Social Media 2.0 | Home | Twitter is Not a Social Network

The Annual State of Blogging

December 27, 2010

This past year Wired magazine declared that the Internet was dead. And usually at the end of the year someone declares blogging dead. To be honest I have not see the posts yet, but have seen the chatter on Twitter. For much the same reason the Internet was declared dead, blogging is being declared dead due to the rise of Twitter and Tumblr.

The fact is blogging is not dead, and neither is the Internet. One of the most popular online property's is a blog (Gawker), The platforms might change, but the underlining principles behind blogging (and the Web) will never change. Blogging is the 21st century printing press that allows anyone to be publishers. And publishing has been around since we have written on cave walls.

Blogs are dynamic websites that use powerful content engines that allow a writer to publish and tag content for readers. You can argue that any publishing website (NY Times, CNN) are blogs -- just more advanced, with multiple bloggers (aka reporters and editors). What sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have done is raise the profile of blogs even more as people tweet and link to blog posts to raise their profile. Just think of the impact a person with 100,000 followers can have if they tweet a link to your recent blog post? What these micro blogging/social networking sites are doing is improving the Web experience and helping bloggers build their audience without having to solely rely on Search and being linked from other sites.

So the same basic concepts apply to having a good blog. The first is having good content. Content will always be the most important aspect of any blog. A blog’s success is dependent on having content that leave people coming back for more, which is why Gawker is so popular (people love gossip). Good content delivered on a frequent basis is the key. So when someone does tweet your last blog post to thousands, they become readers of your blog.

The fact is maintaining a successful blog is time consuming and extremely hard work. Which is a reason why blogging will never be dead. Successful bloggers are passionate. They will continue to crank out content that we crave. And this is not all be driven by pure monetary gain. Sure that is nice, but most bloggers do not start out thinking their blog is going to make them millionaires. What the Internet is proving more and more is that people like to share and have conversations on topics they are interested in. Blogs are the engines that drive this conversation. One only has to look at the enormous success Federated Media has experienced the last few years as it serves as the advertising engine for successful blogs that cover a wide range of topics, but more importantly drive conversations.

So the next time you hear that blogging is dead, just think of the last 10 websites you visited and you will have your answer.

Tags: Blogging , Federated Media , Gwaker

Categories: Online Publishing/Blogging

Comments