One of my colleagues (@_robindickinson) flagged up to me at the end of last year, that something was afoot with the blogosphere, as interpreted by some from the latest pew report.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Generations-2010.aspx
My take on it was that contrary to the seeming headline take-out that ‘blogging is a dying art’, it is in fact just evolving and is ‘up’ overall.
But da youth have been diverted in to other blog-like stuff:
‘the act formally known as blogging’ (to quote pew) is the order of the day for these guys.
Blogging should have it’s own Prince-like symbol maybe? Yes, okay it does, with the WordPress W and the old Blogger ‘b’
Back to the pew report: long form (proper blogging, like) is up overall :
“.. rate of blogging for all online adults rose slightly overall from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010.
Yet while the act formally known as blogging seems to have peaked, internet users are doing blog-like things in other online spaces as they post updates about their lives, musings about the world, jokes, and links on social networking sites and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.”
And that thought seems also to have been borne out on a post I read today from Neville Hobson (NevilleHobson.com), who also uses other source examples of why blogging is by no means in demise.
I think it's probably safe to say that blogging isn't a flash in the pan.Whether it's up or down seems a bit arbitrary at the moment, like a lot of things digital – seems that everyone's keen to micro-measure a bunch of stuff that's still finding it's feet. News Corp are cutting 600 jobs and selling MySpace at the moment – who's to say the same fate doesn't await Facebook?The digital world is so interwoven with the way people behave that it must really be about that – how they behave – whether it's ideas published as an ezine, on a blog, in a review on Amazon, as a webcomic, vlog, tweet or whatever. There might be something in this pontification just being an extended idea around the 'what is influence?' debate. Does it matter 'how' you publish – or just that you publish?
Thanks Andrew, Yep I agree, hard to measure or get meaningful insight from the flux we’re in and with new tech / channels and resultant behaviour emerging so fast. Although, my interest was piqued with blogging specifically as its almost a ‘traditional’ form (!).And yes Facebook could well be a memory in a few years time. In the meantime I don’t think marketers should rely on it as a catchall panacea to build ‘influence’ / engagement – Facebook could arbitrarily move the goal posts again at any time and fold corporate / brand pages overnight. Maybe.I don’t think it matters how you publish either. As long as the purpose of the message or intent of the content is appropriate to the format / medium. Or not. As a considered choice to deliberately cause surprise or buzz. Will have to think that through a bit more as a statement…There are indeed a myriad of ways to get content into the world. It's important (and fun) to be aware of all of those ways if at all possible, stay aware and to know which are relevant / effective / appropriate to deploy or interact with on a case by case basis.