I think this is largely true in terms of blogs that essentially duplicate the functions of old-school journalism (political punditry is a good example- yesteryear’s political blogs have largely transformed into on-line magazines)though blogs (like this one) which serve a more specialized function and lack mainstream antecedents will hopefully continue to thrive as blogs.

I actually agree with this in principle. But the early 2000s “myth” of the blogsphere was that it was going to transform the way that information circulated and the way that people conceived of content. To make an extreme point – maybe it only changed the way that people audition for mainstream writing gigs. On the (related) issue of bands – don’t most suck more the bigger they get? I hate to see this happening to independent voices and I’d love to be wrong about all of this.

Japan blogs are different, but there is no way that they can compete in English (in terms of ad dollars or potential to be bought up) with various shades of US political punditry or video game news or the like.

Ken Worsley and Tobias Harris are already popping up in the MSM from time to time, so this is really not so much a prediction as a statement of fact.

Of course, Tobias is more or less a full-time talking head and Ken is self-employed, so they have it a bit easier than salaryman schleps like Adam and me, who are going to be hobbyists for as long as we suck on the teat of lifetime employment.

We have M-Bone here bemoaning the idea of branding when it is really inseparable from content itself. There is no abstract space where people will just write what they think is best with no sense of audience or purpose. Far from dulling originality, broader audiences and competition on a larger scale can push people to do even more and have a greater impact.

As to the idea of fitting into a position, if people’s group identity starts to dominate their ideas that can be a bit unfortunate, but people have to be responsible for what they say.

This is like wondering why bands often change their sounds when they get popular. Even if a band maintains its originality, the mere fact of the bigger audience and influence changes the whole game. Expectations are higher and the consequences greater. The same goes for writing.

Couldn’t agree more. Exactly the same cause-and-effect phenomenon taking place here as, for example, the fact that it stands to reason that standing out in the rain without an umbrella will get wet and cold.

great analysis, keep it coming !

So about that blogosphere — It only stands to reason that bloggers who provide the best content and are adept at marketing themselves will attract readers and find success in monetizing their content. That isn’t the end of the blogosphere at all — the prospect of making money or gaining prestige blogging has been part of the equation since the first success story. It’s not as if blogger.com suddenly started charging enormous fees to start a blog.

In the end, what’s the difference between MutantFrog and a private mailing list? It’s open to the public for anyone to see, and therefore can spread if enough people like what they are reading. The bloggers that don’t have what it takes to make it big will be left behind with smaller audiences and influence, and I don’t see anything wrong with that necessarily. Of course, it is kind of annoying that the biggest blogs seem to publish a whole lot of “the top ten reasons why sex is awesome” lists, but still…

What I wonder is when J-CAST will score a scoop big enough that the major news outlets will have to take notice.

But that brings us back to another frequent topic of discussion on Mutantfrog – the fact that the mainstream media (in English) has pretty much “given up on” Japan. A rich “blogsphere” may be surviving in areas like this one, but what about mainstream / semi-mainstream US topics? The idea was that the blogsphere would free people to express new, original, or highly personal ideas but now, we see more and more angling for ad dollars and bloggers seeking to “fit” into a certain position (left, right, contrarian) in the hopes that they will get published, bought out, or hired. I don’t see this as being a factor on Mutantfrog or Neojaponisme but I get that vibe from many US blogs. There have been some bad stories as well – after the big US game site Gamespot went corporate, one of its editors was canned for refusing to give a glowing review to a terrible game whose publishers had bought front-page ad space.

In essence, the US blogsphere may be going down the same road as academia – what looked like strong protection of academic freedom and the fostering of an enviornment where people could publish what they thought was best (freed of the need to profit) gave way to “branding” (you need to fit in in order to get published because you never know who is going to review your work) which has dulled originality. The for profit publishing empires of certain “rockstar” academics also see some great minds shelving the “next big idea” in favor of the rehash that will buy them a country house.

The cruel truth is that the market has long tendrils.