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Blogging platforms and personal blogs have both seen dips in traffic with the emergence of Twitter and Facebook. Services like Blogger and LiveJournal, which cater to a younger crowd focused on sharing thoughts and experiences with others, have borne the brunt of the decline. A Pew Research Center poll found that the percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds with blogs had fallen by half since 2006, to just 14-percent in 2010. The drop-off has been much less pronounced among older Internet users, falling just 2-percent over the past year. Youngsters aren't just ditching blogs for other means of socializing; they're turning to Facebook and Twitter for self promotion, too. High school senior and aspiring filmmaker Michael McDonald told the New York Times, "I don't use my blog anymore, all the people I'm trying to reach are on Facebook." Another high school senior, Kim Hou, believes that the move is born of convenience. "It's different from blogging because it's easier to use," she said of Twitter. "With blogging you have to write, and this is just images."But blogging is far from dead. Sites like Tumblr and Wordpress continue to show strong performance in the face of the social networking surge. Tumblr blurs the line between true blogging and microblogging services like Twitter, while Wordpress is the platform of choice for many professional media outlets. Blogging has mutated from a largely personal publishing medium to the foundation on which media empires are built. So, don't lament the so-called decline of the blog. While Twitter and Facbeook may find favor with youth looking for the easiest way to put their thoughts and experiences online, the professionals are sticking with the blog.
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Comments
2
Subscribe to commentsAurrinFeb 21st 2011 6:59PM
I wouldn't mourn the loss. A lot of the 'content' leaving the blogs is the kind of vapid, empty livejournal filler that made good, meaningful blogs hard to find. In the end, I'd have to say that's one of the only real good things about Twitter: It's serving as a sponge to soak up the pointless oversharing that used to clog up a lot of the rest of the internet.
David PerdewFeb 22nd 2011 10:21AM
Exactly, blogs aren't dying. The dynamic of how blogs are used during the social media revolution is changing, that's all. Bloggers are migrating toward business, and business is a good model for building a network with a blog. Then, you incorporate social media into your blogging experience to fill in the gaps, improving both networks considerably. What's dying is the use of blogs for personal interests, since it's now much easier to find those with similar interests on Facebook, Twitter, and the like.