The 'is blogging dead?' debate continues, with Drew Benvie noting that Guardian tech reporter Bobbie Johnson has given up his blog.
Johnson - whose relationship with Little Red Boat's Anna Pickard made him half of one of UK blogging's top power couples - says there's 'too much else going on' for him to be able to continue writing it.
I think this is one of the major dangers of Web 2.0 - there's so much information and so many opinions coming at us that it feels like there's no time to stop and think. And when it feels like there's no time to stop and think, it definitely feels like there's no time to stop and craft an 800-word blog post.
But as I tried to argue to an anonymous commenter on my earlier post, a world in which we attempt to express our every thought or opinion in 'microblog' posts of 140 characters or fewer is going to be a very poor world culturally.
Johnson, luckily, still has to stop and think in order to produce considered and balanced articles for the Guardian. The rest of us need to be careful not to start believing we no longer have any time for thinking, reasoning and writing.
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3 comments:
I agree with your sentiments Fiona. Even without a proper day job at the moment the conflicting demands of updating Facebook, LinkedIn etc and a blog can be tough at times. I'm still of the view that Twitter can be used to supplement a blog (see Drew B) rather than acting as an effective replacement.
I hope people don't stop blogging. Not only is it a great way to build a personal brand, it's a great way to share your personal and professional passions. When I read blog posts I get excited with the writer about whatever the topic ... from Marketing to Parenting.
That's a funny post for me, in light of my recent post of having not spent enough time thinking OR blogging for a while, and then spending SO much time thinking that I failed to blog about that, either.
I do believe blogging serves an important purpose in helping those of us who communicate through writing to pull our thoughts and feelings together into coherent language. Sometimes the only person this helps is ourselves, but not infrequently, a reader may gain some insight -- or the bouncing off point for his own ideas -- from it. That cross-pollination is important for the intelligence of the planet, I feel.
I've found myself edging away from Twitter. It was fun to be clever on for a while, but then it got boring. There is, after all, a reason I'm not in advertising -- I am not a sound-bite sort of person. I need a few more words than that. (As my poor husband knows to his sorrow.)
At the same time I'm sympathetic to having too much going on in RL to blog. One must sleep sometime.
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