Conformism in the High-Tech Era ARTICLE DATE: 03.14.05 By John C. Dvorak
Over the years I've learned a few things about writing columns, especially online semi-interactive columns where people write in and either vehemently complain or praise me for revealing the truth as they see it. This feedback tends to take the form of either "You're an idiot for thinking that" or "Wow, I thought I was the only one thinking this way." There are other sentiments between those extremes, but underlying it all is a sick need for universal conformity.
One emerging group that exhibits conformist characteristics is the bloggers, but the most conformist group out there has to be Mac users. Having become a blogger myself, I feel even more inclined to write a column once in a while with various gripes and complaints. But I looked at my readership numbers over the past few years, and the fact is that most people still do not care about blogging. I'm now convinced that blogging is a niche market. Most folks online don't even know they are reading a blog half the time, and don't know what a blog is. This accounts for blog being one of the most looked-up words on the online dictionary sites.
The key to understanding why I'm not seeing the kind of feedback Mac users provide comes from a set of numbers out of IBM. Apparently, in a company that is all about computers and technology, officials have determined that there are maybe 2,800 or so blogs out of a universe of maybe 330,000 employees. It's believed that perhaps 200 of these are active. Microsoft has promoted blogging within its company, and if you visit the blogs there you see a similar phenomenon: lack of interest.
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The IBM numbers fascinate me the most, because they match larger trends. Analysts report that there are about 8 million active bloggers worldwide. Some will stop, then new ones will come along. There are plenty of dead blogs too. If IBM cannot sustain a blogging community of even 1 percent of its employee base, with active bloggers representing less than 0.1 percent, how big can the community actually get? My guess is that the entire scene cannot go beyond 0.1 percent of the entire population of computer users, or no more than one blogger per 1,000 computer users.
That still implies a lot of bloggers, but the penetration is pathetic when compared to just about anything sold into the market. And blogging is free, mind you.
The fact is, and you should note this, blogging software is essentially high-quality content management software with limited functionality. Its usefulness is limited to those people who have a need for content management software. Believe me, that need is not up there with word processing. And while there are people who extol the virtues of blogging, saying that everyone should do a journal or become a blogger for whatever reason, the true audience is minuscule relative to the total number of computer users online.
That said, there seems to be an endless need in high technology to reaffirm your decisions by finding like-minded acceptance. People read camera reviews, for example, after they buy their cameras just to reassure themselves that they made the right decision. When they read a bad review they get mad at the writer.
I witnessed this one year when I panned the Nikon 900. People who had already bought the camera were mad at me for not liking it. What difference does it make to them what I thought? They already owned it. Insecurity seems Continue reading
to be endemic with anything that is high-tech. This phenomenon is the only thing that explains Mac users still getting so adamant about their decisions. If Apple had 90 percent market share you wouldn't hear a peep out of Mac users, since the market itself would have given them the affirmation they need.
With blogging, I don't see this as much. Now that I've seen the statistics from IBM I know why: The numbers are simply too low. But the need-for-affirmation effect is still there. When you go to blog-centric sites such as Blogcount, an excellent blog that keeps track of this sort of thing, you find all sorts of ridiculous notions about the relative popularity of blogging. My favorite is an incredible post here where it is asserted that there are 11.9 million bloggers in South Korea, a country with a population of around 50 million people. This means that over 20 percent of the people in the country, including old ladies and babies, are bloggers. This is a laughable and needy assertion.
IBM cannot even muster 0.1 percent of its employee base, and Korea manages over 20 percent of its entire population? This is how delusional the blogging-crowd members have become about their hobby. And, frankly, I don't get it. Everyone has to conform. It's the "everyone must become a blogger because I am one" mentality. I own a Mac, so you should too. I have this camera, everyone should have this camera. These are the conformist trends that fuel politics, TV viewing, car-paint colors (boring!), and everything in between. Even supposed nonconformists conform to some rigid nonconformist ethos. Just look at punk-rockers or hip-hop gangsta style.
"Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft. You are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day."
--Ptahhotep, Vizier to Isesi,
Fifth Egyptian Dynasty, 2300 BC