I wrote these slides at one of the very first academic conferences on blogging, 2003’s Blogtalk in Wien. George W. Bush was running for reelection, 9/11 was 18 months ago, and Google had just purchased Blogger. I was just having fun but, looking back, my point was social media and society were resembling each other, changing each other, and that it would be surprising, horrifying, and very human. None of the slide’s scenarios were real that Spring. Yet so many came true in the blogosphere and the social media channels that followed. Tip: Set this on full screen and hit autoplay. Makes for a fun screen saver.

1. Don’t Blog weblog
Don’t Blog!
Don’t Blog
Headlines
from the Future
Blogging Backlash
Revised February 2005

2. Don’t Blog!
Live Life, Don’t Blog
Psychologist Dr. Phil joined the call for
a blogging holiday every August.
“Good for your mental health, freeing
for your inner child.”
Others complain of being blog widows
or latchkey bloggers.

3. Don’t Blog!
Want “Weblogs are
just like public
Privacy? records” says
private
Don’t Blog investigator
Adam
Cartwright.

4. Don’t Blog!
Credit card and
Want medical
insurance
Privacy? companies are
making business
Don’t Blog decisions,
denying credit
or coverage
from weblogs
data.

5. Don’t Blog!
Want
Privacy?
Don’t Blog
TransparentLives.com includes
weblogs in background checks
for employers, divorce lawyers,
congressional committees and
college admissions.

6. Don’t Blog!
Pain Blogging
Handheld blogreader pain-
mods have a cult following
two years after the
Painstation swept America.

7. Don’t Blog!
Pain Blogging
• Don’t post every 5 minutes?
Get an electric shock.
• Don’t read your
competitor’s posts?
Shock.

8. Don’t Blog!
Pain Blogging
• Judges rate your
posts down?
a shock for you.
• Rate up?
a shock for the
other blogger.
• Loser walks away.

9. Don’t Blog!
Blog Atlanta, Georgia –
The Center for
Addiction Disease Control
reports a sharp
Up 376% rise in the
number of
reported blog
BA addicts in 2004.
RECOVERY

10. Don’t Blog!
“Symptoms
Blog include
Addiction absenteeism,
compulsive
Up 376% posting, and a
sense that life
events are not
real unless
BA blogged.
RECOVERY

11. Don’t Blog!
Blog In addition to
new clinical
Addiction treatments you
Up 376% can consult
your local
Bloggers
BA Anonymous.”
RECOVERY

12. Don’t Blog!
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA –
Blog Marisa Tomlinson
Stalkers hanged herself last
night after 3
Claim 8 th
months of
Victim continuous online
harassment, said
University police.

13. Don’t Blog!
The student’s
Blog blog became the
Stalkers target of a gang
th of “blog
Claim 8 stalkers.”
Victim

14. Don’t Blog!
They parodied
Blog her blog,
Stalkers taunting her
th interests, love
Claim 8 life, intelligence,
Victim writing style,
looks, social
appeal, and
sorority.

15. Don’t Blog!
“It just became
Blog too much” said
Stalkers her dorm mate.
Claim 8 th
Victim

16. Don’t Blog!
PARIS, FRANCE –
Angry Starbucks
Bloggers throughout Paris
were attacked this
the New morning.
Hooligans

17. Don’t Blog!
Luc Pascal
Angry posted
Bloggers “Coffee is our heritage,
our birthright. Let’s
the New take back the latte and
push Starbucks back to
Hooligans Seattle”
to his Café,
Liberte, Egalite
blog.

18. Don’t Blog!
The idea
Angry spread through
Bloggers the French
blogosphere in
the New three hours.
Protesters
Hooligans pushed to target
stores.

19. Don’t Blog!
Bishop Competes with
Confessional.
Bans
“It should be
Blogs between you
& God, not the
Internet”

20. Don’t Blog!
Lies,
Damned Lies,
and Weblogs
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Dow
tumbles 15% as blogosphere
rumors and commentary
tank proposed Disney and
AOL/Time Warner merger.

21. Don’t Blog!
Lies,
Damned Lies,
and Weblogs
SEC investigates.

22. Don’t Blog!
Comment
Attack
Succeeds
$15 million legal
fees; nothing proved

23. Don’t Blog!
Bloggers
London – The Ministry of
Health reports carpal
tunnel syndrome and other
Get repetitive stress disorders
rose 23% in 2006. “More
Repetitive
people are blogging, and
blogging longer.”
Stress
Disorders
Blog Guards™ top Xmas sales

24. Don’t Blog Weblog > Slide Show Home
Don’t Blog!
Don’t Blog
Headlines
from the Future
Blogging Backlash
Revised July 5, 2004

25. Don’t Blog!
Bloggers Hurt My
Google Ranking
Ad Age – “Catalog sales are down
since customers are going to blogs first
before our catalog pages” said a Land’s
End spokesman.
The Direct Marketing Association sued
Google, Gizmodo, and more than 13,000
other bloggers, to lower blog rankings.

26. Don’t Blog!
Bloggers Hurt My
Google Ranking
The Direct Marketing
Association sued Google,
Gizmodo, and more than
13,000 other bloggers, to
lower blog rankings.

27. Don’t Blog!
Pulitzer
Pulls
Prize
Blogger Was
Paid For Posts
by Subject

28. Don’t Blog!
Steven King:
“Bloggers Steal My Words,
Violate my Copyright”

29. Don’t Blog!
Steven King:
“Bloggers Steal My Words,
Violate my Copyright”
He took a beating
from bloggers over
Blue Marjorie, his latest
book.

30. Don’t Blog!
Steven King:
“Bloggers Steal My Words,
Violate my Copyright”
King says blog posts of
sections from his book
hurt sales, infringed
copyrights.

31. Don’t Blog!
Steven King:
“Bloggers Steal My Words,
Violate my Copyright”
Won’t sue now. “Where
does fair use end and
piracy begin?”

32. Don’t Blog!
GodBlogs.com
out-hosts
LiveJournal:
Red States go big
for Blogging
Family Values

33. Don’t Blog!
Czech PM Candidate:
“I will never blog”
Wins by a landslide

34. Don’t Blog!
All Doubt
Removed
Manager’s Blog shows
He Is Stupid

35. Don’t Blog!
Libeloggers Madonna
returns fire at
Cast Stones slanderous
bloggers. Not
in Glass only suing them
for libel, also
Web Sites taking aim from
her own
weblog.

36. Don’t Blog!
Libeloggers “My children
are not fair
Cast Stones game for
your snark
in Glass hunt. Don’t
Web Sites take your
small lives
out on me.”

37. Don’t Blog!
Bankrupt:
Mercury News
Ads taken by Ebay and Craigslist
Editorial taken over by bloggers

38. Don’t Blog!
Blognosing
Sucking Up To the Boss
Works sometimes.
Tutorials at blognoser.com

39. Don’t Blog!
Blogger 9thDistrict
rules
Loses Job, employer
rights
Weblog, trump
on Appeal personal
speech.

40. Don’t Blog!
Blogger Kris Kringle was
fired by
Loses Job, Macy’s.com for
telling
Weblog, customers to try
on Appeal Gimbles.com
for some toys.

41. Don’t Blog!
Blogger “He posted
from work, so
Loses Job, his blog is
company
Weblog, property.”
on Appeal

42. Don’t Blog!
Kringle was
Blogger blindsided when
Loses Job, Macy’s sued for
control of his
Weblog, personal blog,
and won.
on Appeal

43. Don’t Blog!
Blogger “My 35,000
readers will
Loses Job, lose all their
comments. I
Weblog, lost family
on Appeal photos.”

44. Don’t Blog!
Special Ops As important
as TV, radio
Takes Out stations &
Blogistan newspapers.
Before
Invasion

45. Don’t Blog!
Special Ops Opposition
forces blog
Takes Out operational
Blogistan intel and direct
guerilla forces.
Before
Invasion

46. Don’t Blog!
Special Ops Our military
blogs in public
Takes Out too. PsyOps,
Blogistan congressional
Before & media
relations,
Invasion recruiting.

47. Don’t Blog!
First we had blog
marriages. Blogger
Now the wave of
divorce. Divorce Rates
Time spent online
taken away from
marital relationships.
Higher
Less sex.
Less conversation.
Less intimacy.
Less romance.

48. Don’t Blog!
Wife Wins
Joint Weblog
In Divorce
Court
Husband gets kids

49. Don’t Blog!
SAP “Blogging
made CMS fun
buys and popular.
blogg.de Accounting
software needs
blog appeal.”

50. Don’t Blog!
Warbloggers trigger war
Factions erupt
76,000 die
Terrorists retaliate

51. Don’t Blog!
Use a Weblog,
Go To Jail
As a condition of
probation, thief Brian
Mayberry is prohibited
from blogging.

52. Don’t Blog!
$4 million in
AOL Blogtones
in January.
AOL Journalers Pay
For Nike, FIFA, NBA,
NFL, and MLB Graphics,
Templates, Feeds.

53. Don’t Blog!
CEO Sentenced
Blog Blows
SarbOx

54. Don’t Blog Weblog > Slide Show Home
Don’t Blog!
Don’t Blog
Headlines
from the Future
Blogging Backlash
Revised July 5, 2004

55. Don’t Blog!
Blogger knifed over
Technorati ranking
It backfires.
Wounded blogger’s score
soars.
AdWord revenue covers
bandwidth spike.

56. Don’t Blog!
Blogger Jailed for
Protecting Source
Instapundit spent last
night in jail after refusing
to name the White House
source leading to
Bloggergate.

57. Don’t Blog!
Blogger Jailed for
Protecting Source
“Citizens have the same
duty as journalists. If I
can’t keep a source’s
confidentiality, who will
trust the blogosphere?”

58. Don’t Blog!
Blogger Jailed for
Protecting Source
The Oval Office had no
comment.

59. Don’t Blog!
Welsh community
buys tinyURL service
blogs.llanfairpwllgwyngy
llgogerychwyrndrobwyll-
llantysiliogogogoch.com

60. Don’t Blog!
Microsoft gains 87% of
Enterprise Blogging Market
CIOs prefer Microsoft over the
Blogger Appliance, TypePadExec, the
Technorati Workplace.
“It works better with Office 2006 and
Windows, is more secure, better
integrated with ERPs and we have
more control over what people say.”

61. Don’t Blog!
Microsoft Kills Off
Enterprise Blogging Market
Unsuccessful, Microsoft
retires its blogging products
after burning IT budgets
and convincing CIOs
blogging doesn’t
work.

62. Don’t Blog!
Outlaw Blogs Kidnapping
of Baby Jane Doe

63. Don’t Blog!
Outlaw Blogs Kidnapping
of Baby Jane Doe
The blogger known as
Adam Adam Adam
continues to post pictures of
a scared little girl.

64. Don’t Blog!
Outlaw Blogs Kidnapping
of Baby Jane Doe
A3 posts via mobile phone,
Internet café, public
library, and dial-up while
evading a national dragnet.

65. Don’t Blog!
Outlaw Blogs Kidnapping
of Baby Jane Doe
FBI asks Attorney
General to lock down the
blogosphere. Senator
Grubb filibusters.

66. Don’t Blog!
BBC –West
African peace-
keeping force in
Sierra Leone
questioned after
4 Bloggers reports of
webloggers
Executed In being summarily
executed, United
Sierra Leone Nations official
says.

67. Don’t Blog!
Spammers Tailor Mail
Using Blog Data

68. Don’t Blog!
Spammers Tailor Mail
Using Blog Data
Engineers show new bots
that parse weblogs at the
5 th Annual Nigerian Email
Conference.

69. Don’t Blog!
Spammers Tailor Mail
Using Blog Data
The bots grab locations,
language, personal
contacts, professional
jargon, favorite music, and
blogrolled sites.

70. Don’t Blog!
Spammers Tailor Mail
Using Blog Data
The bots use the data to
beat spam filters and tailor
messages.

71. Don’t Blog!
MTV’s More
immediacy,
RealWorld intimacy
than video.
Madrid goes “Fewer
blog batty boring
parts. ”

72. Don’t Blog!
Blogger joins White House
Communications Department
Proven on the campaign trail
Online voice of the President

73. Don’t Blog!
Italian law Trade
unions
registers across Italy
support law:
bloggers as requires
bloggers to
journalists; register as
EU to vote reporters.

74. Don’t Blog!
Italian law “What
nonsense will
registers they publish if
they do not
bloggers as apprentice to a
master and
journalists; train properly?
Our democracy
EU to vote depends on a
skilled press.”

75. Don’t Blog!
Trackbacker Daimler-Chrysler
product
development
Worm Shuts stops while
industry
Down Blog responds. “It’s
costing us $1
Community million a day.
We’re going back
For 3rd Day to email and wikis
for now.”

76. Don’t Blog!
Senator Blogs, Loses
Presidential Nomination
Admissions of cross dressing
in a college weblog forced
Mike Lawrson, congressman
from Alabama, to quit his
campaign for president.

77. Don’t Blog!
Senator Blogs, Loses
Presidential Nomination
“Just one more place to
rummage for youthful
indiscretion” said the local
reporter who broke the
story.

78. Don’t Blog!
Google deletes 23,000
weblogs under PRC pressure
Terra closes division,
deletes 150,000 blogs

79. Don’t Blog!
EduBlogs in BOULDER, COLORADO –
Test takers
Cheating Googled fellow
student weblogs
Scandal for answers to
state exams.
Auditor blames
blogging culture.
School funding in
question.

80. Don’t Blog!
President Edwards starts
“Weblogs for Welfare”
“Our most challenged
need a voice.
We will listen.”

81. Don’t Blog!
Don’t Blog
What if?
Phil Wolff
Evanwolf Group: Strategy & Policy
+1 510 444 8234
dijest.com/dontblog
Suggestions? Sightings?
Spring 2003 – Spring 2005