Lost In Search » Facebook http://www.lostinsearch.com Thoughts on Search Marketing Fri, 01 May 2009 16:38:03 +0000 en hourly 1 Blogging Is Not Dead http://www.lostinsearch.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lostinsearch.com%2F2009%2F01%2F16%2Fblogging-is-not-dead%2F&seed_title=Blogging+Is+Not+Dead http://www.lostinsearch.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lostinsearch.com%2F2009%2F01%2F16%2Fblogging-is-not-dead%2F&seed_title=Blogging+Is+Not+Dead#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:21:20 +0000 Chris http://www.lostinsearch.com/?p=103 I keep reading tweets and news articles either questioning, or in some cases flat out stating that blogging is dead. I’m here to say that regardless of what other websites have to say about this, blogging is not dead. Most of the articles point to Twitter or Facebook as the new craze. These sites definitely add to the social experience of the web, and add value to social media. Blogging may be on the decline as web usage changes over time, but blogging is here to stay.

First of all, comparing social sites to blogging is kind of an apples to oranges thing. There’s a bit of overlap of course, but for the most part Twitter and Facebook serve a much different purpose than blogging. Blogging is a place to unpack ideas and opinions, share thoughts about what’s working (and what’s not) in modern life, culture, community, or even your own head. Some use it as a means to keep in touch with friends and share their daily lives, and those are the users that are likely to abandon their blogs in favor of more social sites. I know of several bloggers that have made this choice. Other bloggers, I would say more bloggers, use their blog as a platform for sharing their ideas with the world. This type of blog is not going anywhere, they’ll be around for years.

I have been blogging for six years now, and have also created accounts on just about every social site that I could find. I have loved Flickr since day one, it is THE place to share and peruse photography. And, it meshes with my blog perfectly. Facebook took me a while to warm up to, but now I love it. I enjoy keeping up with the daily lives of my friends, and I’ve even regained contact with some that I had lost touch with years ago. Twitter is even more fun. I’ll admit that it took me months to understand the point, much less embrace it. Now I’m addicted, I love it more than ice cream.

What I’m saying is that I ‘get’ blogging, and I also ‘get’ social media, and there (currently) is no site that makes me want to give up my blog (whether I have 2 readers or 50,000 isn’t the point). What’s more, I’m not going to stop reading blogs. My Bloglines account is loaded with dozens of RSS feeds that I check almost daily. Some are friends, some are blogs with tips for saving money or that provide social commentary, but I love all of them. If one of them drops I’ll go looking for other blogs to enjoy.

If I feel this way about blogging, then there are others. And if a community of people aren’t going to ditch their blog and want to read others, then blogging is certainly not dead. The fact is that Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, etc do not replace blogging, they enhance it. Conversations that happen in more social spaces generate ideas that get explored on blogs which prompts further discussion… and on the cycle goes. Besides, if marketing sites are still publishing a guide for blogging, then what about it is dead?

Blogging is not dead. Blogging is doing just fine.

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