Bainbridge Conglomerates

One of my favorite blogging arguing and discussion fellows is Steve Bainbridge. When he stopped blogging, he said he was going to come back to focus on his law-related specialty. I’m glad to see that he’s now back to blogging, but his resolve to concentrate has given way to a conglomerate of blogs.

This site http://www.professorbainbridge.com/ serves as a portal to my three blogs, each of whose most recent posts can be accessed from the links;
StephenBainbridge.com: my journal, focusing on politics and culture

BusinessAssociationsBlog.com: my professional blog, focused on law and economics

ProfessorBainbridgeOnWine.com: my wine and food blog

I wrote to Steve that I didn’t get his logic. Today, he responded in his blog.

On the other hand, a friend in the blogosphere emailed this question: "I'm confused by the fragmentation. Why? What are the advantages?"…

I'm now free to do very technical legal analysis at the Business Associations Blog, without worrying that my generalist readers will get bored….

As Clay Shirky observes:
"It is obvious that both the networks and their advertisers are soon going to have to adapt to a fragmented media market where nothing regularly reaches 20 million people, and the only way to get mass will be niche plus niche plus niche."

The analogy to the blogosphere seems clear. There are a handful of stand-alone blogs that reach a mass audience. They dominate the blogosphere the way the broadcast networks still dominate TV. Competing with them looks to be a non-starter. Instead, for the rest of us, targeting "niche plus niche plus niche" allows us to build mass in the fragmented world of the blogosphere.

Or so I'm betting.

I’ve never been a fan of business conglomerates, the synergies usually being overblown and the impediments to effective coordination usually being too high. Bainbridge’s blog conglomerate may follow this generalization, or not, but most lost – even if the “bet” works -- is the cross-fertilization of ideas to the readers who appreciated his old blend. We need more informed generalists, educated to decipher the specialists.