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Blog this!
By Jay Townley, August 12, 2005
The January 10, 2005 issue of Fortune magazine cover story is "10 Tech Trends To Watch In 2005." This is what initially drew our attention, but upon closer examination we noted that the box in the lower right hand corner of the cover proclaims that Trend No.1 is "Why You Can't Ignore Bloggers!"
Of all the Tech Trends in the world blogs, bloggers and every thing connected to blogging has apparently surged from the back of the pack to leap over emerging technology like digital media players, genetic medicine and robotics to the number one tech trend to watch during the coming year.
A blog is a self-published journal or weblog posted on the Internet. According to the January 10 Fortune article what makes the actual technology different, and better, is what the article refers to as "a tiny innovation" called the permalink, "which is a unique web address for each posting on every blog." Instead of linking to web pages, which can and do change, bloggers link to one another's posts, which typically remain accessible indefinitely. This technical style "of linking also gives blogs a viral quality," so a pertinent post can gain broad attention at amazing speed, even for the Internet.
Part of the reason for the surge in the relative importance of blogs is clearly expressed by David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth in their cover article in the January 10 Fortune issue beginning on page 44 and titled: "Why There's No Escaping The Blog: Freewheeling bloggers can boost your product - or destroy it. Either way, they've become a force business can't afford to ignore."
Blogs have been around on the web for over a decade, but came to national prominence during the democratic-party primaries and were introduced into the world of American politics by the Dean Campaign staff in 2003 and emerged from the 2004 election campaign as a new and influential form of independent media. These often passionate and irreverent online journals are quite obviously gaining online readership, but have they really been able to migrate from the political arena to become a powerful new media force impacting business?
According to Kirkpatrick and Roth's January 10 Fortune article, "corporate America got its clearest sign of blogger muscle - in this case, brought on not by memos but by a Bic pen. On Sept. 12 someone with the moniker 'unaesthetic' posted in a group discussion site for bicycle enthusiasts a strange thing he or she had noticed: that the ubiquitous, U-shaped Kryptonite lock could be easily picked with a Bic ballpoint pen. Two days later a number of blogs, including the consumer electronics site Engadget, posted a video demonstrating the trick."
Those of us in the bicycle business followed this case with great interest, but to my knowledge our media never reported the importance that blogs played in the ultimate outcome. The January 10 Fortune article refers to this as "Kryptonite's Blogstorm: How ten days of Internet chatter crippled a company's reputation." Here is how it went down.
Sept. 12: "unaesthetic" posts complaint to bikeforums.net that a Bic pen can open a Kryptonite lock.
Sept. 14: An estimated 180,000 daily blog readers view videos showing how to pick a Kryptonite lock on Engadget and other sites.
Sept. 15: An estimated 900,000 daily blog readers view the videos and read more about the situation.
Sept. 16: Kryptonite issues a statement saying the locks remained a "deterrent to theft" and promising that a new line would be "tougher." This response is referred to as a "trivial empty" answer and an estimated additional 700,000 daily blog readers are engaged in the issue.
Sept. 17: Prompted by the blogs, the New York Times and the Associated Press publish stories about the problem - setting off a new chain of blogging, with an estimated 550,000 daily blog readers engaged.
Sept. 18: An estimated 520,000 daily blog readers are engaged.
Sept. 19: An estimated 1,800,000 daily blog readers are engaged.
Sept. 20: An estimated 1,700,000 daily blog readers are engaged.
Sept. 21: Blogstorm abates to an estimated 375,000 daily blog readers.
Sept. 22: Kryptonite announces free product exchange at an estimated cost of $10 million.
Source: Fortune, January 10, 2005 issue, page 48.
As the Fortune article puts it: "Ten days, $10 million." The article also quotes Andrew Bernstein, CEO of Cymfony, as saying that had Kryptonite responded earlier, "they might have stopped the anger before it hit the papers and become widespread." Mr. Bernstein's company watches the web for corporate customers and provides warning of such impending catastrophes, and while he is certainly bias in his views, the fact that his company exists at all is further evidence that blogs have already become a new media that has to be respected and understood, as demonstrated by the Kryptonite case study.
While the estimated number of daily blog readers associated with the Kryptonite case is impressive and obviously effective, a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that only 27 percent of Internet users say they read blogs, an increase of 58% from a survey taken in February of 2004. Seven percent of Internet users have created a blog and ten percent have posted material or comments on someone else's blog. There are an estimated 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet. So, this means:
An estimated 32.4 million U.S. adults read blogs.
An estimated 8.4 million U.S. adults have created their own blog.
An estimated 12 million U.S. adults have posted to other's blogs.
The other side of this coin is an estimate from Ana Marie Cox, also known as the blogger Wonkette, that only 38 percent of current Internet users actually know what a blog is, and the rest just are not sure what they are. If accurate, this means approximately 45.6 million out of the estimated 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet now have some degree of knowledge about what this new form of independent media is.
Blogging is in its infancy, but like all new technologies born in the 21 st Century, it will grow at warp-speed. As an example, a top U.S. dictionary has named "blog" the word of 2004. What makes blogging so compelling, important and ultimately dangerous for business to ignore is that it is absolutely consumer centric and is born from and nurtured by consumer self interest and distrust of traditional politicians, big business, traditional advertising and business as usual. Blogging is an independent media that demands the truth, and as Steve Hayden, vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather is quoted as saying in the January 10 Fortune article: "If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie."
Interested in learning more about blogs? Go to Google's Blogger.com or Microsoft's Spaces.MSN.com. Also, voting is now under way for the annual Bloggies. Blogs have been nominated in 30 categories and here is a great opportunity to learn more about blogs while also finding out what bloggers think are the best blogs by visiting
www.bloggies.com.
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About Jay Townley
Currently Townley manages Jay Townley & Associates, LLC (JT&A) a business services group that includes The Bike Shop List, a marketing and mailing list specializing in the bicycle dealer channel of trade. JT&A is the North American sales and marketing representative for Body Scanning CRM, a client relationship marketing system that is marketed and sold exclusively to bicycle dealers, and is the database manager and marketing and sales representative for the NBDA Retail Data Capture program. Visit Jay Townley online at jaytownley.com
