My three college roommates and I had our own little reunion this week. One owns her own manufacturing company; another is a VP/Director of Investments at an insurance company and the third is a globe-trotting VP for a Fortune 10 (that's 10, not 100).
Suffice to say, these are intelligent, successful businesspeople.
Somewhere in between talk of husbands, kids, and jobs, the topic of blogs came up: two of my friends weren't sure what a blog was and the third only learned recently.
!!!!!
Also this week, I found this article. It says popular talk show host Ellen Degeneres announced on her show yesterday that she's starting a blog. As part of the announcement, she felt the need to tell the audience that she herself had only just learned what a blog actually is. Which is really interesting considering a blog article she wrote appeared on HuffingtonPost.com a year ago.
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Whether one of Ellen Degeneres' staffers wrote last-year's Huffington article or the talk show host worried her audience members might be intimidated by blog talk so she dumbed herself down, it still says a lot about how few people know anything about blogs.
And yet, the media are constantly reporting how widespread blog use is. This breathless announcement from iMedia is a good example:
Record numbers of people are now visiting blogs, proving that blog visitation is now part of mainstream online behavior for many internet users.
Obviously, I believe in the power of the blogosphere. But I've always suspected that marketers and advertisers exaggerate the growth and proliferation of blogs in American culture. And this week, four successful women convinced me I'm right.