The Death Of The Webmaster: Why Weblogs Bring A True Revolution To Internet Publishing

I am a supporter of the notion of several and well differentiated ways of using weblogs/CMS technologies and I wish to shed some further light on the possibly many other valuable applications that exist (for the technologies powering them)other than the one of running a personal diary online.

Not that this exteriorating of personal rants is completely useless, quite to the contrary, but it certainly ranks on a different scale on my indicator of what can make a real difference in the near future.

To make things clear from the beginning, let me say that, as I see it, "blogs" are one, specialized use of online personal publishing technologies that have come of age in the very late 90s. Blogs are generally intended as personal diaries, which are one-man powered Web sites that publish short posts and articles in a reverse chronological order.

 

 

Blogs are also generally recognizable by the use of a few typical online publishing features which are:
Trackback
Open comments
A calendar to access posts

Now, it is perfectly legal, feasible and quite easy to direct the power of the technology that gave rise to the use of such "blogs" to support many more new and diversified uses.

To understand that the nature of the technology behind blogs is not intended "per se" to be exclusively applied for such personal journalling use, one must look at what was before the blogs and what opportunity the advent of such new micro-publishing technology brought with itself.

Before the "blogs" era, we were all slaves of our webmasters. Unless you were yourself one, most people, companies and organizations who wanted to have an online presence called a Web site, needed sooner or later someone technically skilled to take care of it for hir (him+her).

It has never been to no-one enjoyment to have to go through through lengthy, and not intuitive procedures to simply make some new text appear on a certain page of your site. Though the Frontpages and Tripods have attempted to come to our rescue we have further understood that Microsoft didn't have a clue about what we needed and how it should have been built and that advertising banners are really the most obnoxius partner of an information page.

So, when content management technology started to address individual publishers and SOHO users, a few incredible things started to become evident:

a) The webmaster (and/or those that claimed control over what/when/how things are published) can go have a long vacation. Once in a while we will need him/them, but basically only to build newer and simpler tools that hard-code the best practics and standards that we will have soon developed.

b) Usability, info architecture and standards-compliant (e.g.: browser compatibility) issues can be all hard-coded! Eureka! Wow this is simple enough anyone can understand it. If wise and well selected site/page construction policies are built/configured into the system, then you need to worry about them anymore.

c) The indipendent publisher is in direct contact with the medium. I can change, adapt and react to the market, to my customers and to what I feel is best to do in one instant. I have no more need to be mediated by someone else. I have a direct line to the global airwaves. That's pretty powerful if you stop to think of it for a second. Whether you make to show up on Google, on the news or in some thousands newsreaders worldwide is entirely up to you, as it is indeed possible (<- see the Communication Agents Initiative).

d) Overall publication time is now within the range of a few seconds. That is publication time is "typing time" + one click to Publish online. All other activities are integrated, embedded, transparent to the user.

e) Search engine marketing and submission services become completely useless. You can be indexed in Google within 24 hours or less from your publication. Absolutely no process of submission or application is necessary to show up on all major search engines (Google, Yahoo) at zero flat cost.

f) Much increased online exposure, visibility and reach are now within the abilities of individual publishers within much shorter time frames than were previoulsy required. Through the effective use of weblogging technology, RSS feeds, news aggregators, news syndication services, smart use of links and trackbacks any skilled communicator with great ideas or products to sell can have a real chance at achieving effective communication, learning, marketing results.

g) Nonetheless the many believers of the opposite an increased ease in loyalty and credibility can be effectively achieved through a systematic and ethical approach to quality content publishing, reciprocal linking, trackbacking and great use of other present-day collaboration and conversational tools (comments, forums, live conferences, wikis, etc.).

h) The range of applications for these powerful but simple-to-use content management technologies expands the reach of indipendent publishers to the venues of
- catalogue publishing,
- art promotion and marketing,
- on-line small shops and knowledge stores,
- information brokering sites with subscription services,
- specialized expert-advice sites,
- indipendent news reporting,
- online learning environments,
- team-based online project collaboration facilities,
- social entrepreneurship ventures
and much more.

So, you can see how the advent of weblogs, was masqueraded on the surface by the "bloggers" fad, and completely misunderstood by those who would be most benefitting from the advent of such technology-based opportunities.

We are ushering into an era in which things are changing at an increasing faster pace, and where ever more frequently we are looking at reality with an outdated pair of glasses, so it is difficult for me to anticipate with greater detail what the appropriate understanding and ethical exploitation of the above will exactly bring about.

What I can say with some amount of safety, is that I cannot recommend enough the use of weblog/CMS based technology for both traditional business applications as well as for those organizations entrenched in publishing methods that require a seven-day tour before the content even makes it to the test server. The learning curve for these powerful CMS technologies is basically none and the cost-effectiveness is several orders of magnitude better than when working with a full-time webmaster or with an IT/Information Publishing department that wants to "webmaster" everything you do.

Here are just a few among these recommended publishing tools:

Movable Type
PMachine···
Plone
Komplete
Drupal
Amaya

The future is in the hands of those who not only own a press, but that can also operate it.