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

[Scott Baradell]

Hooboy. I just came to check in on your blog, Steve, and I think I'm having a deja vu to 2005 -- commenters complaining that you're ignoring them, others kissing your ass in hopes of some future link love, and even Jeremy in fine form (remember this?) Truly, it's enough to make a person want to bang their head against their Facebook wall.

I love you, man. I think the best thing that could happen for blogging is if Digg, Techmeme and Twitter were shut down, Google stopped indexing blog content, and Technorati (even as f'ed up as it already is) went away,too. Then you'd have people blogging who actually give two shits about what they're writing.

Today finding worthwhile content like looking for the best ballet dancer in a mosh pit.

[vhxn.com]

thanks for the Blog Thinkers lists

[joel]

Awesome post. Would you say laziness is enabled by microblogging, with Twitter and Tumblr coming to mind? Just as IM "freed" people from writing formal e-mail(s), quick blogging tools, Twitter especially, prohibit deep blogging.

[Paul Bradshaw]

Very much agree - although my path has been the opposite. I started using a blog in 2004 as a bookmarking-plus-comment service - a place to store all those useful articles, and a way of remembering them.
But then I started using Delicious to do it much better, realised other people were doing the same job anyway, and got very bad RSI, which meant I had to have a good reason to type: that is, writing something original. Tech bloggers aside, I think bloggers generally are still getting better.

[Dorai Thodla]

Steve,
I try to mix some original writing with link blogging. I think it depends on how you look at blogging as an activity. If it is "spreading ideas", you may have to resort to linking.

But I agree with you that we need a more thoughtful analysis and not simple news reporting. I noticed that my blogs were read months and some times years after they were originally written. So I wrote a blog on "Does currency of Information matter" (http://dorai.wordpress.com/2006/07/27/blogging-news-vs-subjects/).

Original blogs take a lot more time to research, think and write. At one point in time, I decided to just write one blog a week. But sometimes, you see an item of news or video or listen to a podcast and get excited. You want to keep the memory and your thoughts alive. This causes you to blog. This is what seems to happen a lot of times to me.

For me blogs are:

Better bookmarks
Reflections on reading, listening and other learning
Sharing (and this is where link blogs come in)

Dorai

[Billionaire Strategies]

I started writing on startup topics back in 1996. Since then it's become painfully obvious that there's very little new information that can be added to the online "how to start up a business" pool of knowledge. 99.9 % of the blog posts recycle the same platitudes over and over, ad nauseam. I mean, how many "Top Ten Business Startup Tips" lists can be generated? The big names in blogging are typically the most guilty of this crime. (I must confess to occasionally engaging in this nonsense myself simply for the SEO benefits.)

To paraphrase Presidunce Bush, "blogging is hard work."

[brian papa]

Steve,
First let me begin by saying that I love your blog. In fact, I feel guilty because I've read several of your illuminating posts and have yet to leave a comment. I appreciate the time you take to write them, your research, and your passion.
That said, on Jan 8th you wrote a post titled "The Lazysphere and the Decline of Deep Blogging." Since then, your postings have been light, mainly links and Twitter streams. Your last "deep" blogging piece was Dec 31 Digital Trends Part II: Living Room 2.0
Steve, I miss your writing! Please send us something soon. I'm sure there are plenty of people like myself who don't take the time to thank you for what you contribute.
So, thank you. I look forward to reading your future posts!
Happy RSS Subscriber,
Brian

[Hooman Radfar]

I am in. I definitely agree that many of us have become repeaters - quickly rehashing the best stories/info from around the web in bite sized chunks. Although this is actually a fairly useful thing to do sometimes, if everyone simply echoes Techcrunch and Mashable, the blogosphere will become a very dull place!