We Are Still In the Blogging 1.0 Cycle

I’m reading a bunch of articles lately that feature the catchy term “Blogging 2.0” (though Time Magazine wrote about Blogging 2.0 in 2005 already).

Part of the argument for a Blogging 2.0 cycle is that comments are shifting away from blogs to FriendFeed or at least hosted by 3rd-party companies like Disqus,  and that Twitter is becoming more important.

In a post about this topic a whole back, Duncan Riley defines Blogging as being “all bout the users” (question: isn’t blogging (besides the LifeJournal kind of blogging) always about the users?):

If blogging 1.0 was about enabling the conversation on each blog, blogging 2.0 is about enabling the conversation across many blogs and supporting sites and services. The conversation has matured and no longer is it acceptable to believe that as a content owner you hold exclusive domain over conversations you have started. Users/ readers today demand more than a conversation on one site, and blogging 2.0 facilitates this.

For many a blogger, the idea that we are not in control anymore comes as a surprise, but I think this is more about perception than reality – which is why I think that very little has actually changed.

The idea that we were ever in control is a complete fantasy – people always discussed our posts in private – be it by email, on forums, in person, on Digg or Reddit comments etc. Only today, with services like FriendFeed (rightly) getting a lot of press, this is simply becoming more of an open discussion.

Duncan is right that it’s all about the users – we need to go where the users are – but again – is that so different from what we used to do before?

If somebody commented on one of my posts on a forum in the past, I often joined the conversation there. If it happened on another blog post, I headed over there. Today – it seems the conversation is getting distributed far beyond our reaches – and as you know – I’m just fine with that. Whenever you speak in public, or you write something and publish it – be it on the web or in print – you have effectively lost control of the conversation – nothing has changed.

As Duncan points out – we can’t really fight that – so we just need to accept and embrace it.

This post made me think about what Blogging 2.0 could really look like, though – but more about that in another post.