Saturday, March 29, 2003

The business of warblogging


I looked at a link to Venture Blog from Ross Mayfield. And what suddenly struck me was seeing USS Clueless in the blogroll.


One of the things that makes weblogs so fascinating is that each person has multiple interests. There's plenty of serendipity in reading a blogger because he shares your interest in software, and discovering he also has a passion for hand-made pasta or antiquarian books. You end up learning something about these too.


But the warblogging network is very strong; and attracts a lot of attention. When the war is over, warbloggers will a have a lot of network capital sitting around idly. Meanwhile, when the recession is over, VCs will have a lot of cash looking for investment. The combination of the two may be a significant force.


Of course, the right wing is naturally allied with business through shared values and opinions; and the left is defined by it's opposition to capitalism. But in the past we've seen capitalist entrepreneurship by ex-hippies, liberals, social revolutionaries and new age networks.
This has certainly had an effect on the values and attitudes in places like silicon valley. And what we think of as entrepreneurship.

But possibly, if the conservative / right-wing / warblog network holds up, we're likely to see more neo-conservative hawks, who have contacts with VCs, getting funded in the next wave.


How will this affect the culture? What about Richard Florida's notion of a Creative Class who value diversity and some more traditionally liberal issues like the arts? Or am I being prejudiced? Perhaps neo-con hawks can also be libertarians who would encourage such freedom in their companies?





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