Forbes published a controversial article by Daniel Lyons entitled Attack of the Blogs. It opens with “Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.” Since it is the talk of the town today, what to make of it?
Steve Rubel thinks it is a soon-to-be maligned and unbalanced story. Look at the comments on his post and you will see that he is not alone.
Because I am a contrarian too, I preferred Dave Taylor’s post on the subject. He presents good arguments for his case. He concludes with:
“There are so, so many positive articles and books being published about blogging, some of which are just as one-sided in the other direction, entreating even the most illiterate of business owners to quickly jump into the blogging world lest their competitors get there first, that blogging itself "reinvents business" and so on, that perhaps articles like "Attack of the Blogs" are needed just to achieve some sort of balance.”
So before jumping on the Lyons' bashing bandwagon, let’s think whether that would cast us with the bloodthirsty lynch mob decried in his (cheap-shot type of) article.
3 comments:
The problem with Lyon's article was not so much that it was hysterical, although it was certainly that, the problem was that the advice he offered companies was spectacularly bad.
Any company who permits themselves to be guided by this will get into big trouble.
Sorry, Alice, I don't really agree with your analysis of Lyons' article. I'm not an apologist for a badly written piece, but there's a lot that he says that I believe - and plenty of other folk agree - are wrong with the blogosphere, or at least pitfalls in the blogging community, certainly topics that newbie business bloggers need to know about.
The advice was bad and the piece was pure sensationalism. But nonetheless, he puts the finger on some real issues (better articulated by Dave Taylor). I have some problems about painting blogs as the panacea for curing all corporate ailments. I have some issues too with casting the world with the evil media corporations on one side and the righteous, truth seeker bloggers on the other. There is a lot of wrong happening on the blogosphere (and right of course) and it is surprising to see how few bloggers spend time really analysing what is going on. Are there too many vested interests already? Beware "la pensee unique" (one school of thoughts only).
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