How are Bloggers affecting other professionals

Well this is the gist of the talk that I gave at Bar Camp Bangalore 4 or BCB4. I am sorry I am very late for that but at least I am writing ;-)

It does not require some rocket science to say that bloggers are affecting some professionals. Its obvious that butterfly effect will play its role in this world. There are professionals who are really feeling the heat due to the blogging community. Well lets look at things that we, the people read blogs for.
  • Technical Articles
  • Rumours( All kinds)
  • Travel Ideas
  • Reviews
The above is definitely not an exhaustive list. I wish you could suggest me some more. So who get affected by the action of the users. The very first professional who get affected are the technical writers for magazines. But then there is always the hard copy that sells. Probably thats the reason why all the magazines are moving online. They all have a online subscriptions. Sure blogging gives people the power to spread information in a more productive manner. Users do not have to rely on experience of just one expert but you have knowledge sourced from a number of geniuses who have penned their experience.

Rumour Mills definitely work best with the people run, anonymous, super fast publishing. Probably this also lets out the truth in a more democratic manner.

The travelogues are pretty much the most sought after thing on the web. People write personal blogs and tell about the awesome places they have been to. They also meticulously describe the whole experience and to-dos for the trip. How to travel, when to book tickets, motels and what to be prepared for. The travel agents who used to charge exorbitant rates for their worthless service are feeling the heat. The information is flowing in a more democratic manner. The web was supposed to be doing the same thing. But blogging has put it within the reach of the common user to byte his ideas on the net.

Reviews is probably one area where the users are still to have trust in bloggers. The traditional media has the advantage of being physically present so there is an automatic trust in them. Unless some one does really stupid like this. People do not trust bloggers all that much. The reasons are also very obvious, Sponsored Posts. This is a criminal thing to do. You should actually blog only of things that you really feel about. Doing it to make simple money is immoral. But its not thats we havnt heard of things like that happening in traditional media as well. But still its been there for long and so far not so bad. Also the biggest problem with the personal blogs is that if some company gives a real bad service, people will blog about it. Not in the case when they are getting a good deal. Actually people dont have a real incentive to talk about something good. But certainly the reviews are catching one. Once a person has made a good reputation at reviewing something like a movie or restaurants or any other stuff, its another ball game. I dont think anyone waits for Filmfare to give its movie reviews. Nowdays when Times of India has it every Sunday. Better still CNN-IBN and rediff do it on Friday evening itself who cares.

Change is the name of the game. So things will change. New will replace the old. And its for the old to catch on. But the biggest challenge for bloggers is building the trust with its readers and there is no ISI mark or ISO certification that can come into picture here.




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Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice post! You have said it very well. Keep going.

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