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March 17, 2006
Mapping the Blogosophere, One Segment at a Time
By Charlie Kondek
3/17/06
In attempting to understand the blogosphere and our place within it, I often feel like an explorer at the fringes of an uncharted wilderness. I plunge in and look around and make sketches of what I find, all the while trying to maintain diplomatic relations with the natives. The naturalist's motto is also foremost in my mind: leave it the way you found it. Or, from a PR perspective, enable the conversation, don't disrupt it.
But back to those sketches - what does the blogosphere look like? This comes up all the time when we take a blogger outreach campaign from concept to reality. "We have Product X. We need to communicate it to bloggers. What bloggers would be receptive to X's message?"
While many people think they know the blogosphere, it's more like the parable about the blind men describing the elephant: we all have only part of the picture, the part that we personally intersect with. We casually say we want to reach "mom bloggers" or "dad bloggers," "sports bloggers," "Gen X bloggers," "fashionistas," "gamers," "geeks." And certainly they exist. But we also find blog segments we didn't know existed. Who knew dentists were blogging, for example?
Add to that the fact that most blogs are about such-and-such AND. In other words, "I blog about fashion AND food, world events, my family AND whatever else strikes my fancy," which expands the scope of a blog quite a bit. Still, these classifications are useful, and a look at the blogroll often helps in categorizing the blog. Some blogs will always defy description, but as a starting point, mapping by segment isn't bad.
Posted by staff at March 17, 2006 03:55 PM
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Comments
It reminds me of the rule of 150 Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in the "Tipping Point."
That is that only groups of about 150 or so can really can "know" each other and communicate effectively.
So, within these segments, you can further break things down by groups of about 150 to 200 or so. I see it like rain on a pond, the concentric circles these drops form speading out and overlaping in areas.
Posted by: Kami Huyse at March 17, 2006 10:16 PM
Interesting. Kami, do you think some segments of the blogosphere are even smaller, though? Perhaps it'd be easy to find 150 "mom" bloggers but 150 dental bloggers?
Posted by: Charlie at March 20, 2006 07:37 AM
Yes, I mean that this is the upward limit of the size a group can be before it starts "losing touch" and forming smaller groups. Gladwell talks about this phenomenon in the "Tipping Point," pages 175-181
"Teh figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes withknowing who they are and how they relate to us. Putting it another way, it's the number of people that you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar."
Posted by: Kami Huyse at March 20, 2006 01:43 PM
Very interesting. I think 150 is about the number of my personal network if you add friends and family and a few other acquaintances. Certainly some social circles offline and on must be smaller or a bit larger (the 150-200 number Gladwell describes).
Posted by: Charlie at March 20, 2006 03:43 PM
If you are a "connector" you might have more. Anyway, take a look at the book if you can get your hands on it. I finally had to buy it since it was checked out of the library all the time.
Posted by: Kami Huyse at March 21, 2006 11:45 PM
Another aspect of this social groups phenomenon is that within a group of 150 or so there are active participants and lurkers. In churches and other groups you have people that join committees, take leadership roles, etc. The same is true for blogs with a few who post more regularly and emerge as de facto leaders while others participate in more subdued fashion. The leaders can emerge either by virtue of personality or relevance.
Posted by: Tim Penning at March 22, 2006 08:10 AM
Indeed, a regular societal "social grouping" with each taking his or her role. It happens naturally, look at the "Teh Lord of the Flies," for instance.
Posted by: Kami Huyse at March 24, 2006 09:33 AM
