Tech Blogs - Oh, The Humanity!
Robert Scoble had an interesting post a week or so ago, about tech blogs losing their soul - or “humanity” as he called it. It raises an interesting question: Can tech blogs have soul? Of course, anything created by human beings reflect human biases, emotions and experiences (i.e. humanity) but is it really possible for blogs about technology and business – both decidedly mechanical things devoid of any soul – to have a sense of humanity?
Of course it is. There are blogs in every category from sports to television and politics that approach their subjects with humor, passion and intelligence and the tech world does too. What Scoble worried about were blogs simply becoming a repository for unexciting product news and blind devotion and reverence to companies and personalities, rather than driving creativity and thought leadership as they have for the past couple years.
Scoble’s concern may stem from the sheer number of tech blogs out there. There’s plenty of innovative, insightful and daring blogs out there – Scoble’s is one of them. During a press conference Friday morning for Google’s new OpenSocial platform (check out our client NewsGator’s Didja Hear!? application), Scoble was Twittering the conference and then decided to open up questions to the 7,000 people who subscribe to his Twitter feed, and then acted as a gatekeeper, relaying the incoming queries to the Google folks. Instantly, a press conference with an industry giant that had originally been limited to about 25 top bloggers was open to anyone who wanted to ask a question.
That’s a fantastic story that evokes everything that blogs and social media should be – open, egalitarian, collaborative, free … and distinctly human.
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