Is blogging dead?

Jason Calacanis retired from blogging. Jason retired because next to wanting to spend more time with his family, he believes blogging is dead. A controversial statement which guarantees a lot of response from bloggers. When blogging first became popular it was about connecting with an audience, building a lasting connection and having a conversation through comments. Like I often end my blog posts asking you to post a comment. Jason is right when he is saying that these days blogs are often no longer about the integrity of the content but the number of backlinks it receives, the number of page views and how high it ranks in Google.

Is this wrong or not? I believe that depends on how you portrait yourself. There are many bloggers these days that voice controversial opinions not because it is how they feel but because the secret to blogging success is response. Like they say “The only bad publicity is no publicity”. Many bloggers have realized this and they play on it. Often to increase page views and so increase advertisement revenue but also just for the sheer enjoyment of 15 minutes of fame. As Jason says “Folks are so desperate to be heard–and we all want to be heard that’s why we blog–that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual hearing.”

This blog centers around my life but also my social media experiment “Have you talked to Eiso Kant yet?”. Do I want to rank high and receive as many visitors as possible? In a way I do and in a way I don’t. It is in direct line with the goal of my blog to reach out to as many people as possible and have a real conversation with them. I love having a conversation and I blog to receive comments. From those comments I get ideas and the conversation that comes from it is so much more valuable than what I initially wrote. However I have made a conscious decision to not blog for search engines or backlinks. As you can see there are no advertisements on this blog and I also have no aspirations to become an A-list blogger.

Jason has solved this problem by starting an email list. My initial response was that Jason was trying to go for the million dollar success, email marketers like Mike Filsaime have had. I then read his first email. He convinced me that he was actually looking for a real conversation and connection with his readers. I replied to his email:

Dear Jason,

When I first read your announcement on your blog I wasn’t doubting if you were retiring from blogging but I was doubting your intentions. I thought “this guy who knows publishing inside and out, wants to do what guys like Mike Filsaime have done. That is make millions with promoting affiliates through newsletters.”. Your email convinced me that is not what you are doing and it has given me an immediate respect for what you have accomplished and what are you doing now. I’ve studied your Mahalo Social Media Campaign and I’ve respected the way you’ve used tools like Twitter to promote your company. What you are doing now gives an extra dimension to you as Jason, the person and not Jason, The Social Media Machine.

I look forward to reading your emails and having a real conversation (140 characters are overrated).

Best regards,

Eiso

I think I will be proven right or wrong depending on if he will reply to my email. If you are trying to build a valuable connection you cannot just have a one-way conversation.

July 14, 2008 | Filed Under Mini Essays 

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    • ^
    • v
    As you know, content is king. A blog is an excellent way to build your personal brand. I think influencers are going to crank out content, although there might be a shift towards audio and video.
    • ^
    • v
    This 'cranking' out out of content seems to be the problem. I have been at the head of a project where we hired article writers to populate blogs. When we paid them we didn't ask for great articles, neither were we looking for the best writers, we were looking for cheap keyword rich content. Advertising revenue came but visitors never stayed longer then 30 seconds on the site. It wasn't spam because we were offering real human written content but it was written with more of a focus towards Search Engine Algorithms then the reader. This is why I believe search is broken, as long as this will be a booming business people will continue to write for them.
    • ^
    • v
    I can't think of a more pointless exercise than blogging with the sole intent of raising numbers. I started a blog for three reasons.

    1) I'm an author, and I needed a way to reach out with my work to a larger band of readers.

    2) The WordpPress format of my blog is easier to maintain than a more complex personal web page.

    3) I like to write, and blogging is an outlet for opinions, observances, and connections to like-minded individuals.

    I try to keep content varied. I try to provide more than just a snapshot of my life, or an advertising billboard for my books.

    I LOATHE blogging about blogging (lol) Sorry Eiso - not a personal shot at this post of yours, but seriously...if blogging itself is the topic, I get bored very quickly. People have something to say, or they don't...repeating the Reuters news, discussing ad naseum the latest Social Media, or Twitter clone, or photo-blog, or micro-blog is not real content. It's blather. Maybe there should be a social media call Blatherskite - and all that stuff could be written about there...

    DNW
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    • v
    Hi David,

    Your reasons to start blogging are the ones that are valuable and should be uphold by more bloggers, unfortunately they are not. I have the tendency to say that the number of successful bloggers is proportionally related to those who blog for numbers. "An outlet for opinions, observances, and connections to like-minded individuals." is exactly why blogs are so valuable.

    No offence taken at your opinion. I can see where you are coming from but my opinion differs. Social Media has become a field of study on its own, just like there are authors blogging about writing. You are right to say that there is a lot of content without value being added to blogs, like posts about "Twitter clones". Often these are the authors who are not blogging for the right reasons. However I believe a critical post that discusses Twitter and comes with new arguments is valuable.

    The classification of a valuable blog post is for me reading something that offers a new view on things.

    Eiso
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    • v
    I agree absolutely. For instance, I've been choosing keywords to search on Twitter to try and build a group of followers that might:

    a) Be interested in my writing
    b) Might be of use in promoting my writing (and interested in doing so)
    c) Might increase my awareness of other useful technology.

    I'm an IT Director, and I've been on the net since the days of 300 baud modems and text-only bulletin board networking - I've seen a wide variety of things come and go.

    Your commentary seems slanted toward the useful side of discussion about social networking, while MOST content seems to be things like someone setting themselves up to tell others how to create more traffic - by writing blogs about creating more traffic. Very circular, irritating, and useless in the long run...because why create traffic if there's no destination.

    I've linked to your blog from my own...yours is categorized under "Worthy of Time".

    D
    • ^
    • v
    Thank you! Your use of Twitter is exactly what I have been advocating since I have been on it. Once that method will spread, Twitter will either become of greater value or it will dilute into a place of clever marketing spam. What you can see throughout the few years that "Web 2.0" sites have sprung into existence is that initially they often are of great value. Sites like Digg.com offered new and interesting links that you had no doubt about but to follow, these days you think twice about clicking through because a lot of it is clever marketing. I am curious to see:

    - If Twitter will break through the early adopters barrier.
    - If it does, if it will dilute, segregate or offer real value.

    There are a lot of blogs out there that offer no value: "circular, irritating, and useless". However I am inclined to say that I don't have to read them and therefore their existence is okay.

    What is my main objection against useless content is that it often ranks high in the search engines. Instead of complaining about that, I am working on developing a new type of search engine which should overcome these algorithmic limitations (more about this in the future).
    • ^
    • v
    Something you just said...

    Clever marketing Spam...

    There is no way that I can see of implementing this in Twitter with any success. Spam Twitter Accounts are easy to spot, and block...and there is no way they can force themselves on you. Twitter is only interesting if there is a real person actually contributing at the other end, so I think - in the end - Twitter will overcome it's recent bout of spam problems.

    Sadly, once spammers get an idea in their head, they don't seem to be able to follow it through to see if - logically - it will work for them. I cannot imagine anyone following a spam account on Twitter and actually following the link...

    In other words, I think it would have to be VERY clever...and so far I've seen no clever spam...

    There is also a group on Twitter that just re-tweets the same few blog posts over and over - usually about Word Press, Self-marketing, etc...the circular content I mentioned above that really provides no content at all. Not what Twitter is designed for, and not likely to work, as most people are smart enough to remove a Twitter account that repeats itself daily.

    D
    • ^
    • v
    I would love to agree with you on that but unfortunately my experience has taught me otherwise. You are right the obvious spammers who are now following thousands of people will slowly be filtered out. People are smart enough to not follow them or to just click the unfollow button. What is my concern is that Twitter might have the same fate as blogging. That there will be an underlying thought of marketing in Twitter messages. That automation will become more subtle and in the end Twitter Marketing will become profitable enough to be a real business. If this is necessarily a bad thing is for everyone to think about themselves. I am still undecided about it.
    • ^
    • v
    Great post, but let me show you a slice of reality: I'm a pro-blogger and of course we do it for the money. As our society contracts into itself, jobs become less exciting and have more rules. Commuting is hell, people are sadists, and you need to have $100K a year to get away from the ghetto. You bet your last dollar I'm gaming the blog numbers and Google stats to get away from the mess that is our society! See you in Hawaii
    • ^
    • v
    I completely agree with you that Pro-Blogging is a valid business/profession. Though there is a fine line between writing for money and selling out your integrity. I believe for many bloggers this line is either vague or nonexistent. You can write for readers and search engines at the same time. You can do this by offering content that has value to the reader and incorporate your sites keywords for search engines. I am currently doing this by setting up a few blogs with the intention to make money. They are situated in popular niches and I write for them with search engines in the back of my mind, however I do offer my readers value.

    The issue I find most pressing at the moment is attacks to other bloggers for the sheer reason of getting your blog noticed.
    • ^
    • v
    If anything leads back to the title of this original post, it's pro-blogging for nothing but money and search engine hits.

    There is a critical mass to all things - and eventually the people willing to shell out money for clicks and hits that are meaningless will dry up. Blogs without something actually interesting enough to draw readership might make some money, but over time, they become yesterday's news.

    "Seeding" posts with Google Trends and Technorati top search terms is a great way to draw in readers, but how about if once they get there they don't have to go...Oh man...AGAIN?...as they read s scraped post from some other source, or a single headline with a link, surrounded by ads.

    I'd propose that such a "blog" isn't really a blog at all, but more of a "Roblog". If there's no personal touch - no draw beyond a bunch of hot words on Google, there's no future.

    On a side note, Ad Sense and all that can go horribly wrong. When Indymac failed, and the articles started proliferating, I hit one link that was just a copy of someone's actual news story. The headline said something like LIST OF BANKS IN JEAPORADY and before the blog post even started, there was a link-list of Google Adsense buyers - including Wachovia - banks that came up in a search they paid for as the opening lines of an article claiming to be a list of failing banks.

    There is a certain very questionable morality to all of it.

    D
    • ^
    • v
    I agree with you David but I think it is important to make a distinction between what you call ‘Roblogs' and blogs that are written for a living. I doubt if there is any discussion about the value of automated blogs/twitter accounts/websites etc… they are often full of SPAM content. There lifespan is also not expected to be long, they are to make a 'quick buck' and then disappear into oblivion. That's why they are automated, so 1000s can be made.

    Blogs that are written by real human beings though are the ones that should have critical boundaries. Those lie differently for each blogger and that is why I wrote this post.
    • ^
    • v
    I think the blogging circle can only take so many people looking to make their fortune through adverts and high-hit blogs. "It" is saturated as it stands. Eventually it will explode, and those new to the game will have to go out and get real jobs again.

    Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of readers and I enjoy my own little slice of popularity, but that wasn't why I started blogging and it's not why I continue.

    So is blogging dead? No, I don't think so; even if the paid-blogging bubble bursts I don't think blogging on the whole will crash and burn. For every "Jason" that retires, there's thousands of others willing to take his place.
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