The twilight of the blogs?
After seeing the above image from xkcd, I wonder whether the decline of blogs is now official?
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Genocide
6 days ago
Sunday, April 22, 2012
After seeing the above image from xkcd, I wonder whether the decline of blogs is now official?
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9 comments:
Some of the former mega-blogs seem to have gone. After 6 years in the blogosphere, my own "Beaker" blog is still rising in visitors and comments. But maybe we've always been a bit behind the times.
I guess blogs aren't picking up lots of 'new' visitors, just a guess.
But they're maybe retaining their core readers. In my case, the core is so tiny it could be re-classified as a pip! I do hope that the poor old 'blog' won't be rendered redundant any time soon. It's got much value for those of us introverts who need time to reflect and to process. I've deliberately chosen not to tweet - kinda feel I'm being left behind sometimes. Maybe it's the Franciscan in me coming out... It doesn't take much to give me an attack of mental and spiritual overload. I function far better when I'm not cluttered up with yet more techy stuff to tend. But I appreciate that I'm probably not representative of those folk who use these other platforms, being well over my first half century...
I suspect you are right.
I think social media platforms are much better suited to 'self-promotion' and lets face it, too many blogs (never this one, of course) were heading more and more in that direction... "See my new book, latest article... I'm speaking next at... here I am in a photo with..."
A bit jaded, I'm sure. But there was an thought-provoking NYT article over the weekend from Sherry Turkle on "The Flight from Conversation" through social media (something I wrote a theology masters thesis on in the 90s... if I blogged or tweeted I would self-promote there, but I don't so I'll highjack your post ;)
Blogs weren't always great at genuine conversation, but they remain a better vehicle than what replacing them.
So, I suspect the underlying trend is our deceasing ability, willingness and patience to engage in genuine, thoughtful conversation
I agree. While I'm getting more traffic on mine, it's mostly because of facebook links and because I engage with platforms like digg and reddit etc.
Hi Byron. The graph you show has Tumblr increasing rapidly. I'm no expert but I thought was simply another blogging medium. So whilst blogging appears to be decling add Tumblr to it and it is continuing to grow. Also I wodner whether the issue is about intergration of media. I have grown visits to my blog via facebook, especially using the textthisweek FB site. Whilst I only rarely get comments I regularly get a few hundred hits per week on my sermons. My other bits and pieces far less. sometimes I get comments verbally, via email, or on FB. It like leaving a txt message and getting a phoen call back - using the vast array of media available. My question though is what does all of this mass complexity of communication do for our sense of personhood. (there maybe a thesis topic in that somewhere!) Peter
Interesting thoughts all. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm not feeling particularly angst about this; it's just something I noted. Self-promotion has always felt like a bit of pointless (or at least wearisome and potentially quite distracting) chore. If my goal is to maximise my influence, then maybe I should be self-promoting, but I'm not at all sure that ought to be an explicit goal for this blog.
Geoff is probably right about the quality of conversation declining. I find it hard to know how to evaluate that in a substantial way that gets beyond anecdote and instinct (perhaps I need to go and read your method section!).
As for Tumblr, I confess I'm only vaguely aware what it is. Wikipedia calls it "microblogging", which sounds like Twitter and FB. Perhaps I'm just turning into a grumpy old man; perhaps I'm just becoming a little more cynical about the transformative capacity of technology; perhaps I'm just lazy. Whichever it is, I can't muster the enthusiasm at the moment to try to pick up new skills in this area. Maybe one day I won't feel so weary of it all. Maybe that day might have something to do with submission...
Yes, I just assumed Tumblr was another type of blogging. There is also the fact that many blogs advertise and get traffic from Facebook and other social media, or the fact that some social media sites (like Facebook) allow users to look at blogs on their own browser which may or may not count as Facebook traffic or blogger traffic. I don't know. Long live the blog.
Hi Byron and friends
I'd say the rise of Tumblr reflects the increasingly visual nature of the Web -- many tumblrs are simply galleries of found objects. Blogging has become an established online medium for long-form (relatively speaking!) written communication, but the Internet is pushing beyond the written medium.
The other thing going on here is the proliferation of online platforms, i.e. mediums of communication. Not so long ago, there were email discussion groups, then there were forums, then blogs appeared. For the most part, we could stick to one medium at a time. Now, however, the development of social media means we're using multiple, interwoven mediums all at once (and trying to get to grips with the distinctives and nuances of each!).
So I reckon the notion that social media represents a decline in conversation quality is unfounded. Rather, the long-form written medium has become just one among many online mediums and genres of communication.
Perhaps Western culture is shifting back from predominantly literate communication towards oral and visual communication? (Incidentally, orality has become a massive topic of conversation in missiology circles.) It's not bad, it's just different...
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