So are we seeing the death throes of blogging?

So is blogging dead, is it no more?

Will Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku mean that people will no longer blog.

A Wired article says

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.

Following on from the article in Wired on the death of blogging, there has been much discussion on Twitter about the article and the subsequent piece on the Today programme on Radio 4 and Rory Cellan-Jones’ blog entry.

So here I am blogging about the death of blogging?

What do you think?

Personally I think that Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku and other services have in many ways supplanted and replaced the personal blog, you know the kind that talk about family gatherings, taking the dog for a walk, going to the pub, what I did on my holiday kind of thing.

Where I think there is still room for blogging is the more in-depth articles, technical, reflective, opinion pieces.

In the same way that radio did not kill newspapers, and television did not kill radio, and the internet did not kill television. Blogging will not be killed by Twitter, Twitter won’t kill blogging in the same way it won’t kill e-mail or instant messaging.

It’s just another tool that allows you to communicate and learn in ways in which it isn’t possible via blogging and e-mail.

I see e-mail as one to one communication, blogging as one to many, whilst Twitter and Jaiku is much more a many to many form of communication.

I still read newspapers, I still listen to the Today programme on Radio 4, I watch BBC News on the TV, I look at the websites of traditional broadcast media for news, I read and subscribe to blogs, and I also find out about news via Twitter.

Twitter is just an additional tool or medium in which to communicate, share, collaborate and learn. Twitter hasn’t killed blogging it’s just another way of doing things.

What do you think?

4 thoughts on “So are we seeing the death throes of blogging?”

  1. Hi James I think it’s much more akin to going into a coffee shop for a quick snack catch up with chums (twitter et al), and going out for a good meal with time to chat and reflect…. Blogs dead I think not …. Email dead – hope so soon!!!

  2. Hi James I don’t think it will kill blogging but it will effect the nature of it. Quick ideas are great to share on Twitter et al. but I don’t think language has developed the capacity yet to share ideas at the depth that longer writing can. Of course there are exceptions, look at good Haiku’s and the works of Ezra Pound, many would fit in a good Twitter update but they are carefully crafted

    I think its true to say that new technologies do affect existing media quite radically when taken up en masse. Newspapers might not be dead but their sales and nature of production have changed. I very rarely read news papers, preferring radio and online methods as they fit my lifestyle better. People will plum for what works for them.

    Finally, I am not entire sure that future historians will draw the sharp lines between modes of written digital expression we are currently using. I’ve seen blog posts that are Twitter like and vice versa.

  3. Dont think its dead just ‘settling’ as its accordances are recognised and understood.
    Rather like getting any technology, tool or new toy (ooo we ooo, yes I am that old) . We try it out, explore it then the amount of use it has settles down.
    For some the novelty wears off.
    For some people it turns out to be the wrong tool/vehicle/glass http://www.ninelocks.com/blog/?p=93

    Its good to be in a time where new tools are appearing it keeps us awake.

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