Panorama

Marc Scheloske’s blog is one of the hottest around at the moment – at least that is what its initiator would have us believe. Since March 2007 Marc, a social scientist from Munich, has been operating his weblog Wissenswerkstatt.net. Originally the 33-year-old intended his site to promote short essays and commentaries about the way we deal with risky technologies. Within a few months however his idea has been transformed into an important forum for readers interested in scientific issues.

Wissenswerkstatt.net focuses on current research findings in all kinds of scientific fields ranging from medicine and psychology to government policy on higher education. Although his regular job is editor-in-chief at scienceblogs.de – a blog operated by the Burda publishing house (famous for its Bunte and Focus magazines), when it comes to Scheloske’s private site he has, according to him, about 300 to 500 readers logging into it on a daily basis. That was at least enough readers to gain him a temporary place in the top 100 German blog charts. (www.deutscheblogcharts.de).

Niches are taking over

In the meantime 11 per cent of German internet users operate their own blog as was reported by ACTA /Allensbacher Computer- und Technikanalyse (a German technological survey). This rather impressive statistic however conveys a somewhat distorted image for only seldom do the majority of bloggers voice their opinion on their own sites. According to ACTA only about 770,000 Germans blog on a reasonably regular basis. In France for example blogging is much more established. Although the number of German bloggers, as well as blog readers, is still on the rise, it is not quite as high as it used to be a few years ago.

“Niches seem to be taking over,” says Scheloske. Connoisseur sites for vintners or chefs have undergone an equally dynamic development as the scientific weblogs, says the owner of the Wissenswerkstatt blog. In comparison the A-Blogs, as they are called, have lost more and more of their links and the amount of attention they get. Scheloske is not alone in his opinions, even if there are just about as many opinions as there are bloggers when it comes to the question of the state of the German blogosphere.

The scene has changed

Some of the big, German blogs like Basic Thinking (whose operator, Robert Basic, mainly blogs on IT issues), Spreeblick (from pop to politics) and Nerdcore (a blog based in the southern part of the state of Hesse that claims it deals with “very cool stuff and the like“) have made a name for themselves and appeal directly to their fan groups. One blog - Elektrischer Reporter - is about to become the first blog to make it to television; its inventor, Mario Sixtus, lures users with the help of interesting films such as an introduction to the fine art of internet science. Starting at the end of November Elektrischer Reporter is to be shown on the information channel of ZDF – one of Germany’s public TV stations. Quite a few of the other blogs in existence however plod along at a much slower pace. Many of the bloggers who have been around since day one seem to have lost their pizzazz. The triumphant advance of social networking, some experts believe, has also accelerated changes in the blogosphere.

“Communities like Facebook or StudiVZ in the meantime have drawn a number of users away from the classic blogs,” says Jan Schmidt, a research consultant on digital interactive media at the Hans Bredow Institute in Hamburg. Schmidt has been doing research on blogging for years. He says, “Weblogs in the form of personal journals, like online diaries, lose out. Blogs on specific issues in the public eye like IT, music or films are the winners.”

Political issues take a back seat

Weblogs on political issues, as have always been popular in America and are not just an offspring of the current presidential elections, are few and far between in Germany. A few weblogs that define themselves as being operated by “members of a network of liberal publicists”, for example, the Achse des Guten (www.achgut.com) or NachDenkSeiten (www.nachdenkseiten.de) attempt to discuss socio-political issues. In the case of achgut.com well-known publicists like Henryk M. Broder or Michael Miersch air their views. Of course a great number of other blogs touch again and again on politics, but none of them have so far managed to cause a stir beyond the blogger scene. Nothing new is much expected for 2009, either – the year of the German general election. “I don’t think the election is going to bring about any sea-changes,” says blog-researcher, Schmidt. The political parties will probably go less for weblogs and more for video appearances on the internet – in line with the American role model.

Vying with the classic media

Instead of party politics one of the main callings of many bloggers is pitting their strength against the classic media. Over the years Stefan Niggemeier and Christoph Schultheis have managed to set up and promote one of Germany’s most successful blogs - BILDblog. Day in, day out, they examine the false reports that are to be found in the German tabloid, Bild – so far they do not seem to have run out of work.

Just like Niggemeier (alongside his BILDblog. he also runs his own private blog - stefan-niggemeier.de) journalist Rainer Meyer, under the pseudonym Don Alphonso, has made an outstanding name for himself in the blogosphere. Based in Ingolstadt, he in fact operates two blogs, Blogbar and Rebellen ohne Markt. Whereas the Blogbar has been bogged down for years in the inner battles of the blogger scene, it is Meyer’s second blog at rebellmarkt.blogger.de that has become an absolute gem – so irreverent, so blunt and so subjective that it is a sheer joy to read. Whenever Meyer speaks of the German blogosphere, he gets all poetic, “For me blogs are like a fall of snow that covers all the fields of human endeavour on a winter’s evening, leaving a grandiose landscape in its wake. The blogosphere tells me things the media does not want to know about and things that I would otherwise never have found out about.”