by Ethan Johnson
June 26, 2007
(Note: I have been working on the draft of this article since early June, and naturally ties in beautifully with the latest blogospheric vomitus currently making the rounds.)
There are two buzzwords associated with the social internet that never seem to lose their potency: Community, and conversation. People at least claim to want to foster a sense of "community", and attempt to do this by creating comment boxes, web forums, various applications to keep everyone connected, and live, face-to-face gatherings. And while that community is being cultivated, one is encouraged to engage in a "conversation" about [whatever]. In my experience, "conversation" is code for "I want to sell you something, but I'll use the 'soft sell' approach so you don't feel pressured." Not always, of course. But often.
Many a blogger strives to be conversational. Like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in the 1960s, the conversation is eclectic in nature (on its best days) and involves a back-and-forth dialogue between at least two parties. Blogger A might complain about the customer service department at [company], and Blogger B may respond with a blog post that either agrees with this and tacks on more personal experiences to give the argument weight, or Blogger B works for that company and sticks up for them.
Unfortunately, what is hailed as "conversation" really boils down to "chum". If Blogger A says something controversial or provocative, and inspires a fair number of blog posts in response, they all necessarily link back to Blogger A. The inbound link count is a metric that Blogger A can use to build up "street cred". The more visible Blogger A becomes, the less likely A will deal in outbound links to other sites, because frankly, Blogger A is now a target for other bloggers wanting a ride on his or her coat-tails. The other "dark side" to this phenomenon is that Blogger A may get wrapped up in attempting to gain notoriety from "high value" targets, and therefore the "little people" are expendable. If Blogger B takes offense to slights real or imagined by Blogger A, Blogger A on some level may consider Blogger B to be incapable of inflicting any meaningful damage, because an audience of a few may not necessarily erode an audience of hundreds or thousands. And that is not a typo - there is an audience.
One blogger who tries his level best to engage in blog-based conversations is Kent Newsome. I am reminded of the Joan Baez/Bob Dylan conversational method when I read his posts, and sometimes he scores a hit (a reply from a so-called A-Lister), and other times he expresses some frustration that the conversation is anything but 1:1. I may be misinterpreting Kent's views on this, but I believe that he places a fair amount of weight on reciprocal linking versus comments left on his blog. Because of the nature of this site, it's not always possible to link to Kent's blog in context. I tend to leave comments on his site (and others of course).
In my view, a comment from someone who is mentioned on a given site at least says "I hear ya", as opposed to complete and utter silence.
Of course, if one is concerned about complete and utter silence, it behooves one to build up another c-word: Community. Marlena, for anyone who hasn't noticed, doesn't write on this site very often. This is because she prefers the community (and structure) at her favorite Notre Dame-themed forum. It's relatively private, there are moderators, and the format lends itself to a string of one-liners as opposed to the more ponderous "article" format on this site. I keep hoping that she'll be inspired to come back to this side of the fence and perhaps wax eloquent about Notre Dame, but I think her wad is pretty much blown on the forum. Whatever works, I say. And you never know, she may make an appearance yet again.
The thing is, Marlena views her forum crowd as extensions of her usual circle of friends and associates. I'll make up a few names here to preserve anonymity, but she'll tell me all about what happened to "Snoopy's" kid or how "Linus" is going to Notre Dame this year. Community advocates eat that up with a spoon.
The down side of virtual communities mirrors any other community: Group-think, social norms, unwritten rules concerning conduct, favoritism, and so forth. If someone on the outside of a given community seeks to establish a dialogue, and indeed, a conversation, the outsider may be in for rough sailing as the established community prefers to confine their interactions to the "in-crowd". This happens outside of cloistered web forums, but tends to be dismissed as sour grapes, or else results in a short-term guilt trip where the person responsible for slights real or imagined vows to be more welcoming and "conversational."
Of course, some people are targets for would-be conversationalists inside or outside of the community because they are viewed as credible. An endorsement from a credible person carries considerable rhetorical weight, and therefore the phone rings, the emails pour in, and the comments flow seeking to leverage that credibility.
Good thing I don't make it a habit of drinking in front of the computer, because if I did, I'd be out a monitor after reading Robert Scoble's attempt at explaining away the latest blogospheric vomitus by saying "bloggers are credible." Spooooot. Um, perhaps some bloggers are credible in some way, but the mere act of blogging does not bestow one with the aura of authenticity and authority. I think some of what passes for credibility online ties in with the old wheeze about prostitutes, buildings, and politicians becoming more respectable with age.
Leave it to Mark Pilgrim to give this flap the treatment it so richly deserves.
As with any buzzword, I think the above concepts have their time and place, however they are also easily distorted to shape the ends of various individuals and organizations. Rather than breathlessly reveling in how "conversational" you're finding a given community to be, why not examine the nature of that conversation, and that community? As the Tao Te Ching tells us, we may come to know the empire through the empire. Observe. <EM>
