Alexia Golez

Photo owned by nienaber.fred (cc)

Reading Robert Scoble’s reflection on the state of tech blogging, I’m hit by myriad thoughts. First off, every so often Robert writes a Jerry Maguire missive and describes how change is needed in blogging. There are times I swing from cynicism to optimism when he does it. Enough of that, onto the real meat.

Loving the art of blogging makes one an evangelist. You want to praise the power of immediate publication. You want to introduce your witty, artistic friends to it just to see what they’ll do with a blank canvas. You want to see your favourite companies connect with it transparently, as it’s an efficient way to learn about their products. You want news outlets to adopt it to push new updates into the ether. Years and years ago, when the blogging community was significantly smaller, it was composed of enthusiasts. Their hard work helped evangelise the power of blogging to the wider world. So, now we have a bigger blogging community and a much larger tuned-in audience, you want to press the pause button and maybe even rewind? Let’s be realistic, one cannot sow the seed of blogging evangelism, reap the benefits of a developing medium and then bemoan where the road has taken us.

I think what Robert is mourning most is the loss of curiosity in technology blogging. But, of course, it all depends on what you read doesn’t it? Gorge on tech business spin and Techmeme, it’s easy to forget that real geek blogging is still being tapped out at the grassroots. The Techmemes of the world are post-modern pyramid schemes of blogging. Perhaps, this is more pointed in the San Francisco set of personality bloggers, I’m not sure.

The influx of money into blogging is, not necessarily a bad thing once prior relationships are identified and disclosures made. Now, we hit a indicator of what’s wrong – ethics, pure and simple. Robert touches on it briefly.

Money sloshing around blogging makes it easy for those without much ethical fortitude to reap rich rewards. All the way from dodgy blog installers and theme makers, to underhand product placement in post content, people are bleeding blogging dry in the worst way possible. Damien made a point of compiling a list of installers and theme makers that would do work at reasonable prices, but isn’t it a little sad that this needs to be done in first place? To some it seems that ethics are just mumbo-jumbo. And how about those that pocket cool fees for talking up products on the blogs or other social community settings? Sneaky social sellers are here and they’re here to stay. We can only hope that those sneaky social sellers who leech off the goodwill of communities in return for private payola are found out.

So taking weak ethics as a stumbling block to good blogging, what’s the real issue? It’s human nature. Something that I don’t believe any of us can change in the others. There’s a well-known saying, “you have control of yourself, in yourself, complete control”. This not a pessimistic turn of mind – rather it’s an empowering call for all bloggers to act responsibly, follow good ethics and stay curious about the world around them. We can institute change by promoting community spirit, being ethical and pushing our creative dials to the n-th degree to grow with our blogs.

On, and our fixation with shiny new things and criticism of how tech bloggers jump from one invention to the next? I’d like to think that’s a side-effect of geeks being excitable, curious souls that are turned on by the multitude of brand-new products coming out. Who amongst us hasn’t salivated over a gadget? No green monster feelings after seeing your mate’s hot, new phone and call yourself a geek? You’re probably dead, so.