Second Coming of AOL So now we know that the September that Never Ended is coming to the blogosphere. AOL Journals enters Beta this summer and launches in the Fall. I blogged before on the business opportunity this presents for AOL.
Thursday, AOL invited Meg Hourihan, Nick Denton, Anil Dash, Jeff Jarvis, and Clay Shirky to critique its upcoming weblog product, AOL Journals.
Jeff: AOL blogs!
Clay: AOL, Weblogs, and Community.
Clay frames the big questions for AOL. Will AOL Journals be a set of blogging tools or a community platform? Walled garden or open?
AOL Journals will let users blog from IM, a leverage on par with Google's Toolbar push-button publishing and a further reduction in the transaction cost-to-post. IM is more than messaging however, its a base of strong social clusters. When you think of what AOL has to leverage, its more than 40 million users, its existing groups -- which if measured by Reed's Law is of greater value. When buddy lists become blogrolls adoption will be driven by existing strong ties.
They are smart enough to speak RSS, our language and foundation for openness. Jeff also makes a strong case for opening up AOL/T-W content assets. But the backend is where new forms fourish. Blogspace is more than individuals contributing content, we contribute code (and for the most part, get along doing so)
Jeff frames the big question for us. Will blogspace be inclusive or attempt to redicule and reject new entrants? We have a history of doing so. Heck, Jeff did with AO. LiveJournal is its own world because blogspace didn't build bridges and derides it as kiddy blogging. If we do not embrace new entrants, the culture that makes blogging work will die.
The very fact that AOL held an A-list focus group is strong sign that they are listening. Openness on the front-end and back-end, coupled with access to AOL assets, will provide AOL access to a wider market of opportunities.
2:04:20 PM 
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