I missed this earlier, but Duncan Riley wrote that the reign of the geek bloggers is over.
He’s right, but no one should care.
The fact is that it’s taking time for the general public to become regular blog readers, as my prior post illustrates. Nevertheless, it is happening. Slowly. As this occurs, we will see a flattening of the top blogs along more traditional lines. There will be a larger audience of blog newbies joining us who are really interested in reading about movies, gossip, health, politics and autos and they will outnumber those interested in all things geekery…but that doesn’t make Scoble and Winer irrelevant. Hardly. It makes them more relevant to their core.
The early days of the Web closely mirrors today. In 1995, 31.4% of the online audience consisted of computer professionals. By 1998 this flattened dramatically as the Web became more mainstream.
We’re seeing a similar trend with the blogosphere. Just look at how celebrities are blogging now. No one could have imagined Hillary Clinton should have been blogging three years ago, but it certainly isn’t a giant surprise today. It takes time for certain online trends to go mainstream and that’s what’s happening now with blogging. Podcasting is moving into pop culture at an even faster rate.
As the blogosphere becomes more flat, the so-called “A-list” won’t matter anymore. There will be A-lists in virtually every sector. The geeks will continue to read Scoble and Winer in droves, but other kings will be crowned in domains like autos, movies, baseball, etc. So I agree with what some of what Duncan says. The geek reign is over, but their influence will be stronger among the people they really care about and who care about them.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
