In November, I just feel some changes in the blogsphere. It seems to me that blogging activities are getting declining in the past month. I check my Google Reader few times a day in Oct, and every time I can get many updates, but recently, I check it daily and still didn’t get too much update. I didn’t change the feed source. It turned out that people blogged less. Did you observe the same decline in blogging?
P.S. Me? Don’t worry about me. It was just occasionally travel times, mixed with my passion for coding this week. Will be back to normal soon.
Because of everybody now is using Twitter or other miniblog?
everybody now twitters
everybody now twitters
Many people are also mini blogging of Sina :)I also quit the habbit of blogging everyday but mini blogging many times a day. But nobody knows the future. Sometimes I suppose that blogging are more close to meaningful thoughts. Maybe time will tell. :)
Because of several reasons:
1) Much of the comment is inane;
2) There’s too much comment about other peoples comment;
3) A lack of actual writing skills and/or ethics;
4) Most of them need serious editorial skills and are full of boring pompous crap;
5) No-one has any resources to move upstream and change into a bone fide newssite (with very few exceptions);
6) Corporates are moving away from it due to a lack of trust in the content and are restraining their staff from getting involved;
7) Twittering as was mentioned is simpler, quicker and easier and does away with the boring blog ranting that goes on.
I predict only the blogs who have evolved into some other form of media will survive
The reason I continue to read blogs, and predictably will do so in the future, is specifically *because* it takes more than 140 characters to convey what I consider to be meaningful ideas. I’m not looking for daily updates about what people have had for breakfast. Would much rather get into the “meat” of a discussion on topics I would not otherwise become familiar with thanks to the dialogues that take place at sites such as this one. Keep blogging, Jian Shuo!! And readers, keep the comments coming!!!
I’ve seen this trend, it is a little difficult for them to keep blogging.
Its was a business fad – everyone thought they could make their make and thus end up with some enormously highly paid job from having a great blog. As most may have realised – writing a diary, even a great diary does not make you a great employee – in fact I used to have the adage “if he had time to write all of that, he must have been un-employed”.
On twitter – I think it will work for news services (as a news link feed only) and probably for those people who greatly desire for the world to know what they are doing (and can’t get on Oprah to ‘privately discuss’ their issues – I mean who gives a toss that you are, right now, taking the dog for a walk) but I don’t see it really catching on with the teenagers – and if it doesn’t catch on there, it won’t survive.
Google wave is cute and kinda a great idea, but I think it will need to morph into something more open before it takes off – Google is starting to move past the 80% market share point and thus will need to be more focussed on what part of the internet market they want to own.
Future is “Collecting” of sound, twits, pics, data n vids
Techies is moving towards mobile platform, anywhere anytime access.
People are getting restless wants fast n more
Same time getting shorter attention span.
Watch out for wolfram, cloud n chrome
It’s funny. I actually see more blogs popping up all the time (though I read probably in a different sphere than you guys do — English-language blogs based mostly in Hong Kong). People write regularly, and they write long.
Some of these sites, like mine, are blocked on occasion in China. God knows why. While I sometimes comment on politics and media, it’s mostly about my not-so-controversial personal life!
Twittering? Meh. 140 characters? It’s just like Facebook. It’s good for keeping track of where people are, the odd pithy comment, but that’s all. Plus, PR people in Hong Kong are increasingly (annoyingly) using it to send out Tweets on clients. But in terms of good writing, you have to go with a longer format.
As for quality — I also work professionally as an editor. There are people in my industry who look down on blogging as an inferior form. But I’m actually impressed by the quality of writing and thinking that goes on in these so-called “amateur” forms.
Who do you think makes money from blogging?
Lost Laowai?
Shanghaiist?
ShanghaiExpat?
BizChina?
Any suggestions who you think makes money (which means its sustainable) makes a lot of money (which means its a career they can rely on) or isn’t making money? Because at the end people are either boggig for ego or for cash. Any ideas?
Hi He Haw — That’s a very cynical view of blogging! :)
I think the majority of personal bloggers are not in it for profit or self-promotion.
Looks at Hong Kong bloggers. They are lawyers, executives, working moms, university students, artists, political hands — they come from all walks of life. Very few make money from their blogs (or, if they do from ads, it’s very little money) and most are anonymous (so there’s no ego involved, since nobody knows who they are). And yet they write well and regularly for years.
I don’t write anonymously. But, given that I also write professionally for the NYT/IHT, the amount of money I make from my blog ($0) and the relative exposure I get from it (less than 1% of what I get at work) is really nothing. I just love doing it.
Blogging is a natural form of expression — every since the first caveman scrawled a picture on his wall, man has wanted to express himself. It’s something to do and enjoy — the same way people play music, exercise, or have hobbies in their spare time.
The problem is when people who know jack shite start to post nasty comments about other people on their blogs, or that blogs aren’t moderated properly and they refuse to remove offensive material on the grounds of “free speech” . That has happened here and on numerous other blogs.
Yes, so many people do twitter these days…
Yup, twitter is a thing that gives us so many possibilities in communications and organizing our time, as a research paper says it is the most progressive one.