Are blogs dead? Should they be replaced by Twitter, Flickr, & Facebook?
I have a blog with a few thousand subscribers, and I've played with Twitter and Facebook, so I was surprised to read Paul Boutin's Wired article "Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004" [1] where he argues that blogs are a thing of the past for most of us. Do you agree? Should consultants like me drop their blogs, some of which we've poured 100s of hours of effort into? What's your best advice re: where to put invest our social collateral?
[1] http://www.wired.com/print/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay
Good Answers (2)
Doug K.
Regional Director, DevFacto Technologies
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I really don't think so. I think what is happening is much like what happened in the .com boom/bust period in that blogs took off and were an "easy" way to make some money. More and more .coms started to pour out of the woodwork as everyone tried to capture their little piece of the pie and as a result, a lot of useless .coms crashed. In the bust though, it wasn't the end of .com companies, just the end of the ones that provide no value. Many .coms actually became very profitable/effective as after the bust, their model turned out to actually be useful.
I think the same is simply happening with blogs in that it seemed like the easiest way to share information and make some money or promote some service, and people can see through that. The blogs that will stick around are the ones that truly provide useful information.
I would say that Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are the "new blog", just as blogs were the "new .com" in that everyone's rushing to sign up and try and make money... but its not that they're any better... they're just the next great hype. Like .coms and blogs before them, there is already a lot of garbage twitter and facebook accounts and just like .coms and blogs, there will be a point where the garbage starts to fall by the way-side and the quality users rise to the top.
Besides, I've yet to see a blog or twitter account as successful as Google.com, and I've yet to see a twitter or facebook account as successful as BoingBoing.net. I do however see successful .coms using blogs to increase their business and successful blogs using twitter to increase their readership.
Advice on where to invest time... tough to say as I don't blog and am not an avid twitterer. Facebook to me makes some sense... with plug-ins, it can be used to aggregate other social tools and present an image. My own page (shameless plug: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=650955254); in many ways, has replaced email for me and therefore adds little time to my day (although it does add an inbox). I've had a couple of net new contacts on Facebook to see if I'm available for work, and one of my recruiters only uses facebook to contact me now. Most of the information on my page however is driven by other tools I use, including my schedule (google calendar), notes (shared google items), goals (43things), etc. **The key here is to use it in such a way that it compliments what I'm already doing**
Twitter... same deal, can it compliment communications? For me, this has basically replaced chat agents such as MSN/Google chat, but now it is read by more people and can again, be used to drive traffic as a result, and can also be searched and datamined for marketing purposes (RSS feeding key words is an easy way to do some research!). For a blogger... perhaps it replaces blog posts that are more or less "hey, look at this", but at 140 characters, it can't really be used to communicate YOUR knowledge (unless you're simply pointing it to your own site, which is redundant). A recent tweet (i.e. message on twitter) that I liked was from Brian Clarke of Copyblogger as follows:
"I love that the founder of TweetDeck @iaindodsworth just replied to my TweetDeck concerns. Pretty cool."
For him, it reconfirms that he's on top of the web2.0 game and for me, it gives me a new tool to investigate someday (TweetDeck)... it compliments his existing practice, and provides me with useful info... win-win and therefore a successful use of the tool!
To quote another tweet in response to the same wired story (also by Brian Clarke): "Social media sites are tools to be used. Blogs and websites are assets to be owned and grown."
Honestly, that wired story makes me think the author is a bit of a bandwagon hopper... blog on Matthew, blog on!
Lisa B.
Public Speaking Coaching and Training || Please introduce yourself when sending invitation to connect
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The people who need me will find me. They always do.
Twitter and Facebook are fine supplements to blogging and they have their place, but are more about posting a pithy quote or quick link, or replacing IM. I have yet to follow anyone who can engage or teach me with a Tweet the way a good blogger can.
And for that matter, a blog is just one piece of the puzzle in a good overall marketing plan.
I'm accomplishing exactly what I want to accomplish with my blog: information, education, and a little entertainment. How exactly am I supposed to teach people to become better speakers in 140 characters?
"Further, text-based Web sites aren't where the buzz is anymore....Social multimedia sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook have since made publishing pics and video as easy as typing text."
So? That doesn't mean that everyone wants to see crappy homemade videos and pictures. Or even good videos and pictures, for that matter.
And why do I care what "Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies" are doing?
The writer is a little myopic, in my opinion, and assumes that one solution fits every kind of writer and every kind of reader.
Matt, I'm all riled up now!
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More Answers (28)
I think the idea of blogs as The Thing Everyone Must Have is dead, not blogs themselves.
For most people, Facebook and/or Twitter and/or Flickr are enough. Great! Fantastic! Hooray for multiple on-ramps and ways to express oneself and connect with others!
I like to think the explosion of people online via these other vehicles will improve blogs. People will use other kinds of social media for chatter and ephemera, and have meatier stuff on their blogs.
Absolutely, positively not.
And I don't say this just because I, like you, have spend hundreds of hours writing blog posts.
Your blog can be the water cooler. A place to consolidate information and talk about more in-depth topics than can be covered in a brief Tweet or Facebook status update.
Sorry Wired, you got this one wrong.
I don't think blogs are dead, they're just not for everyone. If you've developed an audience for your blog, keep blogging and participate in twitter, etc. as well. Making sure your blog posts get posted to your twitter stream, friend feed and any other social networking services you participate in. I pick up on lots of interesting posts through those other tools. And I do still continue to blog,
What are you trying to accomplish?
If long form information is an important part of your marketing effort -- which I would argue it should be for most consultants -- then you need a venue in which to publish it. That means either your own blog or a regular appearance in some other forum, or both.
IMO, Twitter is a fine way to keep in contact with people you already know. It's a terrible way to introduce yourself to new people, and a terrible way to persuade people to actually give you business.
Clarification added October 27, 2008:
"terrible way to introduce yourself to new people" -- or rather, it's like a business card. It's an introduction, but no more than that.
Phyllis Zimbler M.
Internet Marketing | Social Media | Strategic Branding | Author of HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE
If you are doing business on the web (or want to do business on the web) rather than just enjoying social media communities, I think in most cases you need to do both. A blog enables you to write cohesively for your target audience, while social media platforms such as Twitter (which I love) are great for learning about new things, being introduced to people you want to get to know better (usually in some other medium), and generally being part of humanity (if you spend most of your time in front of your computer).
What a silly thought! Typical of the hype machine that some media is, however. Just like PCs would kill mainframes. Just like TV would kill radio. And so on.
No, blogs are different from the other environments. Use each for what it does well, and enjoy the variety. It is typical but completely inaccurate to assume that the introduction of a new technology or medium will eliminate the use of the others.
If I'm looking for information about personal productivity I'm much more likely to run across your blog than your Twitter, Facebook or Flickr accounts. Even if I did happen to find you on Twitter, it is going to be much more difficult to convey the depth of your expertise 140 characters at a time.
Not dead, just redefined.
I decided to use FriendFeed to aggregate most of my online activity and then use the API to funnel that activity back to my blog. I have also disabled comments on my blog because I didn't have enough followers to add value in the comments section. But I still "blog" when I want to blow off steam or write an entry that isn't short enough for FriendFeed or other services.
The PHP code I wrote to surface the FriendFeed API is extremely simple to install and modify. It's called Frindo.
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Jon D.
Jon DiPietro: Internet Marketing Consultant, Author, Computer Geek
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Blogs aren't dead. Rather, the over-hype that was applied to blogs has been transferred to Twitter et. al. Blogs are still as useful and relevant as they always were, but now we can start over promising and under delivering with these other tools until Wired declares them replaced too.
Dave M.
Professional trade show booth traffic builder and party entertainer. Corporate and private sector events.
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You've got a few thousand subscribers, well, looks like the blog is far from dead. Keep on keepin on...
Great question. IMO, if you have something valid to say then the form doesn't matter. Good tools prevail, and diverge. We don't use less of them, we actually use more.
Peter R.
Telecom Consultant at RAD-INFO INC
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Blogs aren't dead. They are the simple way to have a current website. Blogs are good for SEO, so prospects can find you. Blogs are how I interact with my audience. Blogs allow probably clients to get an idea of my industry expertise. How do you replace that with Twitter or Flickr? There are probably some folks who could replace their blog with Facebook, but not consultants.
Jack V.
Knowledge Management and Operational Excellence Professional
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Let a dozen flowers bloom. http://blog.jackvinson.com/archives/2008/10/27/let_a_dozen_flowers_bloom.html
I guess it depends on why you are blogging. If you're doing so just to be 'cool' and involved with the latest tools, then it makes sense to follow the trends and go with Twitter etc.
In your case, I just don't see any benefit in dropping what, in my own view at least, is a really fascinating and useful blog. Your blog underlines your value as a workflow consultant as it demonstrates the depth of your knowledge as well as your intellectual curiosity on finding the applications of this material.
By all means, explore the many ways that the latest social networking tools can enhance the manner in which you deliver your message and develop your global profile but don't dilute the impact that your blog has in terms of demonstrating your personal integrity.
Links:
Blogs aren't dead!! Blogs are still very valuable as streams of detailed information. But why not also open up twitter & facebook accounts (& any others) and link all of them to each other? It'll enhance your reach & exposure.
Blogs are not dead. For a business, they remain the best vehicle for building a brand presence online and displaying the value and authority of your business. For personal purposes, well, now you have some choices. It depends on what you want to do. Twitter and Utterli can be good replacements if you're just chatting or "keeping up", where a blog offers a larger vehicle for writing and sharing different types of content.
I do not believe that blogs will ever be "over", but I do see them evolving into more specific streams of content with more specific purposes.
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I did a blog post on this here: http://is.gd/509j
Links:
Linda M.
Director of Rehabilitation Services at Calvin Coolidge Nursing and Rehab Center
Hello Matthew,
I am fairly new to blogging and the social media sites. I find it a challenge to blog because I can not do it routinely and seem to lose my 'stream of consciousness' or simply my flow. It feels more contrived in some way.
With the social media sites, I can not only post that which is on my mind, but respond to others. It feels more interactive to me and this is something I enjoy.
Of course if I had a few thousand subscribers to my blog I would imagine it to be pretty interactive.
I look forward to hearing about other people's experiences. Thank you for a great question.
Linda McDonald
www.mylifecompass.com/lleemcdonald
www.reachresources.net
Tom O.
SVP Sales & Client Development at NM Incite
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Blogs are not dead - but neither are they the second coming of all things web. The most often claimed number of blogs is >133 Million. Of these less than 5% were updated in the last 120 days, and less than 1% updated within the last week.
If you have that many subscribers then you have a very valuable property - and there is NO WAY it would ditch it for twitter, facebook or flickr. I would augment - but not replace.
TO'B
blogging at
http://humanvoice.wordpress.com
twitting at
http://twitter.com/tomob
etc.
Links:
Matt, thank you for this opportunity to publicly rant about the downside of these trends and search for signs of hope! Unfairly ignoring for the moment all the benefits of emerging technologies, I allow my inner luddite to speak…
our harrowing journey from messages to sound-bytes, handwritten letters to emails, email to chat, web sites to blogs, everything to TWEETS... increasing shallowness and nearsightedness... more connections (“friends”), more information, more messages in the inbox, the shout-box, the feed-box... keep it short, and about me if possible... faster is better and yesterday is dead, scrolled off the page of my caring… hype it up, grab my attention ... feed my addictions…slave to technology’s ego-affordances…
a spiral upward in quantity and downward in quality... quality of information, quality of connection...as life moves online where will we find the essential nutrients of depth, spaciousness, reflection, empathy, integrity…? Can the tools we design help us to become the best we can be, and not just more productive and consumptive flesh-bots in the life-web? In the 21st century we are more and more connected…that’s good, but how do we bring quality back in?---The collaborative, measured, sometimes sweetly painful search for what feels deeply true, right, beautiful, or good?
I have to agree with the consensus - blogs aren't dead and I like the one particular response "redefined" - this I agree with highly!
I am (and will always be) a fan of aggregation. while my blog hasn't been active for nearly 9 months - it automatically publishes to my facebook profile. As a result it increases exposure for those who want more detail when it's available esp for those who just "live' in the facebook world. The Twitter app on Facebook in the same light, is also worth implementing for the same reason - facebook followers get to see your tweets on a regular basis and has the nice feature to filter out Twitter replies which I find quite nice and friendly to the Twitter community.
While I did experiment with a wiki/twitter integration, I've put it to bed for a bit due to it's abstract, meta nature. I wanted the same to be true of a status update, you could click the embedded link for "more detail" and read about the "change" in one's life (as projected by the natural change mechanism that exists in a wiki) I attach a link to a wiki page should anyone is interested in reading more about this effort. I agree highly that each communication vehicle has its purpose and it is a matter of keeping everything consistent which is why I believe we choose a "portal" as home base whether it be facebook, gmail, twitter, what have you.
I'm also attach Jim Grisanzio's blog - a great gentleman I met at Tokyo 2.0 who just tweeted in the last 24 hrs that he find blogs & twitter updates complementary - i have to agree after following him for about 3 months.
Links:
Chinarut R. also suggests this expert on this topic:
Clarification added October 29, 2008:
added a link to Jim's profile here on LinkedIn :)
While I don't disagree with the consensus here that blogs aren't 'dead', I am firmly convinced that 'new' forms of social media are rapidly grabbing the lion's share of attention.
Creating quality content - which you certainly can't do on Twitter or FaceBook - is always going to have value for those who seek that content/knowledge.
But if you're not blogging about something that people care about and looking for, don't expect the world to beat a path to your door.
In any case, would definitely suggest you supplement - at least with Twitter. FaceBook is fun but I've yet to be convinced it has any business value.
Links:
Mattew, what is easier to use for you? A personal web page with a blog, or social profile? What is the difference? I think it is funny, people prefer profiles to their own web pages. Both offer the same thing to the educated user. And there are enough widgets available for the majority of us to treat our blogs or web sites are social profile pages.
Google has quietly introduced many of these features.
Blogs are not dead. Bad content is bad content - good content is good content - that's what it all comes down too. If a blog has bad content, then yes, that blog is dead. Wherever good, useful content is available, whether in print, on the radio, on a website or on a blog, it will be alive and have an audience.
Note that many of Twitter tweets link out to a blog post. Twitter is conversation, and although there's overlap, it is not so much content. Today's business needs to provide both (conversation and content).
Yes!
and....
No!
I think that question is like.... Are books dead... now that we have movies?
Or.... Will video conferencing eliminate travel?
No.... Of course not. These are all newer, more refined, different technologies... Filling different, if related, needs.
Blogs are perfect for longer-form articles.
Micro-blogging (Twitter et al) are perfect for short-form blogging. (As well as status updates, location updates, etc.)
I just discovered http://Ping.FM and I am IN LOVE!!!!!
It lets me write..... Short form.... or Long form... Blog..... Micro-blog... Status updates.... Location updates.... Even uploading Photo Albums.... all from one single console.... (the nicest one I've seen so far, btw)..... to
EVERY SITE OUT THERE!!!!!!
In one fell swooop....
I cannot emphasize the power of this enough.
This capability is as important as...... Remember back when EMAIL was separate...? Compuserve had email. The Source has email. And Genie had email. But none of them talked to each other....???
THIS IS BIG.
Centralized posting.
All of these tools just give you:
Broader Reach
More Flexibility in the Form you want to Express Yourself In
Sometimes, all you have time for..... in a quick one-liner....
Sometimes, all you have so far, are the pics....
Sometimes, you've taken the time to write a brilliant "article" on a topic...
I am now using http://Ping.FM to post ALL of those things.... to ALL of those places.
You will see ALL of it.... no matter whether you are one of my Wordpress Blog readers, a Facebook junkie, a Blogger reader, a MySpace freak, a Twitter Geek, a LinkedIn know-it-all :-) .....or whatever!
I am Everywhere! :-)
Back in 2004 or 2005 I read that someone predicted the term blog would go away and they would just be called 'web sites' like other web sites. I think in many cases that is true. I don't see blogs going away any more than I see e-commerce, news, or other types of sites going away.
These are all just different tools. Every tool has it's own best use. We didn't quit using hammers when the screwdriver came along. We won't stop using blogs just because Flickr came along.
It sounds like at least one person has figured out how to get some "Chicken Little" publicity by saying the sky in the blogosphere is falling though! :o)
I agree with many others that blogs aren't dead but redefined. I imagine more will become about sharing fully explored ideas (i.e. longer posts) while Twitter and Facebook will be used for the shorter posts. I did read somewhere that it looks like users of RSS feeds will likely peak in the mid-teen %, so that may be a sign of the mainstream not having a desire to fully adopt blogs.
David D.
System Administrator at TrafficCast
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Hello Matt!
I definitely do not think that blogs are passé. To me, Twitter is merely annoying; Flickr is for photos; and Facebook is too adolescent.
I think that blogs are here to stay and are a nice way to have a personal newspaper or diary (which is all they are) online. Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook are not for professionals (even photographers...) as far as I'm concerned.
