Blogs are almost 10 years old. They are probably the first tool, that gave a voice to the wider public. The revolution they brought, started slowly but developed steadily. it hasn’t been long, that almost everyone has the power to express himself/herself and literally contribute to media production.

In these 10 years, blogs have also expanded in a variety of forms:

• Video/Photo- blogs: instead of writing copy, people have used their camera to express themselves.
• AudioBlogs: similarly, people express their thoughts verbally. The iGeneration, subscribes to podcasts and listens to discussions, interviews, books, ideas, disputes, etc.
• MicroBlogs: a relatively new way of blogging, which facilitates the wide use of mobile phones. People follow each other, to see what they can say in 140 characters.
• LiveBlogs: that’s the IRC version of blogging; anyone been online for 10-15 years can see the obvious similarities.

These genres are just a representative example of the possibilities of blogs. But purpose of this post is not to define these categories. Instead, I’m wondering if the blogosphere’s potential is actually exhausted.

Remediating

For anyone blogging actively and daily for more than a couple of months, probably understands what I’m implying.
Bertolt Brecht in the early 1930s was talking about the radio as a communication apparatus; a medium, which people can use not only to listen but also produce and communicate. His vision got realized in the cyberspace and blogging era.
The revolution of the blogosphere was 10 years ago, when it brought the production process to the public. Previously, we were witnessing few producers providing data to many readers; now every reader is a potential producer (what Inke Arns described as ‘small media production‘).

The technologies and genres developed after that explosion are not revolutionary anymore. They just apply the revolution to new fields (video, audio, mobile, etc.).
What audio-, video-, audio-, micro-, live-blogs in the end bring is the practices of old media to the immersive environment of the blogosphere. The similarities of blogs to newspapers, videoblogs to television, audioblogs to radio are more than obvious.

Are blogs really a new medium, which will change the way we perceive media production? I believe it is. The problem is again comfort and convention. Mass media production is so deeply embedded in our flesh, that we take it for granted and continue producing with the same old tactics.

Redefining

So is there a way to redefine the blogging process and take advantage of its full potential? In order to re-revolutionize the blogosphere, we should keep some important aspects in mind, aspects, that seem natural to us but we usually forget about them:

1. Communication. We don’t write content for passive users to read, but for active producers to discuss.
2. Connection. The six degrees theory is very insightful, but in the blogosphere people seem to be more connected than in any other network.
3. Combination. There are thousands of tools that can be implemented in a blog. It is our job to study their applications - and hopefully find new ones.
4. Exploration. We should not only explore the blogosphere for new, insightful voices, but also the topics. Blogging is a powerful tool, we shouldn’t use it only to write about making money online.

Conclusion

Redefining the blogosphere and providing something honest, intriguing and revolutionary is certainly not a simple process. I cannot provide a step-by-step guide on doing something radical with this medium; but instead of thinking about our next post, its content and its subject, we should also think about the medium.

Is it possible to use blogs in a completely new way? How can we expand the blogging experience?
I’m interested to see if you are using or thinking about using different tools to evolve your blog.

The way Robert Scoble used Twitter to get questions of the public and directly pose them in the Davos meeting is a great combination of the existing tools and an example we should all get inspired from.