Dave’s Top 5 for 2005 - What’s in Store for Blogging
I just received an email from Debbie Weil which referred to her article on ways for businesses to make the end of year count online. One item in particular caught my eye – make your ‘top 10′ predictions for the next year.
However, predicting a is tough business – so instead of 10, I’ve narrowed it down to ‘Dave’s Top Five Predictions for Blogging in 2005′, in no particular order:
1. Blogs will be bigger than ever before - not exactly a tough one, but I am predicting they will grow, as opposed to leveling off or declining. The early adopters are finished - now the mainstream has arrived, and will solidify the blog base. For a business, it means less effort explaining what a blog is, and more time left for using it to further corporate goals.
We still have a ways to go - the most looked up word online for 2004 is ‘blog’ – but that will change in 2005 as everyone twigs to what they are all about.
2. Blogs everywhere will go multimedia. Words are hard for most people to output daily - pictures and audio are much less so. It’s true that it is done already (and some people still use Notepad for their HTML) - but what I’m expecting is more ubiquitous, and easier to work with. After all, at the basic level, a blog is just a set of well-indexed web pages updated daily, so why not include audio and video? And obviously, companies working on this problem will get a lot of attention in the new year.
3. Someone will find a way to monetize blogs. With companies like Feedburner already placing ads into RSS feeds, it’s only a matter of time until someone figures out a generic way to do it for everyone. Google already makes it easy to place ads alongside content, so I suspect they’re the furthest along, and also the one most likely to come up with a generic solution (even if it means buying an established company). And as a WordPress fan, I’ll further predict that a plugin solution for WordPress users will also appear (I might even write it myself, if only to make my prediction come true!).
4. Blogs will suffer a backlash. Success breeds enemies, and as blogs get more popular, detractors will arise. Already mainstream media (especially newspapers) are complaining that bloggers bypass unions and guilds, even while they are getting more readers than many columnists. And of course there’ll be the obligatory ‘blogs will kill you - details at 11′ style scares. My only question is who will throw the first really big stone.
5. Business blogs will become mandatory. Microsoft has already shown blogs to be a powerful corporate tool - providing a ‘friendly face’ to the very tech people who otherwise hate Microsoft. Blogs are going to become secret weapons for companies – hate the corporation, but love the guy who shares insider tidbits from his days working for them. The power of this shouldn’t be lost on business - every company can give a warm and fuzzy appearance with a carefully crafted blog. One wonders what would have happened if Enron execs or Martha Stewart had written blogs beforehand? (And as a secondary prediction, expect the needs for blog ghostwriters to rise).
Finally, blogs are here to stay, and grow. This isn’t a prediction - it’s a fact. Years ago, a test community was set up where everyone could write about themselves in a public forum – and the idea proved extremely popular. So it wasn’t too hard to predict that blogs would be big.
People love to talk about themselves, and we love to listen - soap operas, reality TV, live news – the list goes on.
But we’re not quite there yet.
Imagine blogs getting more and more like scrapbooking projects, where you could detail your whole life. Imagine a memorial to every person’s life being an online collection of thoughts and notes. Then imagine something drop dead simple to use, and you’ll see an explosion in blog use that will dwarf any predicted increase for 2005. And while that might not happen anytime soon, I predict that WILL happen. Eventually.
In the meantime, whether you’re a business or personal blogger, expect a great 2005 – so plan to make the most if it.
December 3rd, 2004 at
Top 5 holiday publishing tips for your e-newsletter… or blog
These 5 tips are in this week’s issue of WordBiz Report. I wrote them with e-newsletters in mind. And they originally appeared in my column for Crain’s BtoB E-mail Marketer Insight. But they apply just as well to “what to blog about” this time of year