Note: Yes, the title should be “APB”. 
Blogging is dead….or, at least, Nick Carr has decided that the free-wheeling blogosphere has disappeared, and been replaced by traffic/advertising hungry writing machines.
In the process, he declares that independent bloggers have been swept aside as “online magazines” such as the Huffington Post, TreeHugger and Engadget dominate the landscape (He could added TechCrunch, GigaOm, et al).
You knew it was only a matter of time before Carr found something new to gripe about. It’s his modus operandi but in this case, he may be right.
The blogosphere has changed in the past couple of years as a part of it has evolved into a business. Look at how TechCrunch and GigaOm, for example, has evolved from one-man shows to multi-faceted entities with multiple writers/blogs, conferences, research, etc.
It’s the nature of the beast. If there’s money to be had and low-hanging fruit to be picked, someone is going to go after it. Michael Arrington and Om Malik saw an opportunity to build a business so they went for it. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
The reality, however, is days of the well-followed/popular blogger are disappearing. If you’ve got solid traffic, the temptation to “monetize” it is hard to resist.
Once you take the leap from writer to professional blogger, blogging takes on a different context. As much as the words still matter, the money/advertising also becomes important. Your blog evolves from a once or twice-a-day hobby to an entity where you’re tempted to grind out more posts because, after all, more posts apparently lead to more traffic.
And the truth is blogging for pay is different than blogging for free. It’s a different, even if you don’t want to admit because you’ve gone from amateur to professional.
While Carr’s thesis may be on the mark, there are still plenty of independent bloggers writing great stuff. The challenge/problem is they’re getting harder to find because squeezing into the spotlight is challenging.
More: The Register’s John Oates has a story about how blogs are literally getting fatter and less user-friendly.
Technorati Tags: blogs
8 Comments
Did anyone expect the state of blogging to remain unchanged? I hope note, because that would have been hypocritical on the part of bloggers who ritually blast newspapers for not recognizing the changing times.
I don’t think blogging is dead, but it has certainly shifted. When these big, money/traffic hungry blogs become unwieldy and sacrifice quality content for traffic, people will go else where. Whether it is to other blogs, or something new remains to be seen.
Isn’t it “APB”?
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but isn’t part of the problem posts exactly like the one you just wrote? All you’ve done is summarized Carr’s arguments with really no additional insight, research or information. Carr even references the same Register article you put in your “More” footer to the piece.
The blogosphere is suffering not because it is becoming more professional but because its sources are almost always mainstream media or press releases, or other bloggers’ who have just written something informed by mainstream media or press releases.
All the grand pronouncements about being a new form of journalism have generally faded away, with the exception of the most professional blogs, like the Huffington Post, which often reports on the stories that CNN, MSNBC, Fox et al are reluctant to cover, or don’t UN-cover in the first place.
So, more professionalism from the blogosphere, not less…
Mark, do you mean APB in your title – All Points Bulletin?
Blogging isn’t dead for anyone but elitist, tech geeks that hate the fact others have discovered their toys. Calcanis, Carr and the rest of the whiners remind me of:
* Early U2 fans that think the band is a “sell out” for becoming popular;
* Rappers that think Will Smith is a “sell out” for becoming a mainstream star;
* Fashion Divas that no longer want to wear a label because everyday people are wearing it.
I grow irritated by the geek elites that believe a true blogger is someone that starves to death while blogging. The fact of the matter is that quality will always win out at the end of the day. The New York Rangers have been trying to buy a Stanley Cup for years – and flopped. The Washington Redskins have been trying to buy a Superbowl for years – and flopped.
Those who provide great content, whether solo or part of a team, will receive the spoils while providing great content to the rest of the world.
Simple as that. Silicon Valley geek elites like Carr and Calcanis need to recognize this and shut up.
EOM
Mark,
I have fond yet fuzzy memories of 2000 when reading blogs was an enjoyable experience.
What has changed in 2008? Let’s address it, but first reflect upon Philip Pullman’s great question in NaNoWriMo pep talk, “The last thing I’d say to anyone who wants to write a novel is not actually a piece of advice, but a question. It’s this: are you a reader?” It appears in the second last paragraph:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3115329
He speaks chiefly of novels, but the same can be seen to apply to blogs. Writers who write well tend to be great readers and it is difficult to write great stuff on a daily basis, even for a novelist. What happens to writers is equally applicable to bloggers, given that we tend to like an article for the freshness or interestingness of the perspective it brings to us.
If the urge to monetize can balanced towards the higher cause of quality, then that will be raise standards for everybody. The difference between a good versus great blogger would be that a good one is likely to be famous, but a great one might not be, because she is writing mainly for herself.
So, in this sense, reading blogs is a great incentive to procrastinate in 2008, just as it was in 2000,
!
Another perspective comes from non-English speaking fraternity. In Marathi, for example, there are less than two thousand blogs. Indeed, blogging is just beginning in it.
Ultimately, tools like Google Reader with the Shared Reads features are really important to be able to discover great content. It is more comfortable to believe in recommendations of people we appreciate.
I read Carr’s post yesterday, and thought he was on to something too. Blogging may not be dead, but it’s certainly lost its heart–and that, IMO, has come about from the massive amount of blogs that are (supposedly) marketing tools for businesses, as well as product-endorser blogs that don’t disclose whether their authors are paid endorsers or not….
In other words, there’s stuff out there that, some years ago, would be considered either unethical or at least spammy, and is now looked at as an o.k. way to make some beer money….
And with making beer money comes all the “strategies” that have very little to do with linking to others and creating community. The new linklove is more about link self-love– self-promoting by posting links in comments on other people’s blogs (blatant self-promotion) and self-linking within one’s own blog.
The sense of community that was engendered by linking to others and not spamming others is harder to find nowadays than it was a few years ago.
You’re also very right about how professional blogging changes you–esp. if you started as just a blogger. I had my first professional blogging gig almost 3 years ago, and not sure I’d want to do it again. (I do other things now with community dev. Far more rewarding.)
I think people are getting too serious about what a blog really is. It’s simply a time delayed chat room. So there are ads. So there is junk. It’s no big deal. Consumers of info are blind to advertising. I only click on ads if they look funny or if they really tempt me. I don’t even care about ads that pop up and you have to “skip them” because for the most part I can usually tell if something will be worth my while before I get there. The blogosphere is thriving because more and more people are actually taking the time to add comments and even start blogs of their own. Think of a blog like a conversation and reading and sharing becomes more enjoyable. If you think your blog is akin to an appendix to the Bible, then of course you want everything accurate and pertinent, but that isn’t blogging.