Is Blogging Dead? | RCD #7

photo credit: Scammah

Short answer: maybe for tech bloggers, or anyone blogging at the pace of “shiny new thing”. Maybe for those who have misused the format for spam. Perhaps even for those who communicate better by sharing the disparate pieces of content that fall from the edges of their lives.

But not for those who blog to teach, blog to entertain, to stay in touch with/create community around our companies, or to share original ideas.

Why am I even bringing this up?

Two reasons.

First, I’m getting a lot of questions asking why I’m retiring from blogging. I am doing no such thing – I’m retiring from consulting to dedicate my life and skills to a certain cause.

If anything, once I’m retired I’ll be blogging more, not less. Yes, here too. One of my blogs will be members only, but I won’t be blogging any less. I’ll just be doing it more from locations that look more like this:

photo credit: iknownot

The second reason is that I found myself writing more than a paragraph when I stumbled a post this morning. That’s my cue to do a blog post (and another reason to follow the news. Not for shiny thing syndrome, for inspiration.)

There’s been talk about why we’re blogging among those at the top of the blogelebrity pile, particularly in the technology sector. Read Write Web has written an article about the Future of Blogging, which presents lifestreaming as its future incarnation.

And while I believe that solution will work for most people who are blogging to share their personal lives, it’s not time to put that final nail in blogging’s coffin.

I’m slow to agree that blogging is “over”, or that lifestreaming is the next evolution. Sure, it’s the next “big thing”, but it’s an alternative to blogging, rather than its next natural descendant.

For people who actually write and create content, blogging still has its advantages. However, in terms of models that people will subscribe to, lifestreaming is probably more suited to almost any industry that changes at the pace of technology. It’s much better suited to those who spent most of their blog posts parroting something another person said, without adding their own perspectives.

photo credit: ?Ay??i {On Paestum!}

If you love to write — if you Live to write, I beg you, don’t succumb to the lifestreaming trend. There are people who still love to read, and that’s what you call a niche audience. I’d incorporate lifestreaming into your mix, but to abandon blogging in favor of it? Not without a good reason.

An example of a good reason is the echo chamber. Blogs that are built simply to report news or point out the next shiny new thing perhaps never should have started to begin with. If you have nothing original to add to the discussion, you should have started out lifestreaming, rather than switching to it as a last resort.

For the world at large, there’s still people who want depth, and to listen to folks who are, as the RWW article puts it, writing about things that excite them.

Thought leaders need to have places to store the innovative ideas, and images that they add to the discussion, for self-reference as well as to have a place for the people who have discovered them during the course of their lifestreaming to link to – we’re the reference points that many lifestreamers will cite.

Business and industry leaders will want to have an area they control to have certain conversations around content, service, and as an entry point into the sales process. Lifestreams point in dozens of different directions at once. So can blogs, but every page, every post can also point back to you.

Still, the point about the potential brevity of a lifestream is not to be missed:

The simplicity of a lifestream is ideal for our information overloaded age. Lifestreams are short and sweet, yet still provide the same insight into a person’s life as yesterday’s casual personal blog did.

That will work great for some folks. And if you don’t have enough to say on a subject, lifestreaming information you’re collecting, mixed in with tidbits about you is great. There’s nothing inherently wrong with lifestreaming, and I don’t wish to leave that impression. However, if you’re actually a leader in the discussion, or want to be, you’ll want to hang on to that blog.

It’ll still come in handy.

This is the 2nd in a series of 8 posts I’ll be writing during the next week, leading up to my retirement, all on topics I feel are relevant to be discussed before I begin to introduce new blogs and content.

I’m not leaving the internet, just internet marketing, & website promotion. If you need to contact me you’ll be able. The best way is currently following me on Twitter.