Nicholas Carr: Blogs and the Media

I had a chance to talk with Nicholas Carr today after he participated in a debate with tech impresario Don Tapscott.

Aside from his unwavering views on computing as a utility, one of the areas we touched upon was how the blogosphere is changing traditional media and, more important, its economics.

This is an increasingly interesting issue, particularly among those of us working for "mainstream" outlets, given the major reductions within newsrooms in Boston, Philadelphia and New York recently.

Carr believes - and I agree with him - traditional media has to change its stripes to deal with the blogosphere's ability to quickly disseminate news.

It means traditional media such as newspapers need to figure out how they can remain relevant.

Do they do accomplish it through more in-depth reporting, investigative stories and/or opening foreign bureaus?

These are expensive exercises at a time when the economics of the business are evolving as more advertisers shift spending to the Web.

As for blogs themselves, Carr believes RSS technology could make it difficult for people to discover new blogs because RSS readers such as Bloglines or FeedDemon will force some people to cap how many blogs they want to read each day - rather than wandering around the blogosphere.

At some point, this could make it a huge challenge for a new blog to climb into the "A-List".

Carr also believes the blogosphere will eventually become much like the mainstream media with well-known brands dominating the landscape - which contrasts with the current demographic, free-for-all landscape alive and well within the blogosphere today.

‍