Wonderful Blogs, Evil Splogs and Now Entertaining Clogs….
Wonderful (web)blogs, evil sp(am)logs and now entertaining c(orporate)logs. We’ve come a long way since the .plan files that internet users made publilc to keep people up to date back in the day. Each popular thing evolves - this is the nature of technology and the net. And .plan files evolved with the power of html to the force of nature they are today.
Blogs, splogs and clogs. Technology has a way of coining cute terms and sticking to the theme. The latest in the series, the clog, a new breed of corporate advertising log. What’s a clog and how did they get here? Let’s look from the start.
When blogs came on the scene they changed the landscape over night it seemed. Who would have thought that such a simple concept could have such impact.? I remember years ago when online diary sites were a minor hit. And I do mean minor. It was inconceivable that in the future many, many people would be busy posting their ideas and feelings about topics on the web on daily basis. But that time came. Networks and communities sprung up overnight. Social networking sites like myspace and livejournal became 10 pound gorillas. At some point it seemed like everyone had a blog. It didn’t take for that crafty breed of annoying innovator , the spammer, to take notice.
Enter splogs. Spammers scraping sites to generate the appearance of personal, fresh content. They usually smell bad like all spam, but they proliferated all the same. Spammers were sprinkling bot dust on real blogs and even creating deep scraped blogs of their own. They did this of course to fool people into clicking on and buying products. Or to generate enough raw pages and links to get pagerank and get their affiliate sites high up in search engine rankings. Google and blogging software were finding themselves fully occupied to combat this. At around the point where everyone had a blog and was complaining about the prevalence of splogs….. clogs start to come on the scene.
These not so distant relatives of splogs and blogs are unique in their own right. Companies paying money to increase their search engine rank and presence on the web by creating high quality corporate blogs. Typically the polish of their content was higher than blogs, however, their motives were oddly similar to sploggers. They wanted to add real quality content and value to increase search engine placement, create more interest and generate exposure. Sometimes the lines get blurred. Everybody remembers the Blair Witch online hype from before that movie. This was the grandmother of cloglike thinking, studios themselves creating interest using efforts that appeared to be grassroots . UTube has been hit by the same kinds of things in their arena. Nobody likes deception. But oddly enough many of these high quality paid or encouraged clogs are starting to take hold. Many companies let their employees blog about their jobs online at work. The line is blurred in a good way.
Today there are quite a few companies clogging and adding real value to the web. They are entertaining and providing the information using the informal setup of the
blogs. In many cases they are visually appealing and contain great content. The web has grown up like all industries do. At first pioneers break new ground, prove their concept and gain notoriety. Then the corporate world catches on and takes the concept, polishes it and runs with it. This is certainly the case with clogs.
Think about Joel Spolsky or Matt Cutts… personable bloggers who mention their companies in each passing breath. But this is all good. Content is still king. And everyone has come to the table willing to share. Blogs, splogs and clogs….
The overriding question is where will it end and what will be next in this evolution?
