The Guardian reckons that people aren’t blogging so much any more, and much prefer the shorter, sweeter option of tweeting and updating their status on Facebook. A lot of it is based on anecdotal evidence but there’s some science behind it, according to Charles Arthur.
NetNewsWire, my RSS feed reader, has nearly 500 feeds. When one of them hasn’t been updated for 60 days, it turns brown, like a plant dying for lack of water. More and more of the feeds I follow are turning brown. Why? Because blogging isn’t easy. More precisely, other things are easier – and it’s to easier things that people are turning.
In my last post, I questioned why I was blogging and I’ve found myself writing less and less on here. The sheer effort it takes to come up with something interesting, research it and then sort all the links out takes bloody ages and, except for the odd moment of enjoyable Google/hits action, there’s little fun to be had. I recently wrote what I considered to be an exceptionally well-argued post about the 50% income tax rate. Less than 30 people have looked at it. I’ve also been badly shirking in my commitment to AdTurds.
Another problem is that I’m becoming worried that I’m just one of those argumentative web twats who carps on about how awful everything is but has little practical knowledge of what they are talking about. (Like a newspaper columnist, in other words.)
As such, I’ve tended to focus more on my Tumblr blog, which is orientated around quick image, video and music posts, and Twitter. I also like Friendfeed, which, among other things, collates everything you do on the web in one place.
Essentially, do I really need to write hundreds of thoroughly researched, meticulously-linked words if I see something annoying on TV? Or can the same effect be achieved with a withering Twitter update? If any of my 14 regular readers have any views on this, I’d be interested to hear.
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I have peaks and troughs with blogging, I reckon as the summer picks up – and the cricket season with it I’m coming out of a good creative stretch.
But the chances are I’ll simply force myself to continue, because I’ve got so much out of the last six-month run of constant blogging across five or six different blogs and on different subjects.
Often I think the benefits of blogging are fairly nebulous at best, but a couple of great projects have come off through the work blog and by forcing myself to write on the Culture Blog, AdTurds, the cricket blog and the other one my writing has improved so much.
Qualitatively that’s debatable, but in terms of the amount of time I spend on a post, how easily it flows and how easily a can construct a valid line of argument I feel twice as better than I did when I started.
I also feel like I have a much better understanding of how to make blogs work in terms of SEO, SEM and SMM (I’m jargoning my arse of here, admittedly) and in terms of writing for the web. By constantly researching blogs on a low level I’m keeping up to speed with developments across a wide range of subjects.
Not only that, but at its most basic I enjoy blogging. I’ve always enjoyed writing and I enjoy the little hit of validation the attention provides. I doubt few who blog do not.
What else? I’m becoming a personal brand, which I think is a necessity if you want to keep up in journalism. I’ve got the Robin Brown blog pretty much up to the top of the SERPS when you search for my name. I’m planning to redesign that one soon so it acts as a portal to my nodes.
I do realise with that last sentence I now look like a total cock.
I think blogging is becoming more corporate and more professional. I can see massive blogs thriving and smaller, more personal weblogs withering as people lose interest and the ability to compete in a sea of mighty Page Rank-wielding uber blogs.
Perhaps the spirit of blogging is on its way out to be replaced by semi-corporate behemoths – something I touched on in the post on Wordpress homepages. The more that happens the more blogging is dragged away from its original characteristics and intent.
To that extent I agree, but nothing on the net stays the same for long.
I think you’re spot on about the corporate/professional “page rank-weilding uber blogs”. Clearly at the Guardian and at other media outlets, blogs are thriving. The magazine I work for has also just launched a load of property-related blogs written by journalists, and the publisher has a “Head of Blogging” who works across numerous titles. The issue, as you say, is perhaps more to do with the individual part-time bloggers who are lacking the time and inclination to compete.
David, you must keep blogging, even if you can only manage it infrequently. Your inspired streams of anti-establishment bile are not nearly as entertaining in 140 characters or less.
Ah! The validation I was craving!
Ooh gawd what to say. OK, I don’t really blog in the same way that you do but I agree with Robin in that I love to write and write without the shackles of a company blog. And if someone reads it then that’s marvelous. But there is no point doing something you no longer enjoy particularly in your own time when you aren’t being paid. Life is too short.
If it’s any consolation I also agree with Nigel. OK so I’ve not been as regular reader as I have in the past but I’d miss your wit if you gave up for good.
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