Death By Blog Greatly Exaggerated
Shel Israel considers if blogs are the death of 'Zines. Like David Weinberger, he offered one when it was cutting edge media. Now he asks will blogging kill Confrenza, his paid subscription conference coverage 'Zine.
...Two weeks ago, while attending PC Forum, I found myself surrounded by bloggers, many also respected as authors, journalists and influencers. I was surrounded by the likes of David Weinberger, Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls , Ross Mayfield, John Patrick. These guys have 10s of thousands of blog visitors daily. Theybroadcast from the conferences nearly in real-time and worst of all—theygive--GIVE their stuff away. It can be a daunting, humbling and potentially embarrassing task to follow their collective act....I came to that conclusion based on an oft-used but relevant comparison—radio did not die when TV came in, but TV changed radio's content. Blogs will not kill most ‘zines, but they will change their content. Just like the morning newspaper could not outscoop the 11 o'clock news, 'zines lose currency of their content to blogs. To survive the 'zine needs to make it up in breadth, depth or both. Blogs are now the first word in conferences as well as a wide variety of fast-breaking daily events...
Shel is right that the blogs will make other media evolve, but not just in content. Not sure that 'Zines can survive simply by building upon their existing strengths in breadth and depth. Media must reflect new media in content, but also adapt in form. Since the form of a 'Zine is so close to that of a blog, mostly broadcast electronic text, the best ones will borrow the strengths of the new. The real strength of Confrenza is Shel and Gary, they are great at conference coverage -- and I am sure they will find new ways to bring out not only their strengths, but the strengths of others.
