How Do We Make Blogs More User-Friendly?

Have you read the Catalyst Group study about blog usability call Net Rage? If not, you should. Those of us who spend inordinate amounts of time using these things, evangelizing, and otherwise doting over them seem to forget (at least I do) that most people still don't have a clue as to what a blog is or how they should react to it. In fact, most people probably could care less. They just want information.

WebProWorld David Coursey has series on the future of blogging, Allbusiness.com with my Coursey's columns where he intones that blogs (along with RSS and podcasts) will become so melded into the warf and woof of the internet these odd sounding names won't really be of consequence. Though the names lose their ubiquity, the technology won't. Blogs become just another form of content publishing, albeit one with a certain "style" and set of unique features. RSS becomes simply a way to subscribe to content and organize the web. Podcasts become a way to transmit audio/video. Speaking from a purely technological standpoint, that's what they already do. It's just that we've become our own worst enemies by putting so much emphasis on the nomenclature, we've ostracized ourselves from the average internet user. (Maybe we ARE a cult!) Coursey intimates that the term RSS will be replaced with the word "subscribe." Blog "posts" will be called "articles" and so on. It is the technology that's important, and how well it serves mankind, not what you call it. This goes back to my assertion that we early adopters get very giddy about new tech toys, and things like blogs, RSS, podcasts and wikis certainly fire our jets. But to the "common man" the real issue is not what you call these tools, but how well they serve to scratch their itch in providing needed information. Thanks to the likes of Yahoo! and MSN, the technology is becoming accessible and recognizable. So, maybe I'm fretting over nothing. It takes time for transition to occur. But, that transition won't be so much in the direction of people adapting themselves to the technology as the technology adapting itself to people. (Does that make sense?) One of the best examples of this is what I see happening with the new blog "channels." Take for example Allbusiness.com. They have a well-established, highly-trafficked website that provides great value to readers, and has for years without the presence of blogs. Now, they've incorporated a

The whole RSS/XML thing is way too confusing, and it will need to be replaced by some other nomenclature if it is to become ubiquitous.

I am expecting blogs (and Podcasts, for that matter) to be all the rage until some moment when, almost as though a switch had been flipped, they don't seem so exciting anymore.