Gawker media has released the beta of their new redesign complete overhaul of the blog concept. It represents a significant shift. They posted about their rational on Lifehacker.

The internet, television and magazines are merging; and the optimal strategy will assemble the best from each medium.

Overall, I love the beta. I love its simplicity, which increases “consumability” of the information. It is easier to read the content you see right away, easy to get to the next piece, and easy to browse their full offering. In many ways, this feels like the right move, if an extreme one.

Major changes in the site

1. The post stream is now subordinate to a central, singular piece of content, which gets the focus. Navigation is very similar to an e-mail client or feed reader.

The vastly clarifies the UI. It is a rather extreme departure, however, and I think we will see a shift more toward the “middle of the road” in coming months. There are other ways of bringing this kind of focus without radically burying everything else.

2. The feature pieces will be built around a magazine-like “compelling” image or video

(for Gawker, read “compelling” as “T&A” :-/ …)

The goal is to bring appropriate focus to the most important content. They are realizing that “compelling” original content is king, (duh…) but at the same time, the reposted quotes and links from other sources drives a substantial amount of traffic. How can you have your cake and eat it too?

The answer, realizing a content strategy.

Each site needs a gigantic breakout every few months; a few more modest hits every week; but the daily news diet can be satisfied quite happily with short posts, blockquotes (linked to the original, of course) and republished material.

Realizing these tiers of content will help them become an even more efficient business and also enables them to design a UI which reflects which tier that piece of content belongs to.

3. Surfacing more content to allow one-time visitors (from aggregated stories) to see a breadth of the content.

Perhaps the strongest realization here. Whether coming in from google searches, or Facebook shares and likes, (and waaaay father down the referrer pole, Tweets), people need to be able to, at a glance, see what other relevant content is available and decide, in a moment, that this is something they are interested in, and on a whim, be able to subscribe to this content. I wonder if the headline stream on the side are too subtle for this task, but it is a move in the right direction.

4. Move from simple plain text to audio-visual.

In the days of ubiquitous broad-band. Video is driving more traffic on sites, making it worth the effort of compiling and posting. This used to be operationally inefficient. Too much effort per post without the return. That is changing in the new media landscape.

To The Band of Bloggers,

One of the most exciting aspects of creating and keeping Web sites that have a large, engaged user base is seeing an immediate impact from even small changes. Our traffic and profits can rise from a well-executed interface change, but they can also plummet from a misstep. This makes it incredibly important to consider all of our design modifications very carefully, taking into account research, convention, and intuition that comes from years of training.

This phenomenon extends into the business and social spheres as well. A bad product review from a high-profile site can cause stock prices to fall (a good one can cause them to soar), and it can be argued that vicious blogger paparazzi were responsible for the downfall of Britney, and other pop stars. Relentless photographing, cataloging and commentary on a star’s every move can lead to a destroyed life.

I am reminded of one of the most difficult to swallow (personally) sections of the New Testament.

James 3:8-10

“…no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

With the same tongue we curse…

As bloggers, we can be especially guilty of this. We are very quick to criticize, judge, and state our opinion on how the latest author or speaker is “off” doctrinally or in practice. We often sensationalize their error, creating the sense that they are extremely far from orthodoxy and perhaps even heretics. In fact, we wield the word heretic in a very cavalier fashion, discouraging and wounding the reputation of people who are not only made in the likeness of God, but are coworkers in the gospel, co-heirs to salvation and glory.

My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

When words are many…

Indeed, there is much godless preaching, possibly even heresy coming from some pulpits in the American church. There is unsound doctrine being written every day (and our “Christian” bookstores are full of it.) Some bloggers, perhaps desiring to protect the flock of God, call it out at every opportunity, but, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking…” (Prov 10:19a). Lacking the benefit of context, relationship, or perhaps understanding and discernment, harsh criticism is aimed in the wrong direction from time to time.

In an abundance of counselors…

When wielding pastoral authority (which is given by God and recognized by a council of other leaders, and is not assumed based on blog readership, and for which the one who wields it will answer to God), especially in the area of pronouncements of doctrinal positions and error, community and an abundance of counsel is critical. “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Prov. 11:14).

Major industry leading blogs are already moving to a team-blogging model. I believe this is the future of blogging. A team of individuals who together are able to produce a much higher quality product than the individual.

When deciding on theological positions, church leaders submit their ideas to counsel. Bloggers would be wise to do the same when they venture outside the realm of observation or commentary into the area of pronouncing error. Submitting one’s writing to this type of counsel will go a long way in avoiding cutting down a brother who is earnestly trying to do God’s work.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

-Galatians 5:13-15

I was sitting in room with about 20 college students and asked them how many of them read blogs. The general reaction was along the line of “isn’t that cute, the old guy thinks we still read blogs.” Sort of a bemused head shaking. They were well aware of blogs, they just don’t ever read them.

I know that if you expand this group out to about 100 college-aged-people, you get maybe 2 or 3 who are HUGE fans of two or three (or ten) blogs and are avid readers, but the rest don’t bother.

They spend all day on Facebook, almost literally.

Nobody IMs anymore. They text. (er… txt…)

They rarely use e-mail, except for work in which case it’s a necessary evil.

People still watch TV…

…and play a ton of video games.

So, blogs, which are my business, have become mainstream, and have captured the attention of big media, but are losing the attention of the emerging generation. What’s next?

One major thing that has held me back from going all Tumblr is their lack of comments.

Disqus has fixed that problem for me. I hope they stick around.