Are Blogs Dying?

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments
Categories: Blog, Social Media


The state of the blog in a world where Facebook has become the most popular website real estate in the world, raises the question “Is the humble blog on a path to a quiet extinction at the hands of the social media juggernaut?”

Facebook has certainly motivated some casual hobbyist bloggers to desert the blog and they have leapt onto Facebook and started publishing their information and updates there due to its ease of use, wide range of features and tools that allow them to easily publish and share. Are Blogs Dying?

Technorati (the internet search engine for searching blogs and has indexed over 100 million blogs) has just released its  annual “State of The Blogosphere 2010 Report” that highlights the latest trends in the blogging landscape that shows that the blog is not dying but instead evolving and changing to reflect our contemporary habits online.

So what did the report reveal and what are the top line trends that are emerging?

  • Blogs are in transition and are no longer considered an upstart but are being taken seriously as an alternative to mainstream media with a 40% of people trusting a blog as a source of information and news.
  • Bloggers use and engagement with social media tools is expanding with increased use of Twitter and Facebook.
  • Sharing of blog posts is increasingly being done via social networks
  • Mobile blogging  on smart phones and iPads is quickly evolving with 25% of all bloggers already engaged in mobile blogging and has changed  the way they blog to shorter and more spontaneous posts.
  • Women and mom bloggers are very connected with their communities and making their voice heard online with their influence and impact on brands being taken very seriously with over 50% of them being approached by brands

The report also revealed the fastest rising blogs in 2010 which reflects the dynamic and evolving blog universe.

1. BuzzFeed.com (change in blog rank from 14,205 to be ranked 73rd)

Buzzfeed is a website that attempts to detect and list “viral content”, or videos that are bound to spread like wildfire around the internet. The site aims to serve as a central location for users to find and share the hottest new trends that are emerging on the web. BuzzFeed provides an RSS feed, email updates and a widget that users can embed on their own sites. The site is intended to provide an aggregation of all of the latest trends and memes developing on the internet in order to capture the latest fads that are emerging on the internet.

Buzz Feed a website for tracking viral content on the web

2. The Onion (moved from a rank of 14,204 to now rank at position 108)

This blog is a satirical news blog and reflects strong elements of what blogging is about.

The Onion a satirical news blog

3. UberGizmo (now ranked 156th but was previously at position 1,925)

A blog about the latest gizmos and gadgets.

Ubergizmo a blog about the latest gizmos and gadgets

4. RedState (ranked currently 56th, a year ago was ranked 1,404)

5. Towleroad (ranked 184 after being in position 770 before)

These blogs epitomize what good blogging practice is all about, focused, opinionated and utilizing the best technology that they can afford and implement.

Blogs are here to stay but they are very different to what they were 5 years ago and will continue to evolve.

Where do you think blogging is going?

Image by dsnowb



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  • http://www.theorganicview.com June Stoyer

    Thanks to main stream media being owned, people have resorted to blogging now more than ever. It is the only way they can communicate freely and get information to other people in other parts of the world.

    Blogs are now very critical because the information is being researched (from legit and established bloggers) and they are picking up where MS media has left off. ]

    As it is print papers are going out of business. Perhaps one day when they realize people want the truth and can back it up, then they will get back to true journalism instead of being glorified tabloids.

  • http://www.barbaraling.com Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach

    Blogs dying? HAH!

    The wise folk know that it’s simply the *best* way to start building your own brand online, be that brand an entrepreneur, a career-minded individual, a mom, a kid, a rock-climber, whatever.

    Blogs will never die is my opinion, they’re just transform into something else.

  • http://blog.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

    I don’t think blogging is gonna disappear anytime soon, as it puts people at the center of content creation no matter what, without specific requirements or needs dictated by traditional press.
    It will evolve into something more and more socialmedia-centered, but in my opinion it will remain the central hub of information for a long time still.

  • http://www.silktide.com David Ball

    There always needs to be an alternative to the most popular platform, so blogs will exist side by site to Facebook. The biggest reason for their existence will be that Facebook won’t allow you to brand your own pages, threrefore additional ites will still be needed for blogs that need alternate layouts or a different visual look and feel.

  • http://thindifference.com/ Jon Mertz

    Blogs are “in transition” I think is one of the key points. With other social media channels open, it creates more vehicles in which to deliver the blog content and have solid interactions. Branding of blogs will be crucial in getting noticed and rising above the 100+ million others.

  • http://www.EfficientArticleMarketing.com Anne Moratis

    Blogs are and will always be a great way to share opinions, news and information. They provide a great alternative to mainstream media and as such are an essential communication medium in democratic societies.

  • Stan Przybylinski

    Blogs are a lot of work for people, in the main, who are talking about their favorite topic: themselves. Many will die a natural death as the bloggers attention span wanes, they are unable to monetize them as they planned, or their “Brand” fails to get any traction.

    I agree they will replace some of the mainstream media, but without journalistic ethics (I know, some may say this is an oxymoron) we will be back to the famous cartoon: “On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog.” Or, more pertinently, that you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground on your topic.

  • http://www.sodomie-parfaite.com sodomie

    Thanks due to the fact that this discriminative article, it’s very much famous blogs

  • http://br.linkedin/in/fernandolgguimaraes Fernando Guimaraes

    Dear Mr. Bullas,
    I have eventuallly translated your great content into portuguese and used parts of it at my blogs. However I would like to deepen our accidental relationship and to have your consent to do this from now on.
    Best wishes,
    Fernando Guimarães

  • http://www.elsua.net/2010/11/24/imagine-an-island-and-then-come-along-welcome-back/ E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez » Imagine an Island and Then … Come Along! Welcome Back!

    [...] thinking it’s just too late to come to the blog back again, right? Well, you know, after all, blogs are dying, aren’t they? So it may have looked like this one was heading in that very same direction [...]

  • http://www.experiate.net Paul Flanigan

    My knee jerk reaction is that blogs aren’t dying, websites are. And that the nomenclature is the problem. Blog connotes journal/diary type of material. But it has gone mainstream now. I use a WordPress foundation for my website. I haven’t touched HTML in a year.

    The website coding makes the “blogging” method much leaner and efficient – it makes it easier for communication which is where it’s all going.

  • AJ

    Blogs are not dying…They contribute a lot to the organic search for brands, a good blog is worth a lot to a brand. Blogging, and other social media are here to stay. Beacuase a brand needs and want traffic to their site. @Paul Flanigan Altough more and more happens off-site a website is still important to a company or brand.

  • http://www.experiate.net Paul Flanigan

    I agree. To clarify my point, I think that the “blog” platform is a more desirable platform for a brand’s website, instead of HTML pages.

  • http://internetmarketing.ricklapoint.com/blog Rick LaPoint

    I think blogs and traditional websites are blurring. My old website always had daily commentary; I just had to enter it the old fashioned HTML way.

    Now I’m about to rearrange my blog to make it more like a website, since most of my material isn’t tied to current events, but is useful information.

    It makes a lot of sense to use WordPress as a Static website. It’s very adaptable and flexible.

    Blogs, Web, Social Media are merely tools that can be used however the imagination can make them work.

    Rick

  • http://twitter.com/nuttynupur nuttynupur
  • http://twitter.com/nuttynupur nuttynupur
  • http://experiate.net/2011/03/29/are-blogs-dying/ Is Your Blog Going to Die? — Experiate

    [...] few weeks ago, Jeff Bullas, social media extraordinaire wrote about blogs and the impact Facebook has on them. He wrote that many have abandoned the idea of a dedicated site and are instead publishing to the [...]

  • Stuart

    Can’t be dying yet, I’m on yours. (lol). Found it via a RT from Linkedin No1 connection. How many books can one person read in a year?? Somethings gotta give. How many social media platforms can one human manage? It’ll morph into a hybrid: blog+website+ social media platform / communities of interest group tool.

    CEOs – a blog cry in the dark. If a tree falls in a forest does anyone hear?
    Whats interesting is the number of CEOs that blog and there are ZERO comments from anyone- employees, clients, peers, ZIP. I meet many CEOs like this as they get a email alert when I chime in. (reps, please add value and provide links to NEW and relevent information when you comment).

    So, lonely blogs are a good thing, IMHO

    regards,
    Stuart

  • http://twitter.com/StickyClicky Barbara Benham

    I don’t know if blogs are dying, but undated blog posts are alive and well. Why not date your blog posts, Mr. Bullas? It’s vexing to see a tweet about a post and get to the post and find that it’s old, not even sure how old!

  • Elaine

    I think in many ways it depends on the industry.  The bridal industry is very strong in blogging and posting examples from real weddings that can inspire the engaged brides who are in the midst of bridal planning fury.  The niche that I am in (rehearsal dinner planning)is receiving more and more attention because there are many questions out there about it that have not been answered since most wedding bloggers attention is given to the big day. Facebook is good for posting random pics of weddings but the blog puts them all together nicely by topic.  So in the wedding industry at least, I believe both blogging and facebook offer great ways to share bridal content, just blogging allows for more content to be viewed vs. a facebook post.

  • http://leadingonlinemarketing.net/business/beginners-guide-on-how-to-video-blog-on-a-budget-%e2%80%93-part-two.html Beginners Guide on How to Video Blog on a Budget – Part Two | Business News – Tech News – Entertainment – Mobile – Social Media

    [...] rumours and predictions that Facebook would  be the death of blogging seems to have been greatly [...]

  • http://twitter.com/mgregueiro Matthew González

    I just moved my blog to a public facebook page. 

    Thus far, the biggest plus has been that all my content now “happens” within the social network. Blogging through sites like Blogger, Tumblr, and WordPress are pretty awesome; however, the major disadvantage these services share is that they exist outside of social networks. After each post I found myself needing to bring my content to where readers are: twitter, facebook, google+.This was my primary motivation in making the move. Instead of posting content outside of a social network then bringing it in, I now create/post from the inside. Not only is this more efficient, but it more easily integrates with facebooks charing features, e.g., videos, images, etc. 

    Matt
    http://www.facebook.com/mgregueiro

  • http://socialmediatoday.com.au/2011/08/how-to-use-your-blog-as-a-viral-online-publishing-hub/ Writing a Blog #4: Your Blog as a Hub, to Spread Your Word | Social Media Today

    [...] aren’t dying and Facebook has not certainly not killed off the blog, they have just evolved into a platform that [...]

  • http://matejtomic.com/2012/03/17/censorship-surveillance-threats-the-dark-side-of-the-blogosphere/ Censorship, Surveillance, Threats: The Dark Side of the Blogosphere | matejtomic.com

    [...] in the minds of American information seekers. Digital marketing expert Jeff Bullas picked up this subject and cited a stat from Technorati’s State of The Blogosphere 2010 Report which reveals 40% of [...]

  • http://seoeguide.blogspot.in/ shashi kumar

    I don’t know blog are dying or not but it is still working or alive. Every day so many blogs are coming because people like it and it is the one of best way to getting the information. This is the place where we can know easily and in better way any information related to our topic.

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