“Google Says Blogging is Dead” one headline screams, while BusinessWeek asserts blogs are being “Twitterized” — that blogging’s apparently too-thoughtful posts are being replaced by shallower, less-thought-intensive bursts of information.
Are blogs dead? Should my clients reconsider my advice to build and populate business blogs — and offer 140 character micro-thoughts instead?
Should I be planning for a new career in telemarketing?
Hype and Blogging
A blog isn’t a holy relic with supernatural powers (as some in the blogosphere might suggest). Nor is it the Ultimate Marketing Tool business has long pined for, but apparently it’s beyond the reach of many in the media to understand that.
A blog is simply a powerful, easy-to-use electronic publishing platform. They’re exceptional tools for businesses, even if only used as one-way conduits for pushing information to customers and prospects.
They’re affordable, they’re responsive, and it doesn’t require an advanced course in nuclear physics to get something posted on the company site. So why are they dying?
They Aren’t, Of Course
The answer, of course, is that blogs aren’t dying in any meaningful sense. New blogs are created every second, but not as many as before. To a hype-addicted media, slowing growth apparently now equals impending death.
And let’s be clear — growth is slowing among personal blogs, and nobody with a half a brain is surprised. Most human beings are not writers, yet approximately 15.5 million of them thought they’d give it a try, thinking writing was an easy, relaxing pastime.
Naturally, they were mostly wrong about that, and it’s hardly surprising that people are trading in their blogs for the bite-sized chunks of twitter and its ankle-deep stream of consciousness.
It’s a perfect fit in a culture that sometimes feels a little disposable, and a quick visit to the twitter site tends to confirm that thinking.
Wither the Business Blog?
I don’t believe Twitter’s going to offer much impact on small and medium-sized businesses. (Somebody will prove me wrong of course. It’s simply a matter of time.)
Lifestyle advertisers like Coca-Cola and Nike might jump on it — turning a largely free service used by teenagers into a multi-million dollar division of the marketing department — but my average client? I don’t see much point.
The “traditional” businesses blog will continue to grow (and yes, you can quote me). For some, they’ll transform the way businesses communicate. For others, they’ll have little impact.
Hype, of course, will continue to fly like crap in the monkey house at the zoo, and it’s likely we’ll soon see other screaming headlines telling us blogging’s a dead horse, that it just laid down and passed on, when anyone with two eyes can tell you it just ran by and is looking stronger with every furlong.
[tags]blogging, blogs, business blogs, twitter, hype[/tags]
Blogging DEAD?? Nooooooooo….
It can’t be. I just bought Content Done Better a month ago, and my interest in shutting it down or killing it off is slightly less than zero.
I think you’ll be OK for another week or two — until someone else decides to “kill” blogging in favor of whatever’s newer.
Micro-Twitter?
Whoever said the blogosphere will eat itself was right. And the fact that content on blogs has been washed down is also true, since its “invention” in the late 90s.
Now if the next generation is ready to twitter, fine. But twittering seems even more absurd and quaint than blogging about your everyday life.
I guess if you build it, they will come…
I’m happy I don’t own a cell phone
Eat itself? I haven’t seen that.
But then, I consider blogs a platform, not a lifestyle. And I never bought into the idea that teenage blogs were going to change the world.
With that perspective, I do expect to see a lot of changes in the platform — which is just an accessible electronic publishing tool after all — as individuals and businesses adapt it for their own uses.
Blogging your everyday life? Sounds boring, but then again, I’d read it if McGuane or Keillor was doing it.
The “blogosphere” — as a term — covers a lot of ground.
Perhaps it will finally deliver the “democratization of information” that was promised by “desktop publishing.” Perhaps it won’t.
Check back in a few years and we’ll see. You know, once you’ve gotten a cell phone…
Your post reminded me of a corporate presentation that I attended circa 1994. The topic of the presentation: Is the Internet a Fad?
Yes, really and truly, the fellow giving the talk was absolutely convinced that the Internet was a fad that wouldn’t last more than a few more months (at that time). Of course, he had compelling-sounding reasons which I can’t even remember now.
Well, over a dozen years have passed since that presentation and the Internet is still with us. (I never did find out what became of the presenter.) I do have to say, the Internet of today has evolved and includes things that most of us never imagined in 1994.
I’d say that blogging is no more dead than the Internet. One thing is certain, however, blogging will evolve and change with the addition of new tools and platforms (just the way that the Internet has evolved and changed).
Laura: The Internet is a fad, as are personal computers. That’s why I kept my typewriter. One day, all you younger writers are going to feel mighty silly..
Tom…I know the post is 5 days old, but I just found it. I don’t think blogging is dead and I love this post. Like anything, you must sometimes change with the times to a point. But I don’t mean jump on everything that comes by. I simply thing to keep blogging from dying tweaks may need to continue to be made to keep up with the changing times.
I did own a typewriter at one point, but I don’t think that I’ll go back to that. I need spell check too much
I think blogs are evolving, but to assume they’re all moving in the same direction (which the article tends to assume) is pretty hare-brained.
I just installed a new theme on my fly fishing blog that offers a few “e-magazine” features. Some blogs are headed that way, others are headed towards minimalism.
The next five years will be interesting.
I both dislike and like what I’m reading here–dislike it because of what twittering, as also texting (read about the texted novel?), tells us about popular culture,and like it because it means that blogs of substance will rise to the surface, and perhaps even become respectable.
There is still much misunderstanding of blogs. Many people still dismiss blogging as mere amateur journaling, while others think they, along with other participatory media are threatening “our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement” (Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur).
I agree with Tom Chandler that the next few years will be rather interesting.
“There is still much misunderstanding of blogs.”
Especially as blogs diverge in form and function.
As for Keen, he seems like little more than a troll to me.