I'm starting to get this blogging thing

Having taken spent many hours over the last couple years coaxing people through the complexities of online advertising, SEM and mobile marketing I feel like I'm pretty well placed to spot a communication technology epiphany. I've just had one. In theory I've known about blogs for a long time.

I could appreciate that blogs, spamming aside, fit somewhere along a spectrum. At one end are the millions of failed spurts of creativity that result in 1-5 unread posts on a forgotten blog (I can claim three of these). At the other end are the online media brands that just happen to use blogging software as their platform (eg. Gawker, Cute Overload, etc..). I knew that there were plenty of variations in between but I figured that they were mostly people talking about niche interests or about blogging. I still think I was right but mostly missing the point.

In a post that I found in an appropriately blogospherical way (through a trackback on a post I enjoyed), Chris Thilk has put together a really nice precis of the better understanding that I've come to this week.

Blogging gave me a voice. It gave people like me a voice. Part of me couldn't believe it. I had a voice. I could talk about what I wanted, what movies I was watching, what irritated me about Illinois politics and any thing else that flitted through my mind.

Old me says, "Brilliant bud, didn't you realise that you could bore people even more easily in the real world?" New me says, "Hold on, I'm reading this and it's interesting. I don't know this guy and I'll never meet him. This is an interesting 'conversation' that wouldn't have happened without blogging.

I've been initiated. People don't just gain a voice in blogosphere, they also find ears - their own and those of others. The gaining of the voice is interesting too - in real life I'm relatively apprehensive about appearing self-involved. I'm not saying it's necessarily a good thing (it's still TBD) but this blog seems to be freeing me of that apprehension.

And the reason that people blog so much about blogging (or podcast about podcasting for that matter) is that it is significant. In 'old media' you needed to step away from the technology in order to discuss the content (eg. Seinfeld chats at the watercooler). In 'new media' you need to step into the technology in order to discuss the content, and while you're in there you might as well talk about the technology itself.