Blogging and the Long Tail

The results in the Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs clearly strengthens the idea pushed by Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail". With the unlimited blogs that we can read today, blogs with the highest set of readers do not necessarily dominate the entire blogosphere.

The recent writing project shows that around 17% of participants cited the number one blog in the listing. The rest have picked on the other 509 blogs. Even if the blog age limit gets removed, I'm certain that the blogs we perceived to be influential will not be as strong as it seems, while there'll be some who will caught us by surprise. Because being influential is not the same as being the most popular.

Yesterday, I exchange blogging ideas with several photojournalists (Aaron Vicencio, Gigie Cruz, Toto Lozano, Paolo Piccones, Tammy David, Nonie Reyes, VJ Villafranca, Cris Sevilla, Rem Zamora, Buck Pago, among others) studying at the Ateneo's Asian Center for Journalism. That 2-hour discussion inspired me to come up with a photo-blog project which I will announce soon. (Thanks to Luz Rimban, formerly of PCIJ, for inviting me and hope our collaboration on the election monitoring project will push through.)

An interesting question asked then was the issue on disclosures by those who generate revenue from their blogs and what do I think about them. I believe that each blogger is responsible for their own blog. Their blog is their own business and can do whatever with it. They are bound by their own rules or of the blog networks and revenue programs that they joined. If the readers don't like what they see, they can easily tune out by not visiting your blog anymore or unsubscribe to your blog feed.

Blogging is also evolving that old time web publishers like me (circa 1997) could either ignore, impose, compete, or embrace sincerely.

Ignore means not caring on how this new publishing medium is evolving. Impose means we insinuate our rules to others and damn those who are not doing their business according to it. Compete is joining the bandwagon and battle it out. Embrace sincerely can be supporting the growth of this medium and be developmental in one's approach. I added the word "sincerely" as this is NOT the one where "I'm willing to teach or help you but no way that you'll be better or popular than me."

We are now living in an age where bestsellers are not the one that rules anymore. Each one of us can pick on the approach that will work best and be responsible for its benefit or consequences. Peace!