When I write about blogging or blog networks on this site, it puts around 700 uniques onto the day’s stats. It also draws some interesting people into the comments section. Why should I not do it?

Despite those facts, there’s a lot of rumbling around the flogosphere [the commercial blogsphere] about the saturation of blogging as a topic. [Here and here] My own belief is that metablogging peaked as a useful activity around a year ago and continues largely as an echo chamber effect within the space. So what’s going on here?

Do you really want to read more about bloggers who blog about blogs now? Is another article about making money online going to contribute to your income? Is a further attack on b5media by the 9rules leadership, going to contribute to the stock of human kindness?

I don’t need to answer those questions. The fact is, subjects get stale with use and time. What was fresh and bubbly in 2005 is flat and fetid in 2007.

The real question is what can you write about that will hit the spot now?

The answer is : … given at the end of the post.

The usual way of framing this query is by asking, “What’s the next big thing?”

The NBT is supposed to be “social media”, something that promotes democracy to the point of anarchy and generates a lot of traffic of the type that just wants to be part of the crowd. What do you get when you invite scores of sheep to a party? A lot of baaaing noises.

So let’s leave social media to the teenyboppers and wearers of white socks. Ken Marlin, a technology investment banker in New York says : “The world is filled with companies that waited too long to sell and missed their window of opportunity. We think this land grab on the Internet probably will only last another year or two.”

There’s an old adage in marketing that when all the people who would buy your product have bought it, the only thing to do is to expand the usage of it. I once created the British campaign for Telex, which was then in every office in the land. My slogan was, “Please confirm by Telex”, and it was designed to educate people in new uses for that wretched old piece of kit.

My teenage niece once told me that she wore Lancome perfume in bed “just for herself”. I recognized instantly the work of a crafty copywriter trying to get people to make more use of a saturated product.

Does it work? For a while, yes, until the even craftier consumer catches on that they’re being manipulated. Eventually you have to admit defeat, or, more likely, you’re superceded by something new and shiny.

Let’s be clear, what we’re talking about here are ways of getting eyeballs to content to drive CPM and CPC advertising. That requires :

* Constant refreshment of the material.
* Knowing what’s going on.
* Writing for a much wider readership than your peer group.
* Improving the content platform to encourage people to stay.
* Targeting usability as a prime reason for writing.
* Keeping the commercial side below readers’ threshold of tolerance.

There are probably many more bullet points for that list, but you get the message.

The other reason is to develop credibility as an author on a topic. Again, a well covered subject.

When I started out writing for the print world, there were hundreds of books, magazines, groups, circles etc. specializing in advising the novice how to succeed — it wasn’t called metawriting in those days. The fact that very few of the advisers had ever succeeded themselves very much, told you all you needed to know about the trade. Blogging about blogging has reached that point now and needs to reconsider its gameplan.

So what’s the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this post?

It’s a fallacy that there’s only one right way forward because there’s only one way back. At any moment going forward there are multitudes of choices available to you. However, the vast majority of them will be beyond you for one reason or another. Some will be dead ends. A few will have promise but are impractical. Around a dozen will be crying out for development.

The danger is you’ll be overwhelmed by the huge number of possiblities and turn back to the comfort zone of the crowd. Your face will set into a rictus and you’ll hear a familiar baaaaing sound bleating out of it. You’ll feel safe.

One thing’s certain though : being a pathfinder and failing is better than following the rest. For the pathfinder who fails gains precious knowledge of fields not previously ploughed. New stacks of possibilities will open up, a step-change in advance of those set before the crowd.

Always push the envelope. Test the future before it tests you.