Blogosphere Will Not Be Beaten By MySpace, Digg, YouTube, StupidVideos, Etc.

Posted on March 3, 2006

Steve Rubel says the center of gravity is shifting and the "blogosphere is not where all the action is going to be in the months ahead."

For sure the b'sphere will continue to remain the largest galaxy in the social media universe in the short term. It's a major center of gravity that pulls people toward it. However, over the last few months a number other social media galaxies have rapidly risen to prominence. Take YouTube, digg and MySpace. These are just three examples, but they are drawing huge audiences. Richard Edelman is gushing over a fourth - StupidVideos.com.

As these constellations grow, some will become larger and more influential than the blogosphere. We're already seeing early signs of this and the power brokers will shift. For example, mobile jones notes that Technorati's coverage of MySpace is sorely lacking. Technorati also does little to help us mine and track YouTube, digg, StupidVideos.com and countless other smaller galaxies of consumer generated media. They focus on blogs.

The center of the gravity is going to shift from the blogosphere to MySpace? MySpace is a youth hangout with masses of tweens and teens so it is an important target for advertisers looking to reach the youth demographic. However, it doesn't have the influence of the blogosphere and only recently started to play a role in music and entertainment. The other confusing issue is that to some extent MySpace is considered to be part of the blogosphere even though not all of the MySpace members have active blogs.

Much of the buzz over YouTube, Digg and similar services comes from the blogosphere itself. YouTube videos are inserted into blogs and become part of blogs. YouTube needs the blogosphere. And the idea that a website called Stupid Videos will be more influential than the blogosphere is not even worth debating.