Is Howard Dean the Rod Stewart of weblogs?
Not early good Rod Stewart, either, but embarrassing “Hot Legs” era Rod Stewart.
Let me explain. Early in its lifetime, MTV didn’t have many videos to play (unlike now, when it has plenty but doesn’t play many of them). So the fledgling network put the clips it did have into heavy rotation, including one that featured Rod the Mod in aubergine-colored overalls that must have cost a sizable percentage of the video’s $73 production budget.
It wasn’t very good, but people watched it. The cool new medium attracted viewers, even when the content sucked.
I’m not saying Dean doesn’t provide good and useful weblog content, because he does, regardless of your views on the substance of what he’s saying.
The point is that whatever his weblogging virtues may be, Dean is getting extra love from webloggers because nobody else is loving us back. Oh, they say they care, but it we just feel used.
Dean is in heavy rotation because he’s got product out there in an underpopulated marketplace. His weblog might still thrill us in the face of competition, just as Peter Gabriel’s video for “Sledgehammer” is still pretty cool after all these years. But until his rivals figure out the medium, he’s got the charts pretty much to himself.
Maybe the other campaigns feel they’ve got everything under control without this newfangled weblog stuff. My guess is they’re wrong. There’s too much energy and money out there, too many ideas waiting to percolate through a weblog relationship, to forfeit it all to Dean.
[EdCone.com]
