Blogging - Is Blogging dead and dying?

[Steve Garfield]

My second focus presentation is on Blogging.

Is Blogging dead and dying?

Jason Calacanis just closed his blog down and moved to sending out an email newsletter.

Robert Scoble likes posting to Friendfeed where he’s not the only one posting, and people can comment on his posts.

Scoble also uses Google reader to share interesting posts. I'm trying out Google Reader too.

What’s happening here?

Let’s take a look at some current blogs, develop a working understand of what a blog actually is, and learn how to subscribe to some blogs so that they’ll automatically get delivered to you.

After learning about blogs you can decide if their death notice is premature.

[Charles Heflin]

As I recently posted on Chris Brogan's blog... I believe that a blog is the focal point of social interaction. Giving up your blog is like abandoning your home to live in the street with the people.

For some this may be a wise business move but as far as blogs dying ... it will never happen, they are too important for too many people. In my case my blogs are my hubs where all of my social interaction comes into a measurable focus.

For people like Scoble and Calacanis ... their business is not like most.

Google reader is my daily newspaper... Between that and Twitter I am able to stay current in my industry on an hour by hour basis... Very cool!

[Aldon Hynes]

Well, if blogging is dead, then it can't be dying because it's dead already, right?

Seriously, blogging is not dead. I'm not sure if it is dying. It will be around for a long time, just like printed newspapers will be.

However, I will say that it is waning. My background is blogging in politics. For the past year or two, I've been telling everyone that blogging is just so 2004. Where you really want to be now, at least if your in politics and trying to shape the news and gather support is with microblogging, and mobile social media. Get your people to send text, photographs and videos from their cellphones and other mobile devices.

That is where the information gathering is taking place. There will remain a place for blogs for the sense making, but it will be less influential.

As always, MHO, YMMV...

[Dana_W]

I do wonder, with the ever increasing competition for people's attention, how long blogs will be popular. They were a novelty for a while, and I think the quality blogs that are genuinely entertaining and informative will stick around, but I think that most people who start personal blogs get bored with them very quickly, and the general public doesn't want to read about the cute thing your nephew did when you were babysitting him.

I was a newspaper reporter for a long time and in the year before left (I quit about six months ago) we are all ordered to start blogs. In most cases it was and is a disaster. We were already ridiculously busy because the newsroom was laying people off left and right, and not replacing people who quit, so being ordered to blog a minimum of three times a week or get a bad performance evaluation wasn't well received. We were not allowed to express personal opinions in our blogs if the blog was about our beat; so what's left to say? If we had anything newsworthy to say we'd write a story about it.
It was a little easier for the features reporter and sports reporter, but on hard news beats, it was an exercise in frustration for all of us.
I think newspapers, over time, are going to discover that forcing reporters to blog is not the ideal way to go.
I'm not saying that no reporter should blog; I'm saying that ordering a beat reporter to blog about their beat and also write stories bout their beat is not a great strategy.

[Steve Garfield]

Hi Dana,
Thanks for sharing that. I know some newspapers have a better understanding of blogging, that it's the unfiltered voice of a person.

You could have a blog that's filled with news items, but getting to hear from a person is more valuable.
Thanks for sharing,
--Steve

Dana_W said:

We were not allowed to express personal opinions in our blogs if the blog was about our beat; so what's left to say? If we had anything newsworthy to say we'd write a story about it.

[Dana_W]

Ironically the most popular blogs on the newspaper had nothing to do with the news beat. A photographer had a super popular blog about fishing; he's an avid fisherman. And a reporter who covered a local town blogged about her personal life, dating, desire to lose weight, opinions on celebrities, etc.

I'm sure some newspapers do a better job with blogging. The newspaper I was working at was just frantically scrambling to boost website views - quite understandably - and the solution that they chose, which was to make everybody blog, was less than ideal.

The other problem was that we were given no direction. We were told what NOT to do - don't include personal opinion - but not what we SHOULD do.

[barry brown]

Maybe blogs die with the writer's current mission and are reborn elsewhere with their new cause. Remembering how fast social media is evolving, I think deep missions spawn blogs with longer lives and richer content, but eventually the mission changes. That blog dies, not blogging.