There are possibly over a million active weblogs in the world and most of them are operated by simple management systems such as blogger, Wordpress and so on. Bloggers are everywhere in the world and they are categorized into different groups such as celebrity, business, professional, personal, political and so son. It came to people’s attention that webloggers around the world are somehow or rather started to connecting and linking with one and another by posting, commenting on each other’s blogs. This is the new trend for the 21st century and the world is changing to the advancement of technology and weblogging is just a tool as the part of the evolution.
In the article, it stated about blogs and the issues of financial rewards. A lot people think that publishing a book requires a lot of money and man power to print, distribute, and branding it. Shirky names publishing as a filter because he believes that only certain people can and are allow getting their work out to the public. However, when it comes to blogging, there is indeed no filter at all. Anyone has the right to publish anything they wish and anytime they like, however, the downfall to this is that they do not get paid or any financial reward for what they are doing. Up till the present, the only way bloggers get paid for writing on their blogs is by advertisements. Usually such blogs have built up a reasonable and convincing popularity in the public with loyal and new readers’ access to the site each day. Also, donation is another form of revenue for bloggers too. All these form of payment actually isn’t much to the webloggers. People are debating and struggling with better ways for bloggers to make money, but up to date, no reasonable and realistic solution has came up because people are already getting their information for free and they will not pay for anything when they can obtain it for free as a fact.
Any reasonable with moderate computer skills and knowledge is able to create a blog within few hours. It’s just a webpage filled with databases and contents. In Shirky’s article, he emphasizes on how weblogging has made the concept of “publishing” to a certain extend that he believes anyone can do it. It is so simple and easy that it is impossible to even earn a penny out from it. Therefore, publishing is now available to the public, the masses which this idea is a form of publishing that is lacking in barriers and costs and that is believe to be the basic of understanding of weblogging.
Another way to have a better understanding of weblogs is to compare the process of blogging with the traditional print media. The character of writing books and publishing it afterwards is changing, and culture is somehow changing as well due to the result of blogging. In the article, Shirky actually encouraged people to create and write blogs without any form of money rewards. In my understanding, to him writing should be free. It’s just like how he compares “the paradox of oxygen and gold:” no doubt oxygen is more important to us than gold, but because air is everywhere and plentiful, therefore oxygen is free. Weblogs make writing seem everywhere and plentiful, just like air, thus the same effect on the price. This is an interesting metaphor to look at publishing and by opening up a question to everyone what should be free.
I believe Shirky did not cover enough on the impact of the importance of quality of weblogs. Personally, I wouldn’t pay for a book which is written by an unspecified author on weblogs even though the content is good, but the quality of writing might be bad. However, I will definitely pay for a book in a bookstore which is written by a professional and a specified author. Usually book writers know how to express themselves accordingly. Some people think is the other way round. Some believe quality attracts quality. For example, weblogs started as a blog and it evolved to be better as time passes. It attracts and inspires other readers who might want to start composing a blog as well. Lastly, most people in this world still when they still prefer quality over quantity.
Hey Ali!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I wouldn't pay for a book that have no specific author as well. If I were to choose a book without a specific author, I would rather choose to read a weblog instead. It is unfiltered but in a way it also meant they tell everything without censoring. When they said the restaurant's food is bad, it meant it's bad. Unlike book publications, they need to take care of the image of the restaurant. They wouldn;t tell the truth even though it is bad. Don't you think so?
Guess quality over quantity is applicable to the webloggers? They rather to attract more people to read instead of maintaining the quality of the content. Reason? It's simply because with more visitors, they'll get more readership and means more money to flow in!
Hi Ali,
ReplyDeleteIt so true.I totally agree to u that i would still prefer the quality of the work/book rather than the quantity.I agree there are many advantage of weblogs and new media but i would say the biggest problem or disadvantage with new media is it helps to contribute to human health issues such as obesity, poor eye sight, back ache and etc.
Hello Ali! I feel that focusing on the importance of weblogs with quality should be a must as the Internet trend is filled with blog post after blog post after blog post. It is true that weblogs need to have a certain amount of quality to attract readers to pay a visit. Why would we want to visit a blog which has absolutely no quality and no worthiness at all! Which kinda amazes me of some bloggers who managed to have so many readers but with such terrible content! I suppose in the youngsters mindsets, popularity of someone is more important to keep track on, rather than the actual genuine content posted.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly when compared to books, we would rather pick authors we've heard of rather than unknown alien ones. As a bookworm, this is how I feel too. I would only buy books of authors which I know of and have read their works before because the certain extend of quality that the author will provide is already set in my mindset. It's only once in awhile that I would try unknown authors, which happens really rare or only during a warehouse sale. But often when picking up and purchasing such unknown books, they do disappoint me and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in. So really, at the end of the day, quality really matters.
There are really a good deal of writers out there - published and unpublished. I'm following a few bloggers who are not in the path of being a novelist or a writer but they write absolutely beautiful posts and expressions. I find that with time, a lot of these kind of bloggers will spring up to be read by all. Then writing would be free and reading will too. In doing so, what will be looked upon is not quantity but rather quality. Oh, the joy of reading!
Cheers, Ali!
Hola Ali!!!, its very much true that weblogs need to have a certain extend of quality for it to be useful for others. As you said the weblogs might be very fast to find information but the contents in the books are more credible and reliable rather than the contents in the weblog.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, i feel nothing gives the comfort of sitting at the porch of you house with your favorite drink beside you as you go through your newspaper or your favourite book. Its not the same feel when the book is replaced with FACEBOOK dosent it :-P