Buried several paragraphs down in an interesting World Peace Herald analysis of blog influence on the 2004 election is the following prediction by Scott Anthony:
…20 years from now, there will be an entirely new industry based on blogs. Just a few years ago, he noted, when eBay was launched, it was selling novelty items, such as Pez candy dispensers. Today, it is a major retail force that even sells automobiles.
Who’s Scott Anthony, you ask? (I did.) He is the co-author of “Seeing What’s Next” (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), and a partner in Innosight LLC in Watertown, Mass. Let’s hope he does – see what’s next, I mean.
Roger, had you been buying and selling on ebay back in the early days, your reaction to this article would not be so sanguine.
Hmmmm….. Lest one wonder how the sanguine pajamadeen might be so sanguinary…
“Sanquine for the life of a bear…”
Twenty years, nothing. Ebay hasn’t been around any twenty years. The first exclusively blogosphere market forces are starting to emerge. Anyone contemplating entering the competitive market for high end fashion shoes today would have to include the Manalo in their strategy, and I would bet that he is close to making a living off his blog if he is not already.
I have my own thoughts.
And, as is usual in times of great industry change, established players have a hard time coming to terms with what is happening. My thoughts (which reference those of management writer Clayton Christensen) here:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_photoncourier_archive.html#109561242461819620
Ahem, your blog entry describes ebay’s trajectory to a T. And it took a heckuva lot less than 20 years – say, closer to five (about the time ebay shares went public, IIRC).
Change is inevitable. But not all change is good.
ìChange is inevitable. But not all change is good.î
Change is good if we are becoming more economically productive. This is the key to eradicating poverty. The hell with the John Rawls emphasis on equality. That is pure idiocy. We should instead try to make the pie bigger. Donít worry if Bill Gates is worth billions. The real question is whether the masses are living far better than their ancestors a few decades ago. In this case, the answer is easily yes.
Change, however, can be somewhat stressful. Joseph Schumpeter rightfully warned us that economic growth is premised upon the principle of creative destruction. This means we will create new jobs—and destroy others. That last aspect is the tricky one, especially if youíre job is the one being destroyed! But this is the price that has to be paid. At the start of 20th Century perhaps half of the American work force earned its living on the farm. That figure is now down to 3%, and dropping. A lot of people had to find new jobs. This almost certainly was not always a pleasant experience.
The Internet is helping businesses of all sorts to cut costs. These savings are always passed along to the consumer. We will see rapid gains in the next few years as the price of computer devices continue to lower and internet access is taken for granted even in our automobiles and restaurants. The central dilemma for the blogging community might be the one concerning financial remuneration. Eventually, though, this will be worked out. My guess is that blogging will be considered a type of ìlost leader product.î Most nonfiction writers take for granted that they will earn peanuts for their work. Itís the speeches and academic appointments which bring in the real money.
I’m going to presume that your use of “lost” rather than “loss” was a typo, not a Freudian slip.
Frankly, I had no idea tha the purpose, or at least the goal, of blogging was to be “economically productive” – IOW, for blogs to “pay” their writers. My impression was that its value lay in it being an exercise of First Amendment rights on the most grassroots level. The greatest contribution of the Net has not been “helping businesses to cut costs”, but in providing a medium where individuals, of their own free will, can share information.
When blogs become an “industry,” how will they be any different from the MSM? I don’t see that sort of change as a good thing, no matter how profitable it may be for a handful of people.
Interesting comment, hcq, but many of the more successful bloggers are already professional writers for some time (Sullivan, Simon, Reynolds is published in many places, etc.) so water may already be over that bridge, as they say.
A handful are. Most – Powerline, Captain’s Quarters, LGF, Beldar, ProfBainbridge, Internet Haganah come immediately to mind – are not “professional writers”, but professionals in other fields who blog. And I’d suggest it is they who have contributed most to the blogosphere, who are actually breaking news and doing in-depth analysis through collaborative effort of their commenters – not the blogs you’ve mentioned.(Instapundit, BTW, is not much more a collection of links to MSM sources – and to other blogs such as the ones I’ve enumerated.)