Blogging

as Disruptive Technology

Blogging as Disruptive Technology

By Rasha Proctor

Digital Media Convergence

Fall 2011
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Blogging as Disruptive Technology

Abstract
This paper examines social media, specifically blogging, as a disruptive
technology changing how people interact and do business online. Blogging is one of the
most used forms of social media, and one of the oldest. Blogging tools have expanded
exponentially in just the past few years, allowing the technology to shift from a disruptive
to sustaining technology, forever changing personal and business communication in the
digital space.

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Today social media appears to pervade every aspect of the digital space. Some
view social media as just another variation on a means of communicating, and not
fundamentally dissimilar from methods as old as human existence, where people
communicated and built communities by whatever technological means available
(Deragon, 2011). Others view social media as a truly disruptive technology that will
expand into every personal and business interactions in the digital space. Whatever the
view point, social media is now shaping how people interact and influence each other in
the digital space.
One of the earliest tools of social media is blogging, which basically started in the
early 1990s by people keeping (and sharing) an online diary. Justin Hall is believed to
have created he first blog, Link.net, while he was a Swarthmore College student in 1994.
It was not called a blog at the time, but it was referred to as personal homepage
(Reyhan 2005). Originally the term blog evolved from weblog that was coined by Jon
Barger, of the influential early blog Robot Wisdom, in 1997. Later in 1999 the term was
shortened to blog by programmer Peter Merholz, who used it as noun and a verb to
reflect the process of logging the web as he browsed. (The Economist, 2006)
The original blogs were updated manually, often linked from a central homepage.
Unless the writer was also a programmer, customizing the blogging platform was not an
option. During these early years, a few different blogging platforms arose. LiveJournal is
probably the most recognizable of the early sites. And then, in 1999, the platform that
would later become Blogger was started by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan at Pyra
Labs, bringing blogging to the mainstream. (Blogger)
In his post about the history of blogging, Mr. Cameron Chapman (2011) wrote:
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The early 2000s were a period of growth for blogs. In 1999, according to a list
compiled by Jesse James Garrett, there were 23 blogs on the Internet. By the
middle of 2006, there were 50 million blogs according to Technoratis State of the
Blogosphere report. To say that blogs experienced exponential growth is a bit of
an understatement.
By the mid-2000s, blogs were reaching the mainstream. According to Mr.
Chapman, a study was released in January 2005 showing that 32 million Americans read
blogs. At the time, it was more than ten percent of the entire population. By the end of
2010, the number of blogs continued its explosive growth with more than 152 million
active blogs. Virtually every mainstream news source now has at least one blog, as do
many corporations and individuals.(Chapman 2011)
Blogging today is an integral part of any social media program. That was not
always the case. Blogging was originally its own technology and had its own niche
market. Then, as social media started to shape its nature, it included blogging in its
description of interactive dialogue. Even the term blogging has gone through major
transformation in the recent years, based on the content, the media and the technology
used. For instance there are mblogs referring to blogging via mobile phones, and
photoblogs referring to a blog content of mostly photos. The most successful form of
blogging in the recent years has been micro-blogging on tools such as Twitter.
In his book, Innovators Dilemma, Mr. Christensen defines disruptive technology
as a technology that creates an enormous value for an underserved market (Christensen,
2000). Additionally, disruptive technologies tend to be cheaper, faster and easier to use
solutions. In considering social media impact in the recent years, it easily meets Mr.
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Christensens definition of disruptive technology that is changing how people and
businesses interact. It started by addressing the need of a niche market such as online
bloggers.
Moreover, Mr. Christensen discussed the qualities of a sustaining technology
which is one that focuses on incremental improvements to already established
technologies. With the continual changes in social media tools and platforms to date, it is
obvious that it is still a disruptive technology in the making. Blogging on the other hand,
while still a part of social media, is best considered an entity in its own right. Blogging
has been around for over 15 years and has grown tremendously in the number of users
and application. It is certainly valid to consider blogging as sustaining technology in the
making.
Recently, blogs seem to have hit the mainstream in the personal and business
space. However many corporationsespecially larger well established ones--still
struggle with ways to incorporate blogs into their social media and marketing strategies.
In the past, blogs were always associated with sharing personal experiences with the
online world, without having control over the response or the reaction. This is very
different from how corporations have always functioned, where no information was to be
shared publicly without the public relations or legal departments approval. Some
organizations have even been banned their employees from having their own personal
blogs, since they cannot control what their employees are writing or the reaction of the
readers.
Corporations original reaction toward blogging and social media in general was
different than that of other disruptive technologies such as the Blackberry, which was
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quickly embraced by both corporate and government entities before it hit main stream
consumers. This adaptation of one versus the other is somewhat surprising. At some level
both Blackberry and social media technologies perform similar functionality, which is to
keep the real-time lines of communication open between constituencies. The main
difference is that Blackberry technology offers control on when, what, and how the
information will be communicated. On the other hand social media requires a high degree
of transparency and openness in addition to lack of control over the messaging, that many
organizations were not ready (and are still not ready) to allow.
However there are often few pioneering adoptors in the world that seek new and
disruptive technologies to test and experience. Intel corporation was one of the first
adoptors that saw the value of blogs in building communities based on shared interest.
Intel created enterprise-wide team-based wiki collaboration, Intelpedia, containing over
35,000 articles from Intel employees defining, collaborating and documenting their part
of the vast Intel workplace (Rhodes, 2009). According to Mr. Rhodes:
Intelpedia was founded in the spirit of open information sharing and community
moderation of content, much like the very popular Wikipedia.
Intel saw the opportunities in connecting employees via blogs. It started in early
2003 with grassroots employee blogging internally. These internal employee blogs
gained a tremendous following. Then Intel CEO, Paul Otellini launched his employee
blog in 2004, receiving 350 comments within 12 hours (Solis, 2008). It was this
enthusiastic response that triggered Intels interest in social media, specifically blogging.
It is both brave and laudable for Intel to intentionally take the initiative of reaching out to
employees and customers, and place its technology and reputation into the public domain.
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Intel was not an emerging startup or struggling company in need of social approval and
word of mouth advertising. It was and still is publically traded, globally influential
powerhouse and organization. It could have easily ignored social media and relied on the
standard top-down messaging campaign of that time, like many other organization of its
caliber. Instead Intel grew its presence in the social media space to create Intel Social
Media Center of Excellence in 2009. The organization that started with 3 team members
has grown to 7 in order to expand its presence on other social media tools such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as running company blogs.
As Mr. Christensen alluded to, new technologies move through phases. Intels
social media embrace has also changed from adapting the disruptive technology to
sustaining it in order to grow it incrementally. After years of trial and error in maintaining
over 10 different blogs and expanding into other social media tools, Intel created its best
of breed Social Media Guidelines. It is one of the best known corporate policies around
the world. In the past few years, Intel has trained more than 1,000 social media
practitioners to help them succeed in their field (Elliot, 2010).
While many view social media as an important disruptive technology that is here
to stay, the length of time that Intel has been deploying the blogging tool of social media
has moved them beyond an organization that is embracing new technology to an
organization that has been practicing it for a long time, and creating their own guidelines.
These guidelines are being adapted worldwide as best practices, therefore showing an
example of successful sustaining technology. The creation of social media guidelines has
set Intel apart from other organizations. Not only as best of breed, but it has allowed it to
grow and function successfully within its corporate policies, thereby becoming one of the
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top social media adapters in the world. The establishment of effective and sustainable
policies plays a major role in how organizations successfully function. Therefore once
social media governance policies are established, it is easy to execute it, test it and
change it.
Of all the social media tools, blogging appears to be the best way for
organizations to connect with their constituencies, tell its story, and build a community.
As one of the oldest technologies in the social media tool box, blogging has seem the
biggest change in process and formatting, allowing it to expand and adapt to different
users needs. Blogging could be considered the sustaining technology, within the
disruptive social media technology, ever expanding in its customer base.

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References
Chapman, Cameron (2011) A brief history of blog.
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/03/a-brief-history-of-blogging/
Blogger, from The story of Blogger. http://www.blogger.com/about
The Economist. 2006-04-20. "It's the links, stupid".
http://www.economist.com/node/6794172?story_id=6794172
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/20/MNGBKBEJO01.DTL
Harmanci, Reyhan (2005-02-20). "Time to get a life pioneer blogger Justin Hall bows
out at 31". San Francisco Chronicle.
by JAY DERAGON on 01/04/2011
http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=13021
There are various tools that people use to
The history of blogging
http://nymag.com/news/media/15971/
Christensen, Clayton (2003) The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that
Will Change the Way You Do Business. New York, NY. Harper
Elliot, Amy-Mae (2010, December 7) Mashable Social Media Success: 5 Lessons From
In-House Corporate Teams. Retrieved from:
http://mashable.com/2010/12/07/social-media-business-success/
Rhodes, Brian (2009, April 7) Intel@Technology. Intel's Social Media Story - just the
beginning.
Retrieved from:
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2009/04/we_introduced_intels_blog_prog.php
Solis, Brian (2008, June 26) Intel Insiders to Advise Intel on Social Media Strategies.
Retrieved from: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/06/intel-insiders-to-advise-intel-on

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