Power of Blogs

What a fun blog conversation this Long Tail thread has been! I agree with Jeff's points in the previous post, and I had a point of my own to make about giving up control, which I added as a comment under Ben's Acronym post.

But his whole conversation reminds me of the power of blogs.

Jeff and I both like to point out to people that soon after he and I started working together, he had to cajole me into starting a blog. He actually bought the domain name of my “Get Me Jamie Notter” blog just to push me into blogging. Well, it worked, and now, of course, I’m hooked. And one reason I love it is blogs are so good at making instant and broad connections. This Long Tail conversation is a case in point.

The background, of course, is that Chris Anderson has written a book (and a blog, by the way) about the Long Tail. Jeff and I also wrote an article about the application of that concept to associations. Then the following happened:

Lee Gomes writes a Wall Street Journal article critical of Chris Anderson’s Long Tail concept.

A reader of the Acronym blog alerts Scott Briscoe to the article. Scott knows Jeff and I wrote an article on the Long Tail and associations for Associations now, so he invites us to respond on the Acronym blog. Jeff’s response is here.

Ben Martin, who had originally responded with a few thoughts about our article on his blog, thinks about it some more and posts another response to the Acronym blog.

Jeff considers that and makes his response below, here on our blog.

I agree with Jeff’s points, but on the Acronym blog, under the comments to Ben's post, I noticed what Jason Della Rocca said about his association wanting to delete posts from a member forum, and it reminded me of another point about “control” that I wanted to add to the discussion, so I posted that as a comment to Ben’s post.

This is a rich conversation, engaging a diverse group of people, and generating some creative and useful thinking—and it simply wouldn’t have happened without blogs.

Comments

[Jason Della Rocca]

Hello, thanks for the props.

We're game developers, so looking at things different/creatively is a non-issue ;) And, the long-tail has massive implications for the expansion and diversity of games as well...

Anyway.

Jason