The Lazysphere and the Decline of Deep Blogging

Lazy Cow by law_keven

Tech bloggers (and I put myself squarely in this group), I am sorry to report that many of us have become lazy - really lazy. So, with this in mind I offer a challenge: in 2008 let's strap back on our thinking caps and get our blog mojo back. Let's kill the Lazysphere once and for all.

The Lazysphere - a working definition - is a group of bloggers who I won't name by name, but you can spot them a mile away. Rather than create new ideas or pen thoughtful essays, they simply glom on to the latest news with another "me too" blog post. Their goal is largely to land on Techmeme and sometimes digg - perhaps Google in an archival/Long Tail perspective. These sites - and Twitter too - have perpetuated a lot of lackadaisical writing. The Attention Crash is another factor at work here. People don't have as much time to think.

If you want to see the Lazysphere in the wild, I encourage you to take a look a two resources. The first is this terrific video that Amit Argawal put together. It distills 50 hours in the life of Techmeme down to 50 seconds. It shows how often bloggers will gather like a pack of wolves around news that will be largely forgotten in a month. The other is digg swarm.

Somewhere circa 2006 the tech blogger mindset shifted - at least among the majority. People who used to work hard creating and spreading big ideas resorted to simply regurgitating the same old news over and over again, often with very little value add. It's almost like we stopped the real work of reading, thinking and writing in favor of going all herd, all the time.

My blogging New Year's resolution is to quit The Lazysphere. I can't go cold turkey reading it, but I aim to avoid using my blog to perpetuate it. To inspire me (and perhaps you) I have started a category of feeds in my Google Reader that include a group of people I feel really think - and do so often. You can browse or subscribe to the feed stream here. A list follows below. I plan to add or subtract to these over time.

Who's with me? Can we kill the Lazysphere this year? That's a challenge that I feel is vital to the future of blogging.

Comments

[par7133]

did u mean creativity vs status quo?
;-)

[Jeff Gwynne]

I'm with you, Steve.

The quality and depth of writing has gone down hill since the invention of millions of printing presses (computer + Internet + social networking). Layer on top diminishing attention spans and the new language of text messaging and it could get worse.

Could there actually be an upside? With so many people expressing themselves, perhaps articulate thought leaders will emerge who would otherwise have no opportunity to be heard.

[Eric Weaver]

I agree, generally, but I also see people being incredibly busy rather than lazy. It's hard to write original posts with true insight when you're swamped. I think people feel compelled to post on a regular basis for their readers, but often don't have the time to do a meaningful piece with the requisite research.

I disagree with Jeff, however: the average quality and depth of writing by the general public has ALWAYS been abysmal - blogging and online publication, being mere publication vehicles, just brought it all to light. Good writing, like good graphic design or any other expressive endeavour, will rise to the top of the noise, and search will help it be found.

[Don Lafferty]

I'm all about this thinking, Steve, but I believe it requires a couple of prerequisites. Perhaps some “rules of the road” for the blogosphere built around decorum and mutual respect – at least until proven stupid.

I stumbled across Malcom Gladwell’s blog yesterday while doing research for an essay of my own and was reminded just how thick skinned a courageous, original thinker must be to publish. I’m not endorsing Gladwell in that statement – there are certainly some areas of his own process that could use improvement. I was just amazed by the beating he took over a mistake in a recent New Yorker piece he penned.

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2007/12/correction.html

Even the way Jonathan Crow was corn holed yesterday in the very first comment to his very first blog post. The guy displayed unusual restraint to respond with as much dignity as he did, even though the points in the comment were accurate.

http://jcrow.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/goodbye-thinkfree-hello-world/#comments

I’d venture to say that a lot of original thinkers have become gun shy about blogging simply because of the feeding frenzy that surrounds the slightest error in a publishing environment that frequently includes a significantly compressed runway for research and fact checking.

Maybe instead of piling on, we should all agree to have some class when pointing out errors instead of using a contemporary’s faux pas to further our own legend.

[Eric Rice]

I'm glad Twitter serves a utility of being like my own personal lazysphere, keeping the lazy off my own blog. Then again, with so much attention focused there before blogs, it's not hard to see why it's an attractive spam-er, promotional channel for networking within an organic community of-- bah screw it, spammy. :)

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you for reading and recommending. Love the visual ;-) Thinking is hard -- and writing a good post takes a lot of you, time being only part of it. Don mentions research -- absolutely! That takes time and sources may not always be accurate, etc. It also takes attention, as Eric brings up. And people cannot always talk about their day projects openly as many of us know.

What is left is attitude and willingness to do it and support each other in doing. Given all choices, I go for action every single time. One or two unknown blogs on your list, which I will be exploring shortly. I might also shed a paragraph or two this year (not that anyone would have known with my posts so far ;-).

[Jeff Crites]

Great post. I've been spending a lot more time on Techmeme lately, checking out hot stories and conversations. But ultimately, I find maybe one linked blog post in ten has something unique or interesting to say beyond being a mere parrot. Sure, we all want some traffic, and want to get noticed, especially when we're the little blog guys starting out, trying to get our voice heard. But I feel that the longer I try to write compelling content, the better chance I have of gaining long term readers.

[Mark Scrimshire]

Steve,

You do a great job of stimulating the blogosphere with original thought or at the very least thoughts that actually expand on the current news. I hold up your comments on Google Reader sharing as a case in point.

I am joining your campaign to at the very least provide value adding commentary to blogsphere news.

[Bob Warfield]

To really escape the Lazysphere, walk away from leaderboards. They're useless for identify much of any real thought. By the time a real thought reaches them, it is old and stale. If you must look at them, read them last.

Instead, you have to make room in your feed list for new blogs that aren't on the leaderboards.

The blogosphere, like many dynamic systems, is Darwinian. Look for punctuated equilibriums of ideas. More on my blog:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/the-internet-first-breeds-diversity-then-conformity-punctuated-equilibrium/

Best,

BW

[Steve Spalding]

Well said Steve.

I think the latter half of 2007 was the worst I have ever seen it. It used to be that at the very least you would see a few interesting concepts filter to top a few times a week, but the last few months of last year saw an almost perpetual flood of 3-4 "big" stories a day followed by dozens upon dozens of me-to commentaries.

This wouldn't have even been such a problem, if that commentary didn't basically rehash the same tired ideas.

Though a lot of the problem -is- the fact that people have limited time, and feel the need to publish huge amounts of stuff, it is still disconcerting.

[David Martin]

Steve,

Good points. My sense is the glass is more than half-full. On any given subject there are a number of serious bloggers, more today than yesterday. The conversation continues to expand at an incredible velocity and yes that does include a dramatic increase in the noise generated by hacks. The rocks go with the farm. For me the web is more exciting than ever, each day pregnant with the promise of discovery. Perhaps the most intellectually honest pov would suggest that the best writing on the web, the best bloggers of truly original material will, in the majority of cases, never make the leader boards consistently and there's good reason for that. In the same way PEOPLE will always deliver more readers than GRANTA, the appeal of some bloggers no matter the substance of their content will eclipse others. It was ever thus and practically of no matter. The blogs in my reader are personal, voices I enjoy and support. I commend the attitude you have taken in this post and look forward to reading Rubel 2.0; Happy New Year.

[Aaron Williamson]

If the "success" of a blog is measured in the number of readers, then riding the ever shifting wave of the net's narrow attention span makes sense. But you, I think, see blogging as a platform for the dissemination and sharing of ideas so that they can evolve within the collective consciousness we have all helped to create on the web.

The trouble is that the rewards of blogging can often be dubious (who cries for an unread blog?) and so many are motivated to pursue opportunistic writing, as opposed to truly taking the time to share ideas.

[lux]

If it makes you feel any better, it's not just the tech blogs that suffers from the lazysphere phenomenon, the political blogosphere is just as guilty (if not moreso).

Personally I've cut back on my blogging a lot, preferring to say nothing rather than "me too!" - unless I feel strongly on a subject.

[Jeff]

what you talk about is nothing more than a microcosm of what is happening in this country--just replace 'TechBloggers' with 'White Males'; it's no wonder that mentality has trickled down into the blogosphere.

start by changing the overarching tendency towards laziness and you might see some improvement.

[Andy Wibbels]

This has been a trend since the first businesses tip-toed into the blogosphere with breathless 'me-too!' posts then we had the same thing with podcasting then the same thing with 'OMG NYT has DIGG' and then MySpace and then Facebook.

I'm slowly weaning myself off Reddit and TechCrunch because there just really isn't that much that I need to know every day to function in my life and business - the over-arching trends have been pretty solid for several years now.

Staying on top of topics minute-to-minute also misses the attitude and ethos of blogging that endears readers.

At the end of the day, are you really gonna leave your kids a whole bunch of permalinks? That's not a legacy.

[Wayan]

Steve,

I challenge you to really lead, which will take more than adding more info to your already full channels. I challenge you to instead cut back, way back. Both inbound and outbound.

The easy part: only read posts at least 300 words long that make you think.
The hard part: only write posts at least 300 words long that make us think.

That means swearing off Twitter-crack, posts of just links, and all the other noise you've been distracted by. Come back to those of us who only read your longer posts, who only write longer ones ourselves, and who cherish original thought.

We've been here all along, thinking long before we post to make sure our readers think long after.

[Mark Evans]

Steve,

You make some excellent points. The challenge is that writing solid, non-lazy blog posts takes time and effort. Often, there's little ROI when you take into account that a me-too, Techmeme-driven post could get exponentially more traffic than something not in the spotlight.

That said, I do believe that over time quality content will win the day, or at least I'm optimistic it will. For individual bloggers who embrace your approach, it may mean writing less often but writing with more creativity and thought. For blogs that have evolved in multi-author entities (TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb), they can continue to pump out quality content much more easily.

Another challenge is raising the profile of high-quality content bloggers. Your list encompasses a lot of well-known bloggers, but what about people below them in the pecking order who are writing material that is as good or better? How do these people get some notice without playing the Techmeme game?

[Mark Evans]

Steve,

You make some excellent points. The challenge is that writing solid, non-lazy blog posts takes time and effort. Often, there's little ROI when you take into account that a me-too, Techmeme-driven post could get exponentially more traffic than something not in the spotlight.

That said, I do believe that over time quality content will win the day, or at least I'm optimistic it will. For individual bloggers who embrace your approach, it may mean writing less often but writing with more creativity and thought. For blogs that have evolved in multi-author entities (TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb), they can continue to pump out quality content much more easily.

Another challenge is raising the profile of high-quality content bloggers. Your list encompasses a lot of well-known bloggers, but what about people below them in the pecking order who are writing material that is as good or better? How do these people get some notice without playing the Techmeme game?

[Edwin]

Welcome back!

[Udi]

Right on.

[Jeff Crites]

I think the main issue is the amount of noise on the web, and the desire to rise above the din and be heard. If you didn't get in on the pyramid a few years back, it's tough to crack into the readable blogosphere now, but not impossible. It takes time, and who has patience anymore? And it takes talent and a unique voice.

I've scanned Techmeme for a story that piques my interest, to get the creative juices flowing, but I spend so much time crafting a post that I rarely benefit from being linked there. It's interesting that I jumped on the news about Starbucks yesterday - it's re-focus on the Consumer Experience is in my wheelhouse - and I referred to a WSJournal article. I had no idea the WSJ uses Sphere to track blog discussions. I was picked up, got linked at the bottom of the article, and enjoyed some nice traffic. Made my day, and it wasn't an attempt to game the system.

[Ike]

I've got a solution.

I don't visit Techmeme. I write about concepts that relate to my work and my life, and I don't really care whether there are link-bait references to anyone else's material.

But hey, who wants to read that kind of stuff?

[Jill]

boycott purveyors of lazysphere: twitter, pownce, kyte, qik, mogulus, ustream ...

[David Burn]

I've been classified as a lazy blogger before, but I'm sorry, the suit doesn't fit. Finding and reshaping the top news in my industry every day is work. And why is there such a need to judge? Create content readers want in the format they want it. That's it. End of story.

p.s. nice cow

[Jill]

boycott purveyors of lazysphere: twitter, pownce, kyte, qik, mogulus, ustream ...

[Tom Pimental]

Steve,

I think the motivator behind this is easy money through page view farming. More thoughts here:

http://www.tompimental.com/?p=105

Tom

[Rex Dixon]

Steve,

You are so right, and it falls in line with one of my predictions for 2008 - Less Blogs! #4 on my list here - http://rexduffdixon.com/?p=3344 - and I am guilty as charged. I've done more writing lately, even though on the "story" of the day, I've started to vear away and do more commentaries. Whether or not my 50 or so readers will keep reading, well with 50 readers, does it matter? :)

Rex

[Dennis Howlett]

I am definitely with you. Great example - today's response to the Facebokk, plaxo, Google announcement about joining the DataPortability.org Workgroup. Almost all the pieces were derivatives of the original couple of posts with almost ZERO value add.

My own piece that took an entirely contrarian view was lumped in with other 'stuff' as 'related discussion.' It was only related in the sense I'd picked up the early couple of posts. It was entirely 180 degrees and highly original in terms of its included comment. That's not an opinion, that's fact.

Almost all my Twittersphere friends agreed but very few blogged it. Hence no Techmeme juice. It's annoying to say the least.

[TPapi]

Amen. I blogged with a guy for awhile who was adamant about not having reactions or "me too" posts, only original thoughts. That's incredibly hard to keep up along with a 50hr a week paying gig and doesn't give much latitude for posts that serve as personal reminders of key information or the connection of several pieces of data, but it's still a good rule to live by.

I'm a small fry with a just a few thoughts to share, but I caught myself playing "me too" last year and realized it's uselessness. Instead of posting I started using Del.icio.us, Twitter and other means to collect, organize, spread, and comment. I'm doing my best to save my blog for original ideas and those linkages of information that requires a paragraph or two from me. Hopefully that will allow me to maintain my blog's quality so that the really original content stands out while still maintaining an online repository of what I've found.

Jorn Barger's 10 tips for new Bloggers are a great set of rules to avoid adding to the lazysphere. See tips 1, 2 and 3 and in the spirit of tip 7 : http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/12/blog_advice

[Paul]

Very nice post. This is a resolution I should have made for myself.

[Shelley]

You really don't have anyone to blame but yourself. You're fixated on the same people who have mastered the art of Twitter.

There is an amazing number of people writing some terrific tech material, but they're not 'insiders'. What you might want to do is look outward, instead of inward.

[Ben Helps]

Amen.

Yours is one of the very few remaining blogs I always read - even your daily links are thoughtful, compared to the average. Others include Leo's Zen Habits and Copyblogger.

I think what Aaron mentioned above is true though - many of the big bloggers are moving to writing what they think will pull in the big stats - ala Scoble's test.

[Mark Stoneman]

I'm not a tech blogger, but what you say applies to the blogosphere more generally too. I do lazy on my tumblelog. I try to think on my blogs.

[Jeremy Pepper]

Thanks for the laugh.

BTW, deep blogging means responding to comments. Guess you can chalk yourself up as one in the lazysphere. Well, that plus none of your posts are that deep.

[I. Twist]

WhatIsNew posted a similar story on January 1. "The majority of us are no longer interested in sites that only link to other sites. We desire original content with little or no snark and the post must contain useful information on using a new device or help us to determine if a new soon-to-be-released product is worth the wait."

Their headline was Social Trend: Bloggers to Reporters: http://www.whatisnew.com/2008/1/01/86/social-trend-bloggers-reporters

Looks like I am not alone in avoiding sites that only repeat someone else's work.

[Chris Brogan...]

Thanks so much for the really kind words, and for putting me in such great company. What a bunch o' swell folks.

One of the scariest days in recent technology history was reading that Steve Ballmer said one of Microsoft's big goals in 2008 was to figure out advertising. I'm from that generation of year after year "huge big things" in technology. Despite the slams, I think Surface is something interesting-ish, but boy, it's been bleak in new, game-changing technologies lately.

Has tech blogging become the next CNN? Have we fallen into the mistaken trap of thinking we have to report, even when there's not a lot of news? Just listen to the year end podcasts from TWiT, Steve Gillmor's The Gang, and others. I heard three podcasts tell me there wasn't much holiday news. Besides consistency, I wondered if the shows should've been published. (Mind you, I love those shows, and admire the people who make them). But do we HAVE to keep our sites lit up? Will we really go under the water?

Anyhow, I didn't mean to blog in your comments section. Thanks for having me on the list of thinkers. I'm SO adding a few of these I hadn't explicitly been reading. Maybe we'll hang out in 08 at some point.

[Victor Agreda Jr]

Well I only use twitter to talk to friends or keep an eye on acquaintances and folks I admire (like Dave Winer).

But I think the mob mentality took flight because it is easier than ever to publish, thus raising the noise floor. Couple that with some critical mass from SEO blabbermonkeys (everybody wants to get in on the act) and you find much of the laziness is from a bunch of people trying to Get Rich Quick.

That and the "bicycles for our minds" make it impossibly easy to swarm a topic-- whether it means anything or not. Reporting on Britney or Paris is "lazy" too, and the occasional journo will rail against it, but no media organization is going to swear off celeb-watching any time soon.

Basically you're saying bloggers need to start doing their homework, paying attention in class and improving their work... Sounds like any other job!

That said, give some unsung heroes a chance. Your list is full of the usual suspects. (Hint: try Download Squad :)

[Paul Chaney]

Steve, "lazy" is a term I've never applied to you. It's a very short list of people who work harder than you at creating value for the rest of us each and every day -- and you've done so for years.

However, I have to agree with Eric Weaver. People are swamped and it takes time to burn up more than a few brain cells coming up with original material, especially in this day of long-form blogging. Not everyone, including me as much as I hate to admit it, can devote hours a day blogging.

Of course, we could follow the pattern you set a number of years ago. I recall, whether in a blog post or elsewhere, where you indicated that you got up very early and blogged, took your lunch break to blog, then followed up with more blogging in the evening. Now, I don't know if that's a practice you continue today, but I can tell you one thing -- that's NOT lazy, by any stretch of the imagination.

[Kevin]

I have recently been thinking of adding some me-too random tech commentary to my blog in an desparate attempt to escape the "Z-List", but this post really made me reconsider.

[Cat Laine]

I don't think it's laziness so much as lack of time on one hand and competition on the other. For instance, if you look at how newspapers operate, if the NYTimes is running with big story x, of course the Washington Post is going to have to report on it as well. Maybe some of the bloggers you're referring to feel that they MUST put their two cents in on the "issue/non-issue" of the day to keep their readers. It also could be that many bloggers get into a rut and don't take time to step back an examine their work as a whole. A great post on Laughing Squid recently poked fun at Boing Boing for the predictability of their content these days (Boing Boing Bingo).

Overall my take home message from your post is, to co-opt Socrates, that the unexamined blog is not worth writing.

[Stan Schroeder]

Unfortunately, I have to put my personal blog, linked above, in the gone-lazy basket; the reason for this is not some trend; it's work: lots and lots of work. I still try to go against the grain whenever I think that it makes sense. Simply repeating what others say on Techmeme is not enough for me.

[NatC]

Thanks for sharing this list. I created a Netvibes tab from all these, for all of us lazy Netvibes users:
http://eco.netvibes.com/tabs/229868/steve-rubel-s-busysphere
sorry if the title is not 100% appropriate.

[Sante]

Whoever relies on feeds to keep up to date cannot deny there is a considerable amount of overlap in stories. I follow about 100 feeds and find myself hitting the J on my Google reader: Too much "relaying" news, not enough "elaborating".

This forces me (and probably a lot of others) to constantly review feeds eliminating the "shallow" ones - our objective is to avoid being shallow

[allen stern]

Of course Steve, I wouldn't expect you to include me in the "thinkers" list - you've ignored me since day 1. No idea why frankly. I've tried to reach out to you numerous times. I guess you missed my twitter messages.

I know that I am not part of the lazysphere - I call it "copyblogging" - which I agree with you is going around. It's too bad that your office is only a short walk from mine, yet we've never had the chance to meet.

I even listed you on my 23 people to meet in 2007 but removed you in 2008 as you've continued to ignore me. It's disappointing but I am over it.

Here's my link in case you have a desire to check it out:
http://www.centernetworks.com

[Steve Rubel]

Allen, I know who you are. It's nothing personal - a scaling thing.

[Jim Kukral]

Steve, thanks for kicking me in the you know what. This post put me over the edge and helped me decide to finally quit text blogging and only do video blogging from now on.

http://www.jimkukral.com/announcement-making-the-leap-to-video-blogs-only-in-2008-no-more-text/

[Bob Angus]

To you and me, a blog is a platform for creative expression and an opportunity to share our intimate knowledge.

I submit that the Lazysphere is not in the least bit interested in blogging as a creative canvas. To them, a blog is a distribution channel to make money... and it is a good one. It offers a broad audience for an extremely low investment.

The creative blogger should not care about what others are doing. Some writers would rather be published in Zyzzyva while his roommate is using the same pen and paper to write a column for People. Independent film vs. studio schlock. NPR vs. Top 40 radio. And so on.

So, unless one is a creative blogger who REALLY dreams that they are part of the easy money, the Lazysphere and creative bloggers can co-exist. It is an open medium.

I love the cow picture!
- The not-so-lazy Angus

[Todd Wickersty]

Great post Steve. I've just launched a blog for the new year and our goal is for each writer to write one meaty, original column a week instead of piling on others. Your article sums up our mission!

[Michael Lodispoto]

Steve - there are many many bloggers out there that are following some well respected blogging titans like Maki over at DoshDosh who has quite a few articles on creating and managing many blogs. How can the people that you are very familiar with have quality posts on many blogs that they have? All the while Twittering like mad little monkeys !
I think that maybe the bloggers that have had great success in tech like techcrunch help add to this as many of the clone blogs are doing as you say, simply playing the same stuff over and over and over. They copy, slap everyone's hands, digg eachother's articles, Stumble them and so on. Why create something original when you have a group of 'friends' or a network that will propel your work to a mass audience.
All one has to do to see this is go on Sphinn, a site that I love to use to actually hire SEO and writers and so on. There is so much self-congratulation going on ( I have also participated but scaled back) that there are now posts that are coming up that are challenging this mindset.
People are generally lazy and if you have one incredible blogger that is doing very well, then who does exceedingly better by his 'network', it may very well pay for him/her to invest more in the 'network' than in his own content. What do you think? This all adds to the decline of real ideas as you've noted I think.

[Michael Lodispoto]

By the way, just want to say that I love Dosh Dosh, and think Maki is one of the best of the real bloggers out there. It's just that I can't see being able to have 10 blogs, and they all be as good as anyone's first. I wish I had that kind of time.