Prompt's TechBlog

It's hardly news that newspaper cirulations have been falling; or that the internet has been cited as one of the main reasons for this downward trend. Nor is it surprising that in an attempt to arrest this decline, newspapers have been jumping on the new media bandwagon left, right and centre - in particular embracing the interactivity of Web 2.0 (in some cases more successfully and whole-heartedly than others). What is puzzling, though, is that whilst trying to incorporate (assimilate?) blogging into their online offerings, we keep seeing sceptical stories like this one in yesterday's Sunday Times (and also syndicated in The Australian).

Apparently, according to Tony Allen-Mills, or at least the headline and standfirst above his article, blogging was just a "craze"; one that has been an "extraordinary failure... [and] will soon begin a precipitous slide". If this is how the Times views blogs, you have to wonder how much longer any of these guys will be on its payroll, or its blogroll for that matter.

As for the evidence behind the story, it seems a little lacking. Granted, anyone who has spent any time perusing the blogosphere will have come across blogs like Santo Politi's (does he know he's made the news?); I can't help thinking, though, that citing celebrities' poor blog-keeping skills was relevant only to catch readers' attention. And as for the high-profile bloggers who have abandoned their blogs, like the article says, they have done so for good reasons: why mention them then? It certainly doesn't support the article's thesis that blogging is a dying craze.

The article does at least attempt to appeal to fact, though - by quoting the predictions of the IT analysts Gartner Research, made back in December 2006. These figures, like most statistics, can be interpreted more than one way. For an alternative, more positive interpretation of the same figures you might want to have a look at the founder of Technorati David Sifry's State of the Blogosphere report last November. According to him, the blogosphere "continues to be strong".

One bit of the article does seem reasonable, though: the last paragraph. No, not the bit about going to see Freaky Friday; the bit that suggests that blogging has merely peaked. Just because people who haven't the time, just didn't really like it, or were only blogging reluctantly on the advice of their publicists have dropped away, it certainly doesn't spell the end of blogging. If anything, a de-cluttered blogosphere can only gain in reputation. At which point, no doubt, lots more people will start blogs and the whole sorry cycle start up again (which I suppose would at least support my point of view). But whatever happens, it certainly doesn't look like the threat to 'old media' is going to dissipate as easily as it might hope.

Labels: web 2.0