Have you read the Catalyst Group study about blog usability called Net Rage? (PDF) If not, you should.
Those of us who spend inordinate amounts of time using, evangelizing, and otherwise doting over these things seem to forget (at least I do) that most people still don't have a clue as to what a blog is or how they should react to it. In fact, most people probably couldn't care less. They just want information.
David Coursey has written an op-ed about the Catalyst Group's study and provides an executive summary of the findings. I won't take time to outline the bullet points here since you can read his article to see them. Nevertheless it's apparent, despite the small sample the Catalyst Group used, that there is a vast chasm between the initiated and the uninitiated. It makes people who blog sound almost like a cult!
My point in this post is to ask the question, how can we make blogs more user-friendly? Better yet, how can we initiate the uninitiated to a point where we create an environment in which blogs have ubiquity? Should we even try?
Months ago, when doing a series on the future of blogging, Doc Searls told me blogs are "not mainstream, and most people aren't reading blogs yet. But race car driving, farming and espressos aren't mainstream either, and all matter to our culture."
If what Doc says still holds true, and the Catalyst Group report seems to indicate that it does, how can we change that perception? Do we even need to? Let me offer a couple of ideas.
First, we could go on a massive educational campaign to teach people what blogs are, what purpose they seek to serve, and how to understand the nomenclature. (I even know some bloggers who haven't a clue what a trackback is!) That's one of the things I try to do at Allbusiness.com with my Why Blog? blog.
Another approach may be to let knowledge about blogs propogate on its own. The new internet is becoming much more peer-to-peer and it stands to reason that even the most nascent of internet users will eventually come around. After all, according to Technorati, more blogs are being created each day - some 80,000 - than existed even a couple of years ago.
Article comments
1 - Chuck99
I've been interested in ModBlogs' offering of a "by-invitation-only" variation blog where ~6-10 (+or-) blogers can function much like a telephone "party line", or "conference call" discussing items of mutual interest or commonality of goals, building on each input, and creating an automatic hard copy, like minutes of a face-to-face meeting. QUESTION: is this variation available on other blog providers? Chuck99