As the CEO of the leading blogging company, Six Apart, Chris Alden (formerly the founder and CEO of tech publication Red Herring) calls blogging's shift from an activity to an industry "remarkable" and indicative of a greater shift toward "social publishing."
"We think blogs are going to be as disruptive to mainstream social networks as they were to mainstream media," says Alden.
With products like Vox, Six Apart's free social blogging platform; and Movable Type Pro, a Web Content Management System (CMS) that specializes in social features, Six Apart is attempting to bridge the gaps between online publishing, blogging, and social networking. The company also plans to move TypePad, its hosted blogging platform, onto Vox in the coming year.
Internet Evolution: What's to prevent social publishing from becoming another buzzword-y Web 2.0 area with lots of investment and little or no ROI?
Chris Alden: I won't speak to over-investment. I don't know what VCs are going to do. It certainly doesn't seem like VCs are over-investing at the moment.
I am not going to say no company is going to approach this in a dumb way. You're going to have companies that get overextended. I do think you've seen a lot of companies who only focus on how [to] build activity and not how [to] build a business... What I am convinced of is you will see real successes come out of this idea, and this idea is very powerful, and it is the way the Internet is going.
IE: Do you not believe then that there's been over-investment in Web 2.0?
Alden: I don't call that over-investment. The Silicon Valley model depends on investing and understanding there's going to be some element of failure. We call that over-investment at our peril. Part of the innovation process is you take risks and sometimes fail. I do think there's going to be hard economic times coming up, and you're going to see companies that haven't built a business who are maybe depending on raising more venture capital to survive, and they're not going to be able to do that.
IE: Do you see social publishing replacing social networking? Will Facebook and MySpace exist in five years?
Alden: Absolutely they're going to exist. Nothing I'm saying is suggesting this is going to undermine them or weaken them in any way. We went through this phase -- maybe call it the "pajama phase" of blogging -- where people felt it was "we versus they," big media versus blogs, and it's going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight. That's of course not what happened. Both sides learned from the other [and] learned how to interact with each other. Major media started blogging more. Bloggers started becoming a little more professional in their behaviors. A lot of interlinking, and it's now part of one big rich ecosystem. It reminds me of the 90s when we talked about bricks versus clicks. There was only going to be one winner at the end of the day. Of course, it's both.
I'm not suggesting Facebook or MySpace is going to slow down or anything like that, but it's going to definitely get more complicated. The proof of it is you can see what Facebook and all these social networks are doing with bridges out to the greater Internet. They've got Facebook Connect, OpenSocial, Facebook apps, Beacon... We invented OpenID, and there's Oauth -- all these technologies to help these services interoperate and interact. I think you're going to see more of that.
IE: Speaking of OpenID, is Six Apart yet allowing blog authors to log in using OpenID?
Alden: In terms of authors who have administrative rights, it's not something we use OpenID for. OpenID says, "Hey do you trust this person with another account?" So that's appropriate for commenting. For someone who is going to have access to the application it's proper you have an account with that application.
IE: Does that decision have to do with security flaws with OpenID, then?
Alden: It has nothing to do with any idea of a security flaw with OpenID. No.
I hate to break up all the beautiful gazing and Web 2.0 admiration, but without the profit motive there wouldn't be a blogosphere or a Web 2.0, or maybe even a Web. That doesn't mean gobs of money can't be thrown at lots of bad ideas, and it doesn't mean you to have to listen to them or give them any creedence.
More money invested more intelligently would be really beautiful, especially for investors who see nothing but oceans of red ink for at least the next 12 months.
I agree with you, but I just worry that like other things, social media, blogging, etc. will fall into the materialistic, who can earn the most money off of it category. It would be a shame for that to happen, because as you remark, Web 2.0 IS beautiful!
"social networking sites and blogs are meant for individual expression and entertainment"
I find the use of social networking and blogs to be multi-faceted, and the above statement kinda limits the scope of web2.0 and its offerings. Sure, individual expression is key (I'm Vivo which means I'm "Alive" along with vivoware, "Alive"ware is somewhat based on that principle I believe) however for social networks and blogs to be limited to entertainment would be an imploding exploitation of something phenominally beautiful...web2.0!
I personally find it disheartening to think about the blogosphere getting to the point of becoming an industry just like everything else.
While I understand that most companies, television networks, and print publications use the Internet as a supplement, I don't think the original purpose of blogs and other social media was to boost others.
Rather, social networking sites and blogs are meant for individual expression and entertainment. I firmly believe they should stay that way.
That's a most reflective interview, but I'm still left at the end feeling the answer is not at all clear. I'm not sure that I see any clumping in the foggy cloud that is now Web 2.0 or whatever you call it.
I think it still boils down to attracting a community of enthusiasts with a central core that brings real value to its participants. So the enthusiasts as they buzz it to their friends get a real kick from the grateful appreciation of the recipients. It then must keep to the faith and have ongoing momentum so that the participants want to stay loyal and want to help it grow even more. Me-tooism just doesn't hack it.
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