Salon blogs: now what?

Rayne Today

It seems like eons ago in internet time that I began blogging at Salon; in 2002, most people had no idea what blogs were, had never heard of them. I started reading a handful of these new blog things after I became unemployed that June. Blogs looked like fun, something constructive to do to fill void the job left in its wake. It was a place discuss ideas and concepts with other like-minded folks. It wasn't easy to find people in my town here in fly-over country who'd relish late night rants about the nature of human consciousness, or the impact of postmodernism. I hadn't yet heard of Howard Dean at the time I started blogging, either, or MoveOn...

Hardly a neophyte, I'd been an active member of the digital world for years. I was a host way back in the mid-90's when AOL had moderated topical chats. I used to stay up until the wee hours posting on TableTalk at a little funky online magazine called Salon. There were BBS and forums and listservs, but none of them seemed to be as intimate or immediate as either the chats or TableTalk, at least not in 1996. There wasn't a soul in my circle of acquaintances and family offline that knew about these things or ever indulged in them; it was a pretty insular experience in this respect.

In 2002, Salon tried something new, offering a free trial blog; the adventurous soul could try it out, leave without any repercussions if they didn't like it, or buy the license and hosting if they did. I'd been reading Julie Powell's Julie/Julia Project; her blog was doing for her what I expected one to do for me. What the hell, I'd give it a shot. I had plenty of time on my hands to play with blogging.

The Salon blogs became a community; I could see other folks trying it out, discuss the experience with them. Fellow foodie Paul Hinrichs was playing with his food, literally; The Raven and Rob Salkowitz were dissecting our culture while Mark Hoback took a humorous whack at it. Christian and filchyboy explored the point of contact between the digital and human. The Reverse Cowgirl was, well, herself. We could see our culture mirrored and reinterpreted in foreign bloggers' works. One guy just wanted to save the world. We all of us had Salon in common, all of us loved the magazine and often talked about its content, its writers, its financial status. We had so much to talk and blog about together, a diverse and rich community.

In the strictest sense, we were a salon.

Damn, those early days were heady stuff. It was a dynamic and toothsome place to be, something tasty served up in each blog.

There were those that flopped immediately out of the box; they didn't make the trial period, rarely invested in the license. We were unmerciful, to be honest; we ate our young. (Good God, like the one that looked like fratboys had vomited on a keyboard...) We had no qualms about telling them that their material was offensive and disgusting. Those that had moxie stuck around anyhow; sometimes it was just that they had a firm business model and weren't going to be deterred by us. And others we encouraged; they had promise, if they were raw around the edges. They encouraged me, too, tolerated my blabber and made me think more deeply about what I was trying to do.

But nothing lasts forever. We should have seen the handwriting on the wall last year after Salon revamped its site. There was no reference to its blogs under Community on the main page -- and nothing in the way of commentary to explain this.

There had been issues with the software for many users, too. Salon's offering was based on Userland's Radio software; it is a powerful client-based package, including an aggregator and content management capabilities, but it was far more than the average newbie blogger could handle. It was quirky, too. Updating and upgrading and renewals could be messy; hosting and comments were flakey at times. For folks who weren't HTML friendly, customizing could be a nightmare, although the package could create some beautiful and highly useful site. Thankfully, Userland's demigod of software, Lawrence Lee, could bail out most of us when we ran into problems.

Many folks bailed out after their first year; they found places to blog that were free or easier, or they'd simply achieved their personal goals. They still visited the Salon bloggers from time to time, retaining that sense of community we'd developed.

But over the last year, even more folks left Salon. Some of us just plain outgrew our digs -- like Real Live Preacher. Some of us just couldn't deal with the hassle and needed less of it in order to concentrate on creativity.

And some of us have been on the fence, unwilling to leave the community we've loved so much, yet unwilling to be a bastard child neglected and stuck off in the corner.

Salon's announcement via Scott Rosenberg's blog post regarding the discontinuation of the current Salon blog model might push most of us over the edge. The manner in which the announcement was made was rather ineffectual; most Salon bloggers remain unaware of the change since they aren't regular readers of Scott's blog, and others don't read Salon regularly. There may be a new offering, but there's no meat in Scott's post in which we can sink our teeth. What are we to do now, simply sit and wait?

We'll have our blogs; we've paid for them. We'll continue to have hosting, Scott says. But it wasn't about the license or the hosting. I can't think of anyone in the Salon blog community who'd say it was.

Blogging should be about the content and not the tools; it should be about community and not location. At least that's what I think, both as a blogger and as a reader.

My Radio blog sits in hiatus right now. My desktop crashed last month; I ported my Radio blog over to my laptop but I haven't been able to get the damned thing to update my blog on line. I've been so frustrated with it that I simply started a new parallel blog over in Blogger.

And that's in a nutshell what happened to so many of the Salon bloggers that left the community. It's happening to me, one of the oldest (uh, longest-blogging?) members of their community. Scott's announcement hasn't made me feel any better about this. Nor does the vacuum-like emptiness of blogging in the vast expanse of Blogger's Blogspot, where the enormity of the field makes one feel isolated and alone.

So...do I sit on the fence for a while longer, try to resuscitate the Salon blog, or do I move on? Do I wait to see what Salon will come up with next with the hopes that it becomes a keeper like TableTalk, or no? What to do, what to do...should I stay or should I go

(Watch for Part II)