Moore’s Law of the Netroots, or Why We’re Underestimated
(This has been posted to DailyKos as well)
Lately, there’s been a good deal of talk about how those of us in the NetRoots or Lefty Blogosphere or Progressive Blogosphere are filled with a false sense of self importance. The snide dismissals go something like this: “Look at their record. They failed with their candidates in 2004. They failed with Paul Hackett. Tester is the exception that proves the rule. Lamont…well, he’s a fluke and Joementum Lieberman will crush him” The Hartford Courant quotes Liberman:
"I'm heartened by that record," Lieberman said Friday, smiling.
He was referring the defeats of the DailyKos supported candidates in 2004 and Paul Hackett in 2005. The foes of the Blogosphere and online activism hold up these failures (and let’s admit it, we’ve lost many battles) and sigh with relief. Their entrenched positions at the top of the political hierarchy will be unassailable. We don’t matter. We can be ignored. The status quo is safe.
And that might be true if the progressive blogosphere was like some other old-school advocacy group. But it isn’t. There are numerous differences between us and other liberal/progressive organizations, but the most important one is this: We are growing. Now of course many groups can be said to be growing. But the progressive blogosphere is growing exponentially, and with an incredibly short doubling time.
I’m sure someone can point me to data specific to the Progressive Blogosphere and to sites like DailyKos, but to get a feel for what’s going on here take a look at this graph from Sifry’s Alerts that tracks what the blogosphere as a whole is doing (click the link for a larger version):
Now if this graph is true (I sure hope it is because a lot of people link to it and it’s at the top of a Google search on “blogosphere growth”), we are witnessing an exponential growth phenomenon. With a six month doubling time. That beats the crap out of Moore’s Law regarding semi-conductors, which had a doubling time of 18-24 months. Now of course there are a zillion caveats: just because the number of blogs is doubling, does that mean blog reading is doubling? Does that mean political clout is doubling? Maybe those are all phony spam blogs. But from what I’ve read about the growth of sites like DailyKos, this does not seem and empty bubble, but actual growth.
And it could be that right-wing online activism is growing at the same rate, canceling out our activity. But from what I’ve heard the progressive blogosphere has surpassed its right-wing counterpart, despite the latter’s early dominance. (I would love to look at some peer-reviewed studies with rigorous methodology on this subject, as each side has an enormous incentive to exaggerate its own size and influence.) So even though the right-wing blogosphere is growing exponentially as well, it seems that the overall balance tilts well towards the progressive side.
Another possible caveat is that online activism is taking away from older forms of activism, and so there’s no net gain. I don’t have any data on this, but I know that before the advent of the progressive blogosphere, I personally did little more than vote and kvetch. Of course I still do those things, but now I blog, donate, sign petitions, call representatives, etc. Not a whole lot of stuff maybe, but a lot more than I did before I “got connected.”
So assuming that this exponential growth is real, what does this mean for all those who point to the failures of 2004 and 2005 and say that we prog-bloggers are overrated? It means that what happened in 2004, and 2005 is largely irrelevant, because we are potentially 4 times the size we were just 1 year ago. Holding up our failures in 2004 (4 “doubling times” ago) is like comparing today’s fastest computers to those of six years ago. People’s brains are not designed to take this kind of explosive growth into account. If something was not a political threat two years ago or last year, they can’t possibly imagine it will be a threat this year. Their model of the political scene is largely static.
Now if they were dealing with a traditional advocacy group based on something like race, gender, or union affiliation, this might be a reasonable heuristic. The number of teachers or Asian-Americans doesn’t double every six months, so we wouldn’t expect the amount of political clout wielded by teacher’s unions or Asian Americans to shift enormously from year to year. Of course their clout will change, depending on their leadership, organizational abilities, the political climate, etc. But it’s not likely to change exponentially (unless they find themselves concentrated in a critical swing state or early primary state).
Now of course the blogosphere can’t continue doubling in size every six months forever. At some point it will catch up to the overall size of the online population, and start to level out. But its potential size is enormous. Broadband penetration is growing quickly, even though the US lags behind other countries. I still think there are a lot of people to bring in and connect.
So don’t let the snide derision of the old guard demoralize you. The influence of the blogosphere is ramping up enormously. Only when the growth curves begin to flatten out will it make sense to judge our power this year by what we did last year. That doesn’t look like it’s happening yet.
As a certain Minnesota-born folk singer once sang, “The times they are a-changin’.” And not a moment too soon.
Lately, there’s been a good deal of talk about how those of us in the NetRoots or Lefty Blogosphere or Progressive Blogosphere are filled with a false sense of self importance. The snide dismissals go something like this: “Look at their record. They failed with their candidates in 2004. They failed with Paul Hackett. Tester is the exception that proves the rule. Lamont…well, he’s a fluke and Joementum Lieberman will crush him” The Hartford Courant quotes Liberman:
"I'm heartened by that record," Lieberman said Friday, smiling.
He was referring the defeats of the DailyKos supported candidates in 2004 and Paul Hackett in 2005. The foes of the Blogosphere and online activism hold up these failures (and let’s admit it, we’ve lost many battles) and sigh with relief. Their entrenched positions at the top of the political hierarchy will be unassailable. We don’t matter. We can be ignored. The status quo is safe.
And that might be true if the progressive blogosphere was like some other old-school advocacy group. But it isn’t. There are numerous differences between us and other liberal/progressive organizations, but the most important one is this: We are growing. Now of course many groups can be said to be growing. But the progressive blogosphere is growing exponentially, and with an incredibly short doubling time.
I’m sure someone can point me to data specific to the Progressive Blogosphere and to sites like DailyKos, but to get a feel for what’s going on here take a look at this graph from Sifry’s Alerts that tracks what the blogosphere as a whole is doing (click the link for a larger version):
Now if this graph is true (I sure hope it is because a lot of people link to it and it’s at the top of a Google search on “blogosphere growth”), we are witnessing an exponential growth phenomenon. With a six month doubling time. That beats the crap out of Moore’s Law regarding semi-conductors, which had a doubling time of 18-24 months. Now of course there are a zillion caveats: just because the number of blogs is doubling, does that mean blog reading is doubling? Does that mean political clout is doubling? Maybe those are all phony spam blogs. But from what I’ve read about the growth of sites like DailyKos, this does not seem and empty bubble, but actual growth.
And it could be that right-wing online activism is growing at the same rate, canceling out our activity. But from what I’ve heard the progressive blogosphere has surpassed its right-wing counterpart, despite the latter’s early dominance. (I would love to look at some peer-reviewed studies with rigorous methodology on this subject, as each side has an enormous incentive to exaggerate its own size and influence.) So even though the right-wing blogosphere is growing exponentially as well, it seems that the overall balance tilts well towards the progressive side.
Another possible caveat is that online activism is taking away from older forms of activism, and so there’s no net gain. I don’t have any data on this, but I know that before the advent of the progressive blogosphere, I personally did little more than vote and kvetch. Of course I still do those things, but now I blog, donate, sign petitions, call representatives, etc. Not a whole lot of stuff maybe, but a lot more than I did before I “got connected.”
So assuming that this exponential growth is real, what does this mean for all those who point to the failures of 2004 and 2005 and say that we prog-bloggers are overrated? It means that what happened in 2004, and 2005 is largely irrelevant, because we are potentially 4 times the size we were just 1 year ago. Holding up our failures in 2004 (4 “doubling times” ago) is like comparing today’s fastest computers to those of six years ago. People’s brains are not designed to take this kind of explosive growth into account. If something was not a political threat two years ago or last year, they can’t possibly imagine it will be a threat this year. Their model of the political scene is largely static.
Now if they were dealing with a traditional advocacy group based on something like race, gender, or union affiliation, this might be a reasonable heuristic. The number of teachers or Asian-Americans doesn’t double every six months, so we wouldn’t expect the amount of political clout wielded by teacher’s unions or Asian Americans to shift enormously from year to year. Of course their clout will change, depending on their leadership, organizational abilities, the political climate, etc. But it’s not likely to change exponentially (unless they find themselves concentrated in a critical swing state or early primary state).
Now of course the blogosphere can’t continue doubling in size every six months forever. At some point it will catch up to the overall size of the online population, and start to level out. But its potential size is enormous. Broadband penetration is growing quickly, even though the US lags behind other countries. I still think there are a lot of people to bring in and connect.
So don’t let the snide derision of the old guard demoralize you. The influence of the blogosphere is ramping up enormously. Only when the growth curves begin to flatten out will it make sense to judge our power this year by what we did last year. That doesn’t look like it’s happening yet.
As a certain Minnesota-born folk singer once sang, “The times they are a-changin’.” And not a moment too soon.
Comments