Joining in the overheard conversation!

I attended an interesting forum last week of ‘FS bloggers’ who were guests of the FT.com team to discuss blogging and, I guess, frame some of the developments they are considering with their Alphaville and Long Room blogs.

What was clear from the room was that there was no one view of blogging as some sort of literary or even loose cultural form, and perhaps that was seen as one of the strengths of blogging as an activity. It encourages anyone to try and put forward their point of view and doesn’t differentiate between those who attract 0 readers and those who attract thousands. My view is that it is very different when bloggers invoke brands or institutions from their own biography as part and parcel of their own voice and opinion – Messrs Peston and Robinson were quick to realize the effectiveness of extending their presence beyond their daily 30 seconds of on air pronouncements - perhaps the blogging equivalent of quantitative easing?

The FT was caught in the horns of just such a dilemma, but were trying to have a conversation which doesn’t really occur much to ‘ordinary bloggers’. We are interested (statcounter being my own preferred 'narcisstatistic' (sic) source) in who is actually reading our stuff, but it would seem that content is driven much more by what we are thinking than any serious desire to become overnight blogging sensations. For most, blogging appeared to function as a safety valve for our overflowing subjective thoughts rather than any attempt to create a continuous and lasting narrative with which the reader can engage. And on the other end of the telescope, I think that this is what attracts people to read blogs, many blogs, rather than becoming fans of one particular one, is that you get snippets of overheard conversation which can spark your own thoughts and ideas.

The FT brand – from its pink background to formal typeface seeks to formalize and objectify its own particular truth as something of lasting value – part of the implicit journalistic pursuit of the ‘truth’. Blogs – who range from true weblogs like Jck to the far out/satirical? subjective experiences of money is the way – represent a shifting fringe or avant garde of thoughts, links and ideas which have extended the practice of writing and the creation of language (what Potlatch calls ‘neoblogisms’) more widely in our culture than ever before. Joining the blogosphere has been to participate in the serendipity of our collective creative process rather than the creation of a new literary form.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the session was our trip round the FT newsroom and the description of the complex "industrial" process which goes into making a newspaper. Bringing the FT to play in the cottage industry of blogging will not destroy blogs but will it change the FT? Would the FT have or have had a different perspective and response to the credit crunch it if its journalists had participated more freely and widely in the blogosphere?