In the previous post, I outlined very general aspects which I see playing in the anime-blogosphere, and followed with a hypothetical question, “What if the top 5 single-author blogs suddenly phased out?” in terms of readership distribution. Ultimately, I believe team-blogs have an advantage for both authors and readers, yet it is not absolute.
Before expressing my support to lelangir’s post about the questioning of a blogomerate centralized otakusphere, I would like to express some general grouping of blogs in state and genre1 in open-classification (feel free to correct or modify me ね).
Blog States
- Brand new: under 1-year old, loaded with enthusiasm (readership arbitrary)
- Persistent: over 1-year old, continuing, not quite booming with readership
- Well established: over 1-year old, running like new, booming with readership
- Stumbling: over 1-year old, running like the timing-belt broke (readership arbitrary)
Readership is noted as arbitrary for two of the states because it may be unrelated to that state. Stumbling blog’s would be in the order of those I mentioned in the last post (Memento and Hop-Step-Jump!); ironically, they are mentioned by Hige vs Otaku as being most influential. No qualm there, but this leads to a pseudo-duality. A blog may have “been” Well-established and Stumbling does not take that away.
Realistically, a previously well-established blog will have better readership response time when the stumbling resides, as opposed to a previously persistent, which may never gain back readers who manually visited and gave up.
Also, the 1-year marker is arbitrary, and perhaps a better fitting period may be something around 9 months; depends solely on the context.
Blog Genre
- Anime, Short-term (episodic)
- Anime, Long-term (reviews, theory)
- Editorial
- Meta
- Media-centric
- Niche
Here, Anime is the central media, which makes up the majority of topics in the otakusphere. The difference between ST and LT should be clear, as well as with other genre, but there may be overlap when dealing with the Media-centric or Niche genre.
- Media-centric:
- pertaining to a specific media (manga, figures, seiyuu, light novels, eroge)
- Niche:
- pertaining to a specific idea, concept, observation, attraction (yuri, shoujo, language, mecha, seiyuu, guns, cannons, Shiori etc).
By Media-centric, Anime becomes a subset genre, but I have left it in tact due to it’s robustness. Of course with all genre, there are vector-blends; some blogs will be more of genre X than genre Y, others stick exactly to what they may be only one genre.
Why is such a classification important?
Generally, the better we know what this otakusphere is, the better we can judge it’s robustness and understand the trends which come with change. In theory, we should be able to enumerate and classify the entire ’sphere at any give moment in time, or at least know it’s composition.
This brings me back to the question of the first post, but similarly, it should be clear how various composition will affect the answer.
Grouping the Future
If the trend shows that authors are clumping, do we have a problem?
If we all form into group blogs, it will stop our shark from swimming. As lelangir touched on, the growth becomes vertical, not horitonal is the issue at hand, but why would this occur? lelangir’s metioned reason, like-minded attraction, is a likely case, but I find it could also be something worse… buzz.
Buzz, as we know, is the [over] popularity of a single artifact, spread far-and-wide, and for bloggers, that means writing about it over, and over, and over, sort of like blogger-on-blogger drama. This is the divide, because in a centralized and controlled environment, buzz-redundancy is less likely to happen, but given a one-blog-per-author environment, we would see this the buzz thrive while other issues are left unexplored, more or less, until it’s dropped.
In the case of multiple blogger-clusters, if there is redundancy between clusters, it drives competition (Rocky vs Drago or William Wallace-cluster vs Brit-cluster). If clusters can keep the redundancy in-check, competition will be good, but when redundancy exists within the cluster, it is made of fail. A good example would be a forum which has two threads for one episode, which is not far off from two members of a group blog writing separate posts about one episode.
For the record, I feel redundancy is not entirely terrible. It does have an important function among the two-way street of communication and feedback (comments, chat, etc), and it also is not bad for variety sake, as seen with various, separate blogs covering overlapping episodes. Although they may cover the same topic, the level of diversity among perspectives makes redundancy to be less of an issue. If the perspectives were in consensus, only one perspective would be necessary.
Note: This should sound like I am advocating bloglomerates, which is fair. I don’t believe in either team or single blogs, but I believe in authors and balance, and I feel team blogs are essential at this stage in the game, yet seeing single-author blogs vanish would be sad. Though I am not a team-blogger, I have recommended all writers who come into #ab to at least try and join a group blog for their own sake. If they turn out to be bigger than what the team blog can provide, they have the free will to become solo, but this is not the likely case.
Tying it Together
I will leave this as a question.
If we were to classify the otakusphere, where we could see weaknesses, trends, horizontal and vertical growth, would the community trade it’s vertical growth and redundancy in order to purposely stimulate weaker horizontal aspects for the sake of providing a broader experience to readers?
Are we that cooperative?
In the final post, I hope to express my thoughts of solution, as well as touch on the Nash equillibrium.
Notes:
1) Impz’ history is more explanatory of grouping and history of blogs.
Before I read the article: I finally grasped what you meant by blogomerate, perhaps in my own idiolectic terms. So, to me, it seems like hypothetical blogomerates would “consume” all available space in which single-author blogs might otherwise exist. Essentially, they reallocate so much traffic that single-author blogs become obsolete and, instead, the entire aniblogosphere is comprised of perhaps thirty or so blogs instead of the hundreds if not thousands we have today. Neutral space becomes subsumed by the sheer power of traffic and discourse-producing dynamos of blogomerates: these blogomerates act as platforms not by which people become authors, but by which people contribute writing and constantly vacillate in and out of the visible public sphere. This produces an interesting way of viewing the private sphere, taking Twitter as an excellent example. Calaggie (or was it Sasa?) was it the “back channel” and its precisely this “behind the scenes” action that suggests that blogs are incredibly public matters. This is also reinforced by the “advent” of microblogging, how there are norms for discourse which are established by public blogs. And of course instant messaging is the most informal medium, since it’s out of the eye of the public - I wonder what that says about people posting chat conversations? I wonder how podcasting fits into all this?
after reading: I think it’s helpful to classify blogs by age but a year is an awfully long time on the internet. IKnight is seemingly burnt out a year before his first birthday. Cameron Probert didn’t make it to his first. I’m about 7 months old. Otou-san seems to have been born in January. Of course there’s the whole “rookie” section in the ABA (I want to write about the problems with the ABA at some point). I dunno, I just think that the internet is, in some sense, a kind of hyperbolic time chamber. But yeah, you’ve pointed that out.
One thing blogomerates would effectively destroy is a heterogeneous voice. The guy who runs Oguie Maniax has a diversity of posts that, if he were incorporated into a blogomerate, I don’t think would exist as effectively, and by “effectively existing” I mean the readership he acquires due to the “strength” of his voice vis-a-vis other voices (which I guess could be measured in traffic). I think I have yet to see a niche media-centric blog. Perhaps Erica Friedman’s yuri blog is an example.
That’s an excellent example, I really like it! However, I think this is - or at least has the potential to be - quite different in blogs. The difference is the “quality” or “timbre” of the author. As McLuhan would say, the medium is the message, and thus the medium determines what the message is and not vice versa. In this light, a very distinct argument arises: this becomes a debate of structural hegemony vs. personal agency. Does the writer have the power to overcome the limitations of the medium (structural hegemony) or does the medium always overpower the writer and reduce him or her to a mere abstraction, an ideological quality inherent within the medium?
I don’t really get the Nash equilibrium. To me, Foucault’s notions of power are very significant here. Ghostlightning touched upon how blogs create power, as opposed to a model which describes the internet as having a set limit of power (traffic?) and that power can only be distributed, which is a zero-sum model. Given that, insofar as traffic = power = readers, there is in fact a set limit of power within the aniblogosphere. This leads to the conclusion that blogs cannot generate power, that they have no agency within their social structures, and that they can only reallocate power/traffic. The real production of power resides outside the internet, perhaps, in the creation of readers. Maybe the internet has an indirect effect on this, maybe a lurker informs his friend, and an otaku is born. Power is also generated by readers simply reading more, and to this effect blogs can play in part, especially if they are blogs with exceptional content to which readers are attracted - pingbacks ensue and then additional traffic is generated. Intro and Author have talked about how feed readers (as well as “organic feed readers” like Author himself, a reason why I always read his notepaddings) make large amounts of the blogosphere “readable” within a small space. I should write a post proper.
[...] On Blogging Part 3: “Blogomerates” This is a response to RyanA’s post on [...]
Likely, if you want to copy-pasta I can remove the comment, np. Too bad I don’t have to editable ones lol.
hypothetical blogomerates would “consume” all available space in which single-author blogs might otherwise exist.
I like the way you put it, I had a similar idea, but wasn’t on the consumption of space, rather it was the consumption of authors. The combined definition would work very well.
No I agree, I should have noted that as part of diversity; quality, writing ability, style, etc. It’s definite that authors will be able to portray the same substance in varied manners. Good writing should be appreciated, but I was simply getting down to the base of quantitative content.
I would say it varies, but if a writer could master the medium every single post, that’d be godly. Things like objective reporting, “company X announced it will be releasing series Y on Z date,” don’t allow much room for anything other than the content to matter.
The notion of power is indeed present, and it makes sense that the power of the internet is not capped, but our community is. I will bring up the Nash equillibrium as a notion of stimulus and method in which authors blog; it’s not necessarily about power but “optimizing” or “maximizing” the effectiveness of the community external from it (to viewers/readers). Generally, such optimizing should allow the “power level” of the community to rise (appealing to more readers).
Holding an ani-blogging Q/A at the NYAFA was good, but other than a bunch of rouge bloggers who often boil into drama-fests, what does the community have to show? The “community” needs some serious PR, but I’m not sure writers should be the ones.
Yes, this is where I’m headed. A couple months ago I wrote about an easy way to achieve “blog lensing”, as I called it, using Google Reader (http://aloedream.animeblogger.net/archives/199). It’s nice to see Author doing his thing, though his chosen topics are mostly subjective.
What would be really awesome, you may already be thinking this, is to have an aggregator of various reader/blogger’s lensing/noting (Shared Items in Google Reader). Unfortunately, this is more work for authors and asking readers to do such a thing is sort of fishy. If there were a sub-group of producers, not authors, that did this and that is all they did, it could be highly effective…. I wonder if any team-blogs have thought of designating that position to members.
[...] Blogging Part 4: nexistence and z-axis orientation By lelangir on 26 November 2008 | Internet RyanA: What would be really awesome, you may already be thinking this, is to have an aggregator of [...]
I wrote a response (again!), see above link.
Also, my nomadic habits allow for a greater range of freedom. I wouldn’t want to post five meta posts in a row on THAT, people would hate me. But if I do it quietly in a circle of five or six blogs no one notices…! Well, kinda.
I can’t say anything else than “I’m so impressed.” Please take my compliments and forgive the lack of further contribution. I’m still an enthusiastic 6-week old blogger who posts every day. I’ve sent an application to a team blog to reach a wider audience and do things that I feel (for now anyway) that don’t belong in my own blog (editorials under the guise of a macross/mecha fansite).
Effin brilliant, we need MOAR posts like these to encourage people to discover this ‘community’, step out of their comfort zones (if they so wish), and liven up this whole blogging scene.
The FAIL redundancy is most likely to occur if a certain author (or the authors) does not have a ‘community mindset’ (used for convenience’s sake), as they’ll be posting whatever they want, regardless or whether or not the topic is already cliche (awareness of its clicheness will allow them to add more spice into the old discussion, or ‘increase competition’, as you’ve very well said). I know people can’t be arsed to do this extra effort when writing posts, but it’s great if people would have this kind of mindset. This will not only lessen the occurrences of the fail redundancy, but allow them to discover (and immerse themselves into) the vastness of the ’sphere, interact with like-minded bloggers (or otherwise), and in a way, and gain more appreciation for it as they witness its history. Then again, I fall into this ‘redundancy trap’ at times too, heh.
And, regarding this:
Awesome idea, and this popped into my mind when you brought out the nifty Google Reader notes idea too. Have to wonder how this can be really achieved though, becoming connected in gmail/gtalk perhaps? I’d love to pry into the Shared Items of other bloggers, and see other blogs that they ‘connect’ to (particularly the ones that aren’t in our radar). Something to keep this community all the more interconnected (to achieve far more than what twitter is doing atm).
and now to digress a bit. the first thing that came into my mind when lelangir mentioned “I wonder what that says about people posting chat conversations?”, is our silly Taiga conversations, which I’m sure isn’t the kind of “conversation” lelangir’s referring to, lol. xD
I’d say that what could also be good is more blogs that are both vertical and horizontal. I think blogmerates do that in a way by keeping the horizontal (by the authors still having their own blogs), while being vertical as well, writing for a common “purpose”, though I guess that depends on what that purpose is.
Oh my god, the discover function in google reader is a godsend.
I also discovered that you can, similarly with nano, subscribe to a feed in a feed. I’ll post a “tutorial” on THAT soon, hopefully. I hope this can become reality and an actual, consistent practice amongst people in the aniblogosphere. It would be so freaking awesome.
[...] that went around the past few days. I won’t bore you with the posts themselves. Usagijen and RyanA had an awesome thought, and to quote RyanA: What would be really awesome, you may already be [...]
[...] that went around the past few days. I won’t bore you with the posts themselves. Usagijen and RyanA had an awesome thought, and to quote RyanA: What would be really awesome, you may already be [...]
@ghostlightning
6-weeks O.o, I’m glad you cared to read, thank you. If you can manage what lelangir has, various outlets, I’d say it is a good thing. ^_^
@usagijen
Well, I hope it shows those external to the community that there is some strive to grow and accommodate more types of readers (we have good diversity now, but it’s still limited in “redundant” ways).
I think we all fall into redundancy, it’s easy, but there are ways to express a point already visited that counter it. Writing entries that trackback or even using your ‘Shared Items’ feed to point visitors to things that you would have liked to write about, but it’s already in the community.
Whats so wrong with pointing readers to articles the blogger found interesting or worth the read? Nothing at all.
It’s rather easy if there is a platform similar to the Antenna, just submit your Shared Item feed url, and it will begin to aggregate (of course there is a more technical side to it, but it’s all possible).
Twitter is nice, but it is more like a stop-motion “chat-room” and doesn’t quiet “web” the info we should be looking at as a community.
No, definitely not, because you’re conversations have context based on the media, and it’s not much different than an impression, it’s more raw and often enjoyable.
Actually, I really enjoy this sort of thing, because it’s non-standard form of content. ^^ Just like more should use notes publicly, more should do this sort of “live” commentary.
@TheBigN
I think OH! is aiming for such existence, which is positive. And, yes when author’s keep their own blogs it’s not a bad thing, that way the still have a sense of free expression if a given entry is not going to conform to their team standards.
You make a interesting point about being vertical for a common “purpose”, I would venture that the purpose is whatever the blog intends to cover. Here, vertical growth isn’t a problem because the horizontal width will usually cover good ground….
…just realized all this horizontal and vertical lingo is probably better with examples or a flat “map” where we can say a blog cover so-and-so areas.
In any case, as long as the community is not “pyramiding” upward, there should be no issues. We aren’t at that stage because there is still good diversity. Of course, like lelangir mentioned, what would happen after continual groupings and merging.
It could all be settled with a 300-way game of capture the flag. ^^
Thank you guys for reading, as authors you’re input is very informative.
It’s a wonderful examination of the current trends in the blog-sphere. I write as a single-author blog because I believe it isn’t easy for me to mesh with group blogs; and what you pointed out with regard to the redundancy of blogs is great.