Blogging’s Second Bounce?

Posted on | July 29, 2010 | 10 Comments

The explosive growth in blogging has, inevitably, flattened out somewhat over the past couple of years. Those who led the way into blogging a decade ago and more were rare and hardy pioneers for a few years before people like me, from the middle years of the decade onwards, saw the light and piled onto the blogosphere in massive numbers. Of course, many who stepped into this interesting manifestation of a Habermasian public sphere have since fallen by the wayside or have lapsed into long periods of quiescence interspersed with just occasional short bursts of activity. And, in the meantime, Facebook and Twitter have colonized large swathes of territory that the blogs previously monopolized.

Only the most foolish and myopic observers will see these trends and happenings as proof of ‘the end of the blog’. The blogosphere is alive and well and, indeed, maturing into something that, at its best, can add even more now to the sum of human knowledge and welfare than it did in its first decade. Twitter in particular has, I believe, had an interesting effect on the more traditional kinds of blogging (how odd it is to be able to term a phenomenon as young as the blog as ‘traditional’). Some of those who were swept up by that mid-decade burgeoning of blogs have pretty much abandoned their blogs altogether and now inhabit the Twittersphere instead – they have realised that the 140 character ‘limit’ is no limit at all, and they have grasped the intriguing freedoms it offers with both hands. Again, those who dismiss Twitter as a bastion of trivia and ephemera completely miss the point. However many bloggers are now working with a combination of their blogs, Twitter, perhaps Facebook, and myriad other tools – but for the bloggers, of course, their blog is still the central component. At least, that’s how it is for me.

So, what is the blogosphere becoming? How is this maturing of blogging manifesting itself on the ground? I glanced through a large number of still-active and vibrant blogs (all of which I follow daily in my RSS feed) and I took a quick ‘temperature’ of what I saw. In there, I could see bloggers using their blogs effectively for a number of significant purposes, and often for more than one. These include:

chronicling and commenting on a journey (metaphorical, emotional, virtual, personal or whatever)
a vehicle for personal expression
a tool for channeling vanity and ego into productive (or even simply interesting) creativity
a focal point – or one of a matrix of focal points – for a conversation, a debate, an argument
developing a genuinely critical voice in one or more knowledge domains
a highly effective network-building instrument
a medium for high quality journalism and comment
maintaining a simple personal or family diary
building and maintaining contact with customers, friends, colleagues, whoever
an outlet for scholarly writing, thinking and research
a platform for political, ideological, philosophical, religious, anti-religious ideas
and, of course, a conduit for a whole world of thinking, practice and ideas in education

The list, even on the basis of my quick perusal of that tiny portion of the blogosphere that I inhabit, could go on and on – and I am sure that fellow-bloggers could quickly expand the list many times over.

And interestingly for me, I am beginning to feel a slight resurgence in interest in blogging, especially as I travel to various parts of the world. I am beginning to wonder if the blogosphere is about to see a second bounce start to happen….I hope so.

Blogs are alive. They are spirited, passionate, intriguing, emotional, informative and a window on humanity. I’m more than happy still to be a blogger.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogosphere, microblogging, social technology

Category: blogging, community, creativity, education, identity, intelligence, journalism, knowledge, learning, media, metaphor, microblogging, passion, personal, platform, politics, religion, research, social networking, social technology, society, technology

Comments

10 Responses to “Blogging’s Second Bounce?”

Tess Watson
July 29th, 2010 @ 8:18 am

Hi John.

As one of the bloggers who has somewhat ‘quietened down’ over the last two years, I think you may well be right.

It is interesting how to see how internet technologies have evolved, diverging and converging…

Watch this space…

Tess
Jackie Cameron
July 29th, 2010 @ 8:35 am

This post really clarified what I have been struggling with lately. My blog is still the core of what I do – 4 years after starting it as an experiment. Linkedin, Twitter and most recently Facebook have been added to the mix of how I communicate about my business and thoughts generally but mostly it is linked to the blog.

I always said that I would only post when I had something ( that I considered to be ) interesting to say. This means for me surges of posts and quiet spells – but I think that comes from understanding of what I want to achieve and that – in the main- my readers won’t desert me if I don’t post for a few days

Thanks John
Alan Coady
July 29th, 2010 @ 9:49 am

Nice re-framing of what will no doubt be a continually changing situation. Re Twitter and its critics – I tend to find that those who criticise such resources are not users, have not tried and tend to tar the reach of our imaginations with their limited brush.
Bobby Elliott
July 29th, 2010 @ 12:47 pm

Interesting post, John. I agree that blogging has firmly established itself as a communication tool.

But some blogs don’t seek to do any of the things on your list. The SQA Computing blog (http://sqacomputing.blogspot.com/) is primarily a means of sharing information (in chronological context and direct from the horse’s mouth) and deliberately avoids opinions and subjectivity. It simply imparts useful (I hope) factual information to a specific audience. It also serves as a crude knowledge management tool since it helps me and my team remember what we did/said/promised.

I think the same can be said of Twitter. It’s a great way of giving short, factual updates to a specific community.

It’s a great shame that so few teams and organisations use such tools.
Shirley Campbell-morgan
July 29th, 2010 @ 1:20 pm

I agree that blogs can be used in so many ways. I have used a blog now in a similar way to the one mentioned in the comment above instead of a school website. (http://loirstonconnect.edublogs.org/) The school administrator can use it easily as can anyone with the login details.
Parents love it as they can subscribe and receive an email when there is a new post.
Pupils can be involved by creating slideshows etc. Vastly better than our old website which I only found the time to update about once a year and it saves all that paper from being sent home.
Shirley Campbell-Morgan
July 29th, 2010 @ 1:23 pm

and I love the fact that I arrived on this post via Facebook!
John Connell
July 29th, 2010 @ 3:31 pm

Bobby / Shirley,

Great reminder of further uses of blogs – as I say above, my list, I know, could be expanded hugely with many other valuable functions.

Alan,

It’s always interesting to hear from those who ‘have tried Twitter and found it wanting’ – when you check out their presence, their ‘following’ and ‘followers’ numbers are usually very low, and often in single figures. They simply haven’t given themselves the chance to reach ‘critical mass’ with the tool.

Tess / Jackie,

One of the ways in which the blogosphere is definitely maturing is in the way that few sincere bloggers today really bother much about their Technorati rating or similar. If you see yourself as part of an ongoing conversation that has value for you and for others, it matters not whether that conversation is with 2, 20, 200, 2000 or 20,000 people.
Alan Hamilton
July 29th, 2010 @ 8:29 pm

And hopefully with the arrival of Glow blogs a new wave of folk in Scottish Education will see the benefits and challenges of blogging and sharing.

Alan
John Sutton
July 29th, 2010 @ 10:02 pm

As someone who is interested in the educational aspects of blogging (I provide self-hosted blogs to primary schools)I’m finding schools “get” blogging in a way that they just didn’t a couple of years ago. From the start of a new project the typical “ramp up” period is becoming shorter and teachers are engaging with the opportunities for learning that blogs afford quicker. I find this hugely encouraging.
Bobby Elliott
July 30th, 2010 @ 9:34 am

One other thing. Blogs are also good assessment tools. They are exceptionally well-suited to recording learners’ on-going activities (and, therefore, serve as log books), they externalise thinking (making formative assessment much easier), and can be used as e-portfolios when used with an online file hosting service (such as drop.io).