In his article "Why Blogs Haven't Stormed the Business World, Tiernan Ray argues that the lack of portability and structure in weblogging tools presents a barrier to entry for the Enterprise. As someone who has been working to get weblogging going in a (somewhat) corporate environment, I disagree with him.
The issues, by and large, are not technical ones. Granted, there are some technical issues. Weblog setup is still very much an individual thing. The tools to support easy setup and organization of multiple weblogs just aren't there yet. But these aren't huge issues.
When I talk to people about weblogging, they are often excited initially. But the motivation often gets drowned out by busy schedules. There are probably other reasons including fear of technology and fear of looking stupid in public. And, its hard to build up a reader base. If heard others note that bloggers should blog for themselves, not an audience. This is probably good advice, as it can be quite difficult to build up an audience. And without some sort of feedback, people's motivation to write can diminish.
I don't think I have a good answer for the problem right now. Except to say that as with any emerging technology, the growth starts with motivated early adopters. The challenge is moving beyond the early adopter stage into some sort of maturity. We're not there yet.
Posted by Karl
May 1, 2003 10:01 AM