Interview by Adriana de Barros and Nuno Martins

• Jump to: Jordan Nielsen Weinman Mullenweg Finck Purgason Sodaplay WWFT

Eric Jordan:
I can tell you that we have learned a lot from blog standardization, especially from some of the very sharp individuals out there who devote their time to seeking out intelligent solutions to common Web Design problems. We have had several times where we have been utterly frustrated with an issue with a browser, then someone will go search a few blogs via Technorati and low and behold, there is a blogger with a slick answer to the problem. I think Blogs are an incredible source of useful information, because they are an unrestricted platform for people to share their ideas and solutions to problems, which is what we need more of in this world.

Jakob Nielsen:
Blogs are proof that usability matters. Weblogs are nothing but personal websites where you post essays as you feel like it, and we've had those since the beginning of the Web. In fact, the very first websites in 1991 were for academics to post their writings. By the mid 1990s, GeoCities had a million users who posted their personal writings. The only thing that's different about blogs is that it's much easier to post your writings on a weblog than on GeoCities—and because it's easier, a hundred times more people do so.

However, it's definitely not true that "everyone" has a blog. There are more than a billion Internet users and only about 10% of them have a weblog. Most of these blogs are updated very rarely, leaving only 1% of users to write frequent postings. This should be no surprise, because it's always true that the vast majority of users are lurkers who do not participate actively. Data from Usenet in the 1980s, from AOL and CompuServe boards in the 1990s, from Wikipedia in the current decade, and from 30 years' of Internet mailing lists all show that 90% of users lurk and that the most active 1% of users account for the vast majority of postings.

It's important to recognize that human behaviour stays fairly constant, even as the technology changes. This is why usability is such a great career: what you learn now will still be useful in analyzing whatever technology turns out to be popular in twenty years.
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Lynda Weinman:
I love blogs. It’s so great to get the news from individuals rather than single point conglomerates.

Matt Mullenweg:
I think blogging is just the next step in the evolution of personal publishing online. They've put real web publishing a click away for most people, and despite common blog software limitations the medium has flourished because it keeps things simple.

Nick Finck:
I think too many bloggers are using templates. That's what makes cookie cutter design synonymous with blogging. Go take a look at Bryan Veloso's blog, does that even look like a blog to you? No. Go explore Veerle Pieters's site, does that look cookie cutter to you? No. Check out CSS Zen Garden and see how many takes can be made on a single static HTML page given a little CSS.

Todd Purgason:
I don’t have one, it is pretty funny the rate at which blogs are created and then inversely the rate at which they are abandoned. But hey I think they are great I think the simi-standard structure is helpful to all. It is a great simple way to communicate. I think blogs that post good visuals and media along with just text are better for us all. Link code is an amazing thing use it or loose it baby. Just remember these are people your reading and there are all kinds of people in the world you can not believe what you read unless it can be proved by other sources.

Sodaplay:
Blogs are but one of many interesting and effective emerging symptoms of the changes pervasive in most media to interconnect and intermingle the roles of providers and consumers of creativity.
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WeWorkForThem:
Blogs are wonderful. It is an easy way to provide content that people can use. I think that is what the internet should be like. Websites and voices are for everyone. Not everyone can have a wonderful looking and functional site, but if the content is good, people will use it. Look at Google, I find it to be very ugly, but it works.