Anil Dash from SixApart is speaking about blogs. First quote: “How many of you know what a blog is?” Contrary to defining blogs as a technology or platform, instead Dash described a blog as “a way to connect.”
Ratio of writers to readers in the SixApart network have changed from 1:40 to about 1:1000 for blogs that are “public facing.”
Two thirds of the users on LiveJournal are female. “A haven for those who want to communicate in a way that’s private and controlled.” On LJ, it’s more like 1:6 or 1:8 of writers to readers.
“You might read 1000 feeds…but you don’t have 1000 friends.”
“Real influence is not measured in raw numbers. Real influence is related to the number of people who you are connected to who really care about what you think.”
“The New York Times thinks they compete with the Washington Post. The New York Times is not competing with the Washington Post. The New York Times actually competes with recipes from my grandmother. The New York Times competes with information from my friends.”
“There are only a couple of different ways to connect. A person can connect at a really high level with 6-8 people, and at a moderate level with about 150 people.”
The most popular community on LJ is “Oh No They Didn’t” … a community of about 250,000 celebrity gossipwatchers. Most of those people watch this information on their “friends” page — they intersperse this information with information from their friends and family news.