Speaking of ReadMe, a while back Lisa Le Fevre interviewed me on the subject of moblogging. Turns out her piece appeared in ReadMe a couple of weeks back: The Three M’s of Moblogs: Mobile Phone Blogging, Real-time Mobility and Mob Media. Whether they serve as personal travellogs, political weapons or media outlets on the go, moblogs take the amateur journalism of weblogs into the field. Excerpt from the article:
Today, moblogging is much more than an urban legend. Involving only a laptop and a wireless card, mobile blogging offers the potential for hybrid forms of media that can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Now, multimedia news can travel faster as users call up information and text images from the street using personal cell phones. What results, is a three-way conference call between wireless technology, real-time mobility, and mobdriven media.
Howard Rheingold is quoted in the article as well. Here’s the full Q&A I did with Lisa on the subject of moblogging:
How does mobile access to weblogs affect the writers and the readers?
I suspect we’re talking about a niche of a niche. That may not be sexy, but the fact remains that perhaps only 1 or 2 percent of the half million bloggers out there will be using mobile access to update their weblogs. A lot of the professional blogging class already have a laptop, PDA or (soon) a tablet PC to update their blogs when they’re on the go.
Most bloggers with mobile phones will use them to communicate with other bloggers or confidants before they post an entry. At the new media conference at UC Berkeley on Saturday, someone sent a text message to a member of the audience, who relayed the question to one of the panels. That’s power.
If weblogging could be called a genre similar to diary or journal musings, what happens to it now that people can log on their blog while on the go?
In a few years, when mobile phones with text messaging or keyboard access begin to take off in a serious way, I think we’ll see more people jump into the amateur journalism game. The temptation to report, or chronicle, a public event as it’s happening will be enormous. It will become second nature for young people to get on their mobiles and tell the world what they’re experiencing.
This will really be something when built-in cameras and camcorders become pervasive, so that bloggers can broadcast visuals in real time. Text is cool, but pictures bring immediacy and a richness of detail as no words can.
Lastly, what is your personal opinion? Would you prefer to check on your blog from outside, or wait till you get home? And, which do you think will be used in the future?
Mobile phones will bring convenience and immediacy to the weblog experience. But I think good old desktops will remain the technology of choice for some years to come.
I think moblogging — where bloggers post photos and impressions from the field — will grow in importance in the coming years, although I doubt it will ever reach critical mass. The reason? A mobile phone will always be primarly a communication tool rather than a publishing device.
Finally: If you have time, you should contact Joi Ito, who has written extensively about moblogging.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Leave a Reply