doesn't really care about its employees or those who grow its coffee. They are a PLC with a responsibility to their shareholders. This isn't a matter of debate. The law of the land, states this explicitly.

We know Jen hasn't really just broken up, with whoever for the 6th time. The global media conglomerate who report the important news, probably owns the hotel room in which they split up, likely manages both of them and is almost certainly going to make a film in which the 2 of them will star.

The trouble is, that brand communication, has become so reckless with the truth. So comfortable with telling outrageous lies, we now struggle to reconcile our organisms' natural internal bullshit monitoring system shouting "this is nonsense" with the reality of the lie.

Is it then, that newspapers are simply the latest casualties of a return to the mean - a return to being human? En-masse, we appear to be making a collective judgment that those who write independently are more truthful, more human?

If this is the case, from Murdock's perspective, the simplest solution to his woes would be to simply sack everyone who is left (except the commissioning editors of each major section) and print the best blogs as a daily paper.

psychological profile of people generating UGC

Occurred to me, as it has other people, see here, that the type of person who takes the lead in generating content, blogging and the online world isn't necessarily reflective of society as a whole.

My wondering is, if we don't understand and take account of any built in bias, what impact could that have long term in the way we ask brands to engage in the online space?

Would sections of society become left out of the virtual world? Would the participatory nature of the blogging community, like open source software development, somehow skew everyone's perception of the real world?

To be crude to prove a point. If ultimately all off line research were discarded in favour of data from "pure" customer sentiment online. What general biases would start to emerge?

Could it be, that in the future we will have a sense of the way certain groups of bloggers think, as we do now with the leanings of the printed media - or would a general viewpoint emerge? Would we find "most" online reaction more left wing, more green, more anti big business than our conventional media. I suspect so.

The argument against, would suggest as more of the population engage and generate content, then any early leanings one way or the other will soon disappear. But it would be foolish to ignore the possibility, certainly in the short term.

I'm reminded of the 3 personality types profiled in the Tipping Point - mavens, connectors and salesmen. In the real world Gladwell assumes all 3 personality types interact, to generate a tipping phenomena. But what would happen if we were to profile 1000 bloggers and find a disproportionate number of them were salesmen? What would that do to an ideas ability to "tip" online?

Perhaps there is a large chunk of research or book I've missed. If not this would be a fascinating area of study for a brand or institution.