The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

If This Is Monday, It Must Be Time for Another ‘Death of Blogging’ Story

Posted on | February 21, 2011 | 33 Comments

A few weeks ago, it was “The End of Blogging.” Now the New York Times offers the latest reiteration of this year’s hot meme, “Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter“:

Like any aspiring filmmaker, Michael McDonald, a high school senior, used a blog to show off his videos. But discouraged by how few people bothered to visit, he instead started posting his clips on Facebook, where his friends were sure to see and comment on his editing skills.
“I don’t use my blog anymore,” said Mr. McDonald, who lives in San Francisco. “All the people I’m trying to reach are on Facebook.”
Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation. . . .
Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family.
Blogging started its rapid ascension about 10 years ago as services like Blogger and LiveJournal became popular. So many people began blogging — to share dieting stories, rant about politics and celebrate their love of cats — that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the word of the year in 2004. . . .
Blogs went largely unchallenged until Facebook reshaped consumer behavior with its all-purpose hub for posting everything social. Twitter, which allows messages of no longer than 140 characters, also contributed to the upheaval. . . .
Kim Hou, a high school senior in San Francisco, said she quit blogging months ago, but acknowledged that she continued to post fashion photos on Tumblr. “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said. “With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.” . . .
Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that commercializes the WordPress blogging software, explains that WordPress is mostly for serious bloggers, not the younger novices who are defecting to social networking. . . .
“There is a lot of fragmentation,” Mr. Schneider said. “But at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”

(Via Memeorandum.) So what is being explained in this week’s “Death of Blogging” story is that people who just want to post videos or photos or whatever, for a readership composed primarily of their personal friends, are using Facebook or Twitter instead of blogging software. But casual cat-blogging and social networking (i.e., creating a personal site to tell your friends what’s going on in your life) have nothing to do with the kind of news/politics/current-events aggregation, commentary and citizen journalism that made “blog” the Word of the Year in 2004.

If blogging is dead, how come the traffic at this blog keeps steadily increasing? Shameless blogwhoring, that’s why. Schneider’s comment about “using several mediums to get a large amount of [blog] traffic” is something I’ve been doing from the get-go. This post will go out via Twitter and Facebook, and there’s a “share” function at the bottom where readers can send it to their own networks.

But I’ll also use that Web 1.0 technology, e-mail, to send the link to Instapundit, whose blog is neither dead nor on the wane.

UPDATE:Dan Riehl says:

The [New York Times] wants blogs to go away so badly, they consistently look for ways to suggest that’s the case. Having been out here for 7 years, the reality is, they are doing better than ever. The medium is simply maturing.

An analogy about “wheat” and “chaff” might come in handy here. Dan links Scott Rosenberg at WordYard, who says:

The technology press has been keen on the “blogging is dead” (or “dying”) meme for some time now, but it’s tough to find actual data or evidence supporting the notion.

As with previous iterations of this meme, a lot hinges on what you mean by the term “blog.”  The New York Times seems to be using a rather narrow, specific meaning — a personal site using blog software — when that definition doesn’t fit, for example, Red State or Hot Air. If there is less blogging about “look at these silly pictures of my kitten” because Facebook is now getting the silly-kitten-photo action, OK. But that’s not “the Death of Blogging.”

I’m looking forward to “The Death of ‘The Death of Blogging’ Articles.”

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Refutation is so easy.

UPDATE III: Bruce McQuain at Q&O gives the NYT a good pimp-slapping.


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Category: Blogging

Comments

  • Carlcreed10

    appears too me the Times is the one dying

  • http://twitter.com/AmPowerBlog Donald Douglas

    ‘But casual cat-blogging and social networking (i.e., creating a personal site to tell your friends what’s going on in your life) have nothing to do with’ … R.S. McCain’s high powered schmooze blogging! Long live blogging!

  • Anonymous

    If all else fails, I’ll go back to Speedo-blogging.

  • http://annoytheleft.wordpress.com/ Sean

    Weird, I was JUST NOW thinking of switching from politics to puppies and kitties.

    Thank you, Robert Stacy McCain, for helping me to avert a disaster that may have cost me all four of my readers.

  • Anonymous

    I try to “give back” to the blogging community.

  • GoldenEagle4444

    In less than a year our readership has skyrocketed…to the point of having to add bandwidth twice. I haven’t purchased a copy of the New York Slimes in that entire time. You tell me what’s dieing!

  • Anonymous

    I despise facebook. Can’t find my way around. Love the twitters tho. Helps me find blogs. Lol.

  • http://getalonghome.com/ GAHCindy

    Twitter is awesome. Facebook seems to be the home of grannies and prostitutes. Also, ugly chicks who take thousands of pictures of themselves, convinced that a new camera angle and a little poutyface is all that stands between them and the popularity they just couldn’t get a grasp on in high school. I hate the Facebook.

  • Anonymous

    No reason why the “world” can’t be adequately explained and idea’s exchanged about it in short bursts of 140 characters or less.
    Must admit I failed to find it, but there has got to be a young people/attention span joke in this this post’s topic.

  • http://www.uncoverage.net Jane Jamison

    Speaking of shameless blog-whoring…Hi my name is Jane Jamison from UNCOVERAGE.net…come fly with me…coffee tea and me…or something.

    And I really missed sitting with Smitty at CPAC…:-(

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, what’s up with that weird-camera-angle-and-pout stuff in the Facebook photos? It’s like an advertisement: “I’m a high-maintenance insecure narcissistic psycho-bitch!”

  • Anonymous

    The New York Times makes a common error: Mistaking “what kids are doing now” for “what they will be doing as adults in the future.” By that method of trend-extrapolation, shouldn’t we all be running around on skateboards by now?

    Many Republicans were panicking in 2006-08 because 18-to-24-year-olds had shifted sharply toward Democrats: “We’re losing the youth vote!” But there was, and is, no reason to expect that such a shift points toward a certain trend in the future. When I was a high-school kid in the ’70s, young people were all for Jimmy Carter — at least until he fucked up the economy and blew it in Iran.

    People need to chill.

  • Anonymous

    Everybody missed Smitty, Jane. The good news: Only 10 more months until he comes home!

  • Anonymous

    The Social Democrats probably still have most of the 18-to-24-year-olds the problem they have is the same number of people who become 18 year olds become 25 year olds. The problem we have is most 18-to-24-year-olds don’t know it isn’t normal to be unable to get even the most menial of jobs for years on end.

  • http://twitter.com/sdo1 Steve in TN

    Blogging is becoming mainstream. You, of all people, should realize that when it reaches that status it will start dying out (and it already has). Sure, it will retain viewers/users, but so did email lists and where are they now? Everything has its day, and blogs are living on the popularity of last decade.

    Finding the next big thing… That’s what should be the goal (not saying it is facebook or twitter).

  • http://twitter.com/totomovies Christian Toto

    I’m constantly amazed how much I learn from political blogs – information I’d never learn from MSM outlets.

  • Coggieguy

    I don’t think the Times understands the rules of getting a million hits. Of course HuffPo cheesecake is below their standards.

  • Sam L.

    “Shameless blogwhoring.” Rule #5 RULES! Babes, and more babes, plus literate content (when you have to).

  • Chris Wren

    Kind of like when people stopped painting and creating art because all the young kids were getting into photography.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    No! Please have mercy! Anything, but that! I’d tithe 10% of my salary to your damn Tip Jar just to avoid The Horror…The Horror…

    -General Robert ‘Bob’ Kurtz-Belvedere

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    You leave your cousin Meagan out of this!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I have to agree with Adobe. I worry that these youngins’ have been so propagandized and pampered that they won’t do the ‘Law & Order Twist’ when they get older.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Well…you shamelessness worked on me:
    In accordance with Stacy McCain’s RULE 2…
    I’ve added your site to my version of the blogroll: Congratulations, you are an official Fellow DHS-Certified Right Wing Extremist at The Camp Of The Saints.

  • GoldenEagle4444

    It’s an honor. A privilege. All of that stuff…But somehow I don’t think anyone except Jane in included. Psssst: Have you seen my Speedo candids???

  • Anonymous

    Blogging takes an ability to write and something to write about. Most people who text and pay attention to their Facebook pages have neither.

    A blog dies because the blogger has no ability or reason to write. Texting and following a Facebook page is a waste of time. But to those who waste their time texting and visiting Facebook, their time isn’t worth much.

  • Anonymous

    A lot of people in the IT world have blogs related to what they work on…. but it’s fairly specialized and most of the traffic is looking for answers to specific questions.

  • Anonymous

    Seriously, I’ve seen so many bad portraits on Facebook that I’ve been tempted to give free photography classes. And that’s just the technical side of things! Don’t even get me started on the posing…

  • Anonymous

    Thus allowing talentless hacks like Picasso and Pollock to do so well…

  • K~Bob

    YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, and Blogs are all just variants of technology related to publishing. The world of publishing changes constantly, the skill required to create product is the same level of skill needed back in the days of Greek Oratory and, more recently, the early days of Elvis.

    The rest is marketing.

    When 45s disappeared, music didn’t. When the “blog form” disappears, personal publishing will still be here, bigger than ever.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Personally, I find Facebook annoying. I have just enough friends who are active on it to keep the posts moving down and out, and I don’t check it regularly, so it is almost meaningless to me and certainly about the last way to get my attention.

    Tweets are for twits. If you can say it in 140 characters, you have precious little to say.

  • http://nooneofanyimport.wordpress.com/ Linda

    We bloggers love to beat up on the NYT cuz shooting fish in a barrel is both easy and fun.

    I didn’t realize til reading this post that those dumb fish try to fire back. Silly NYT wishful-thinking article-writing.

    Ha ha, thanks for the laugh Mr. McCain.

    I just got to this blog party a year ago, so it better not be dying.

    Blog-whoring, blog-whoring, blog-whoring alert: click on my name! Read my posts! I am enlightening and funny!

  • Pingback: The Blog Genie Is Out of the Bottle : The Other McCain

  • AnReid44

    “Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers.”

    Is this really how one should use “uninspired”?

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