There’s a lot of talk lately about the slow down of blogging in terms of the number of bloggers and blog post frequency.I’ve certainly slowed down my blog posting frequency. I don’t have that mania for a daily post as perhaps I did in the past. I’ve allowed various social networking and micro-blogging outlets to soak up a range of smaller spontaneous thoughts.
To me this relates to my previous post about music formats in that I probably see blogging now as the album format with something like Rejaw or Tumblr as the EP format (macro-blogging?) together with Twitter and others (status updates) being analogous to the single in digital download format. Dubious though my analogy may well be I hope it illustrates that I see this dissipation as all being part of the same offering.
Return to Niche?
Statistics would seem to show that people equally have less time or patience to read long form blogs which may well be pushing blogs back towards being a niche offering (no bad thing in my book) whilst the top 10% cruise through into the mainstream (whereupon, much like fresh faced indie music groups who commercialise their sound and who find then a place in the mainstream music charts they then probably sell their soul to the devil and lose much of their former originality and credibility).
Blogs On the Run
The range of formats is probably changing due to the growth of mobile computing via mobile phones & now netbooks and so the long form blog has spawned other complimentary outlets alongside it which suit the different ways that people access the Internet.In the same way that portable music listening, shuffle mode etc has slightly eroded the experience of sitting down and listening to a music album from start to finish because the technology that delivered it changed along with how people choose and consume music.
Junk Food Or Healthy Consumption?
Or perhaps we’d rather see the rise of micro-blogging as akin to the rise of fast ‘junk’ food.TV dinners for the ‘too busy’ generations.
My point is that it’s all just platforms, formats, vehicles or just another tool. It’s either the evolution of blogging or the slow dilution of a once powerful creative outlet into a series of side alleys and cul-de-sacs.
I can’t quite decide which.
Photo by andyp_uk under this creative commons license
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Up the hill backwards 
Yes, it is an evolving thing. It is interesting that I read this a day or two ago via a Reader and commented immediately to you – but via Twitter rather than on here. Funny old world. I always feel a bit decadent about reading blogs through a Reader still, it is a bit like watching someone else’s telly through their window somehow.
I liked the music analogy. I started off with singles in music terms whereas in blogging I started off with the longest version – ie blogger and worked down.
But yes, people do seem to be backing off blogging a bit. Although I notice you’ve produced a flurry of posts since you wrote this one!
I certainly blog much less frequently than I used to (on my other blog, that is). When I first started I made a point of blogging daily.
Then I dried up a little and got hung up about my posting frequency.
These days I’m perfectly content to post when I have something to say and don’t feel the slightest bit guilty if I haven’t posted in a fortnight (like at the moment) because lots of my readers get the RSS feed, so it’s not like they have to drop in to see if I’ve posted or not – and get fed up of waiting.
Hello RB-I think of reading blogs via an RSS reader as (warning rubbish analogy alert) a bit like thumbing through a catalogue of offerings to see what catches your eye. You get the gist and can choose to go into more detail if you want to.I think I have flurries of blog activity more now when there’s something I want to write down in greater detail.I also sit on posts for a much longer period.
Hi Kirsty -I think I’m slowly being drawn to a variety of other ways of blogging (including audio and visual) so it’s all spread out now over a variety of different methods. It’s there to collate if anyone wants to do so but otherwise I find now that older posts have a life of their own and a longer shelf life over time. I’m happy with a room to breathe.