Established media about to jump the shark on blogs, podcasts

The established media (that means major, mid-major, and smaller) is about to jump the shark on blogs and podcasts. Take that as a statement of fact. The stats read that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people are blogging, and that a significant number of people are reading these blogs. Old media executives are looking at these stats and licking their chops, even though only a few hundred blogs are doing major traffic, maybe a thousand after that are doing moderate traffic, and a thousand of us after that are doing regular, lower traffic. Unfortunately for them, I think in many areas the mainstreamed blogs and podcasts are going to fail. Too many in the established media do not understand what makes a blog a blog or a podcast a podcast. They think that merely having the content is enough. It isn't. Part of the attraction to blogs and podcasts are that they are alternative media. For established media to succede with blogs and podcasts, they need to be somewhat free wheeling and un-politically correct with their productions. Unfortunately, I see few being willing to upset their advertisers or readers with their blogs or podcasts. That is almost an immediate death knoll for these ventures. Secondly, I don't think most established media either understand the true nature of blogs and podcasts or are willing to follow their models. We'll be seeing a lot of boring, staid blogs and podcasts which may seem exciting at first, but which quickly lose the interest of their readers. My concern is what impact these "mainstream" blogs and podcasts will have on those of us with more traditional blogs. Most things become fads once the mainstream players come in and screw it up for the rest of us. Have the government fiddling around in the regulation of an endeavor makes it even more likely there will be a negative impact. I'll be intrigued to see what the blogosphere looks like in 2008 once the established media and government have gotten their fingers deep into it, and once more and more blogs try to evolve into established media themselves with advertisors to answer to. It is easy to say advertisers don't have very much impact on you until you have major advertisers yourself. Once you have a big, unhappy contract staring you in the face, things change a bit-you either adjust your view or give up that big chunk of money you've come to rely upon. Don't think for a minute that traditional blogs are immune to the forces facing the big, mainstream media. We're not, especially the bigger our individual blogs get and the more money that is involved with them.

Don't get me wrong, if you can make money as a traditional blogger, do so! But what I am saying is be prepared for some uncomfortable decisions between principle and money. And be prepared for the fact that established media will almost always chose money over principle, and that will reflect poorly on all of us.