From The Economist:
ONLINE archaeology can yield surprising results. When John Kelly of Morningside Analytics, a market-research firm, recently pored over data from websites in Indonesia he discovered a “vast field of dead blogs”. Numbering several thousand, they had not been updated since May 2009. Like hastily abandoned cities, they mark the arrival of the Indonesian version of Facebook, the online social network.
Such swathes of digital desert are still rare in the blogosphere. And they should certainly not be taken as evidence that it has started to die. But signs are multiplying that the rate of growth of blogs has slowed in many parts of the world. In some countries growth has even stalled.
Blogs are a confection of several things that do not necessarily have to go together: easy-to-use publishing tools, reverse-chronological ordering, a breezy writing style and the ability to comment. But for maintaining an online journal or sharing links and photos with friends, services such as Facebook and Twitter (which broadcasts short messages) are quicker and simpler.
No more bitching and moaning about the death of blogging from me. What is, is.
H/T to Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish.
This makes perfect sense. I don't get anywhere near as many hits as I used to.
ReplyDeleteOr the quality of my rantings has dipped, which is, of course, a possibility.
DP, the quality of your rantings has not dipped. Change is in the air.
ReplyDeleteMy hit numbers are the same, if not somewhat higher, but the numbers of comments have dropped.
However, I think it's true that blogs will be fewer and more specialized.
Life in the modern era: just when I've got something figured out, suddenly it's old fashioned and I have to start all over again.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy Facebook, but not as a replacement for blogging.
Twitter never really interested me.
As Oscar Wilde so sagely observed, the problem with being too modern is that you wake up one morning to find yourself old fashioned.
I guess I will just disappear into the cyberdesert like so many of my friends of my age who do not even have internet or if they do, just use email to family and close friends. I did not like facebook and left it and am sure twitter would be beyond me. On the few social networking sites to which I belong, I am irritated by those who write 'me too" or something similar. They have thousands of posts while I only have a handful.
ReplyDeleteI'm not giving up my blog and really don't care about the numbers. I like to post photos of my critters and flowers and whatever else catches my fancy. My family aren't on FB so they like to look. I keep checking most blogs, especially this one.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't possibly do what I do on my blog on Facebook, and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteFacebook has its uses but it will never replace the blogosphere as far as I am concerned. Twitter I don't use at all. I did set up an account so I could follow a section of the paper I work for because they were asking for support. Then I got emails some time later, at two different times, saying two people, who I don't know from Adam, were following me on Twitter. Why?? I literally hadn't posted a thing or done anything with the account. It was completely blank and faceless, no detail on me at all, no activity, nothing. It was so ridiculous. I just don't get it.
ReplyDeleteI expect that if I liked Facebook, I'd be there more. It's nice for keeping in touch with my daughter, who never answers either of her phones.
ReplyDeleteBrian, we'll keep in touch on blogs.
Piskie, I don't really care about numbers, either, and if I didn't blog, I'd probably be a lot angrier and more frustrated than I am. It's good therapy for me, and I enjoy it now that I'm more relaxed and less driven.
Counterlight, you could never do the great art posts that you do on your blog on FB or Twitter.
Cathy, I was in and out of Twitter in a couple of hours. I hated it. It's crazy.
No to twitter.
ReplyDeleteYes to FB (it has helped me catch up with things and people in El Salvador).
And while I don't blog every day as I used to, that is as much a part of my move to a new congregation to me as anything else.