IAOCBlog started a special issue this week, covering the different situations and enviroments of Bloggers around Europe. Guillaume was so kind to invite me, to contribute my ideas about the situation in Germany.
The first topic of the discussion is about blogs and journalism, how European media are embracing blogs, and who, if anyone is making money blogging, are there any competition between bloggers and journalist, etc…
In the last couple of weeks i found my self frequent involved in discussions about the question why blogging is not that popular in Germany. It was even discussed on „Les Blogs“ in Paris. It seems, blogging is some how not that attractive in my country as in all countries next door, in the US or in Asia.
This again influenced the way that blogging was perceived by journalists. The majority of traditional media talked about bloggers as nerds, geeks that are socially unprivileged. The chief editor of Spiegel Online Matthias Müller von Blumencron once said in an interview „99% of all blogs are rubbish or at least without any relevance to a journalist“.
Since a couple of weeks the focus starts to change slightly, especially due to the fact, that we had a lot of cases in which traditional media was corrected by bloggers. It is still not a big think in Germany, but the awareness is getting higher and the credibility better and better. Magazines and Newspapers like Handelsblatt, Focus and Bunte have started own blogs (but no public bloghosting so far) and Die Zeit offers a Blog Award for the second time this year.
Still not sure, if the negative standing that traditional media showed about blogs influenced the public, or if the public feeling about this form of media was reflected in the press.
Anyway, things are getting better, we are close to having about 100.000 active blogs in the next weeks. It is more than obvoius, that the election this summer will offer big opportunities for blogging in Germany too.
With about 200.000 unique visitors per month, even the A-list bloggers in germany are far from making any money out of it, even some projects have been started lately.
