I’ve always felt more than a little uncomfortable with the pundit from above style of usability guru, Jakob Neilsen. His AlertBox missives often contain nuggets of gold, but feel a little bit to me like he’s preaching or declaring a very black and white view of the world. His most recent AlertBox is no different.
In his latest, Neilsen declares:
I recently served as a “consultant’s consultant,” advising a world leader in his field on what to do about his website. In particular, this expert asked me whether he should start a weblog. I said no.
You probably already know my own Internet strategy, so it might not surprise you that I recommended that he should instead invest his time in writing thorough articles that he published on a regular schedule. Given limited time, this means not spending the effort to post numerous short comments on ongoing blogosphere discussions.
I absolutely agree that hundreds of small nonsense posts are just going to add noise (that’s why we have Twitter, right?) and that writing cornerstone posts on your blog is good for traffic and profile but Jakob, I’m calling you out on this one. Blogging is rarely about being the best. It’s about sharing and collaborating with your audience, which for a blog like mine and most of the ones I read, is made up of my peers and a few folk I eagerly look up to for their expertise.
Going on, much of the article discusses how you should be trying to be the rightmost end of the bell curve - smarter, wiser and way above your audience. He’s managed to prove to me that he simply doesn’t get blogging and its collaborative, discursive nature. And again, proves he’s an out of touch elitist.
In the day since reading Neilsen’s article, I’ve been stewing about how to respond. I’ve been angry, disappointed and bemused all at once. Now, the blogosphere (there must be a better word), naturally as it’s about collaborative discourse, comes to the rescue. Fellow blogger and professional peer, Christopher Fahey over at graphpaper has the definitive response. You should definitely read it. Christopher makes a strong argument against Neilsen’s elitist view and puts him back in the box he belongs in.
Don’t sweat it. Neilsen has some interesting and valuable ideas about web usability, but he isn’t a WEB guru. Case in point, there is no way to even comment on his fancy article to let him know why you think he’s wrong. And that is the difference between a blog and an article. The interaction.
Also, as a cynic I must point out that he just happens to be advocating EXACTLY WHAT HE DOES, which is not blogging but posting regular articles. Articles that often hawk his expensive “reports”. Coincidence?
Brian, agreed. Neilsen knows usability (but is too preachy even here for my tastes). His recent attempts at web punditry - this article and his comments on the lack of value in Web 2.0 apps generally pretty much prove your point that he’s a long way from knowing the Web.
As for the cynicism… Really!? I’d not noticed ;)
I came to basically the same exact conclusion as you. I think it’s safe to say we are all under the same opinion that Mr. Nielsen does not fully get what blogging is about.