It's our fault that bloggers write about the same things

Have you guys ever wondered why a lot of bloggers seem to blog about blogging? I have… a lot. But the answer is pretty simple. It's a question of popularity. You see, I have visited a lot of social bookmarking and networking communities and it seems that only certain topics keep getting more and more popular, no matter who writes about them. With no offense to communities like Digg and BloggingZoom, it appears to me that the majority of topics that become popular are the ones that either talk about technology, celebrity gossip, politics or (in the case of BloggingZoom) making money online through blogging. In fact, I think about 80-90% of the topics submitted to BZ fall into the category of blogging about blogging. It's about finding the lowest common denominator in this instance and that is blogging.

Technology and especially computer-related technology is another sure draw on many popular online social websites.

See, I think the core problem is that off-beat articles rarely get appreciated by the mainstream (whatever that means in this case). And I think that any general-topic community which gets popular inevitably faces this problem. BloggingZoom, in this case, would attract a lot of bloggers who, in turn, want to attract other bloggers. What else to write about other than blogging? In fact, as such communities become more popular, I expect the overall quality of submitted articles to get lower and lower. Because once the secret to attracting attention is discovered, it's a formula that will be repeated over and over again (and optimized for less effort over a period of time) by webmasters. Look at Digg if you have any doubts on that score.

My theory is that, no matter how talented a writer you are and how knowledgeable you are in certain topics, you'll only get popular on the Internet if you cater to the majority. And if that means dumbing down to the audience, so be it. A lot of writers are adopting this principle and it gets depressing to see how easy it is to fall into that trap. So why blame bloggers if they choose to do it?

Of course, there are the real niche communities. Recently I joined an online forum for cartoonists, because I love to draw. But those kind of communities are specialized and don't attract the general crowd. I've felt that the only way I can draw critical response to any of my artwork is by giving them exposure on specialized online communities (for graphic artists in this instance). Similarly if you are a photography hobbyist or an aspiring professional, the best way to draw attention is by joining a community dedicated to photography. No matter how popular you might be online, the general crowd will not be able to offer you critical insights into your craft. Of course, there will be some people who will say "wow… that's great" or "how did you get that cool lighting effect?"

What's the point of this? The point is that even with so many social networking sites around, I doubt whether the traditional, specialized online discussion communities will ever disappear. They might not attract the attention of the mainstream audience, but they will always draw the knowledgeable crowd of specialists out there and continue to put quality ahead of quantity.

And before you ask, yes, I can see the supreme irony of this topic :P

Hari writes about a wide variety of topics on his own blog, including "Humour, comics, tech, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then".

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