This Is The End My Friend … The End of the Blog that is
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
… source
Lately Blogging Has Become Very Boring. YAWN!
Ok, I’m trying to be serious here so don’t worry this rant will be over tout de suite. Promise. It’s very late right now, I’m tired and frankly feeling a little cranky. So please bear with me as I bang out my frustrations on the keyboard.
Lately when I look around all I can see are more and more social networking sites popping out of the woodwork that are designed for just one thing in mind — to make their shareholders happy and take readers away from my blog.
The great hijacking of the blogosphere so to speak. Instead of feeding their own blog, bloggers are running like sheep over to someone else’s website and giving them all of the control.
What the…
Andy Beard recently tore a page right out of the Bloke’s book. He asked the question “Why Have Blogs At All? - The Race To Kill Blogging“.
Hear, hear Andy! He may have had a little tongue in his cheek when he wrote it but as for me I couldn’t agree more.
Social Networks are all the rage now. International corporate big-wigs smell the moola as they salivate over the success of MySpace. Then there was MyBlogLog, Blog Catalogue, Facebook, Mybook, Yourbook (I made those up) and these are only just a drop in the bucket.
The Social Networks appeal to pimply-faced kids who flunked english class and couldn’t write a paragraph even if they wanted to. Their only interest is to complain about their parents, dating and promoting their home-made rap mp3 that they made on their iMac they got from mum and dad.
Then there’s the odd lonely guy and cybernet-stalker (have you seen Dateline lately) who hide behind cute avatars and carefully crafted messages to make themselves more appealing to the youngsters.
Of course we can’t forget the splogpreneurs either (I just made that word up but if the shoe fits) who are only in it for the money and will stoop to any level to get it. It’s all so depressing.
What the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks is going on?
You don’t even need any technical know-how to make a blog anymore. Just fill in a few blanks (or pay someone to do it for you) and there it is. So where’s the challenge?
A-listers buy into it because they know it’s a trend that they just can’t buck (pun intended). Either join the crowd or die.
Robert Scoble (God bless him) is leading the charge because (let’s face it) it provides him with more fodder to feed the Twitter machine and interviews for his podcasts. He couldn’t write all that well anyway, but I still love ya big guy.
Mark my words. The way things are going it won’t be long before we will all be writing our own blog epitaphs.
“Here lie the remains of the Bloke’s blog, who used to blog about blogging … and if you don’t know what the word “blog” means look it up in the Wikipedia archives.”
It’s a sad state of affairs and not one that I’m sure I want to be a part of. The petulant pedantic of a cynic or the sober observations of a realist? You choose.
Then again maybe it was just a piece of bad cheese that I ate. Rant over and goodnight. Peeeeeeeeze!
Further reading: STOP Obsessing Over Social Networks and Get Back to Real Blogging
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I agree BB. I found my content partly taken lately and even though they linked back to my blog. They didn’t ask and there is nothing I can really do. About the only SN I belong to,If you call it a SN. Is twitter.
Curtis’s last blog post..Garden Blogging for fun, thats all
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I’ve been tweeting more myself lately, but most of it’s just … “I finished dinner and have a bit of indigestion … so what’s on the telly?”
BORING!
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I’m with you Bloke. I’m beginning to wonder, “just who do I blog for”. Besides, lately I’ve had a stalker that makes stupid comments with bogus names to direct traffic to his site. He’s wearing me down trying to keep them all deleted.
IS THERE ANYWAY TO BLOCK PEOPLE WHEN THEY HAVE TONS OF ‘NAMES’? Can you use ‘key words’ to block them - like costaricahq.org? See, I still come to the Bloke for help and answers.
Everybody and their brother is on the internet in some form or fashion. What the hell has happened? When it’s no fun, stop doing it. A Blog has a way of taking on a life of it’s own.
Tica Macha (Teri)’s last blog post..Sunset Sunday
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When I left a comment (hit post), it went to a blank screen and not back to your site. Is that a glitch or the big bright light at the end?
I tried it again and the same thing happened, blank screen.
Tica Macha (Teri)’s last blog post..Sunset Sunday
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Thanks for mentioning that Teri. I noticed it on this end too and I was wondering if it was just me. I have no idea why it’s doing that and I will contact my blog host provider to look into it.
Wordpress has an option to block commenters by words, names, url, email and IP address. Very nice for getting rid of those annoying repeat offenders. Unfortunately Blogger doesn’t have anything remotely similar so you’re kinda outta luck there.
Another good reason to upgrade
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Ok I figured it out. The only thing that I added recently was the “popularity contest” plugin. When I deactivated it the comments publish button now works properly.
Thanks Teri!
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I agree that it’s depressing that there are so many of these sites now.
But blogging is still worth it, I reckon. People will have their flirtation with those sites but will get sick of all the crap in them. They’ll come back to quality, consistent blog content in the end.
The best approach is to just keep plugging away, writing good unique stuff.
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I hope you’re right Matt. But right now I’m not feeling all that hopeful.
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3:05 am….. When do you sleep?
Tica Macha (Teri)’s last blog post..Sunset Sunday
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Lately not that much.
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I’ve certainly noticed a number of previously prolific bloggers either slacking off or stopping posting altogether. Folks I’ve been subscribing to for the last 12-18 months have closed their sites or sold them off. I guess with blogging there is always going to be a fairly high churn rate so I wonder if this is just a cycular thing or a sign of the future.
I know my personal output has been down over the last few months but that’s because of real life getting in the way of my writing. It’s not because I’ve fallen out of love with blogging it’s just that I’ve not got as much time to blog as I used to.
Mike’s last blog post..LTNS
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Mike, I’m curious who those prolific bloggers are that you mention falling off the wagon. Care to tell? I would be interested.
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Come on, I just started my blog and somehow found your blog on the way and you are telling me this is the end? Then, I must quickly grab sometimes to read up all your older post… Look very interesting here.
Asia’h Epperson’s last blog post..Asia’h Epperson Really Don’t Understand Google
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I posted this on Kathy’s blog too that a couple of my favourite feeds haven’t been updated in the past couple of months - one of them is Juggling Frogs - remember ?
Social Networking may be in but it’s all worth it when the nerd you knew in high school is impressed by what you write !
I agree with Andy on how useful comments can turn out to be and it happens to me too all the time !
The other side of the story is that I know some of my friends read my blog but they shy away from commenting and instead talk to me in person or ha-ha-hee-hee it on Facebook ! There’s no way to control that !
Jaffer’s last blog post..A new WordPress, a new design but not before a new adventure
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Hmm…dunno if the last comment was swallowed up or not so, just in case, sites like Marketing Syndrome and Modern Life Is Rubbish haven’t updated this year and Neil Patel used to update Pronet Advertising on a daily basis but has only posted half a dozen times this year.
Plenty of sites I used to subscribe to have sold out to new authors who simply don’t cut the mustard so I’ve unsubscribed. Ultimately I subscribe to people, not sites.
Mike’s last blog post..LTNS
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Stuart of Modern Life did mention in one of the comments that he was working on other projects. His Fuzznut.net website is updated almost everyday.
I guess he’s more into music that the web these days.
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I remember him saying that he was laying off the blogging for a bit but it seems like Modern Life is definitely dead in the water.
Another example is 10e20.com - sometimes a couple of posts a day and now nothing since Feb 15th.
Others have just given up the ghost and simply not posted for months (Rory at Clean Cut Blog) or have said they’re giving up (Chris at BlogOp).
As I said, I guess it’s all part of the natural churn.
Mike’s last blog post..LTNS
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I think it’s very sad that a blogger could develop online relationships and then just suddenly disappear into the ethosphere. It shows an indifference to their readers. I really miss bloggers like Rory. He had so much potential and was a terrific writer. Since you’re in that neck of the woods is there any way you could look him up Mike?
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He’s up in Scotland so it’s a fair old trot from London!
Mike’s last blog post..LTNS
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It’s a shame. He was a very talented writer.
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“Mike, I’m curious who those prolific bloggers are that you mention falling off the wagon. Care to tell? I would be interested.”
This is my first time here. Having read some of your posts, I like your attitude. Wish I had come a-visiting earlier on. Pity you’re calling it quits. Oh yes, I’ve noticed a number of prolific bloggers slowing down or dropping out. Written about it, too. Just want to mention Problogger. Although he still has his personal blog, he’s not writing that much. More often he’s using guest writers to back him up especially one who called herself Skelliewag. Be careful of the bad cheese, have a good day!
Markk’s last blog post..JohnCow.com Up For Sale
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I haven’t yet decided for certain if I’m going to call it quits Markk. So stick around awhile. I have a lot to consider. Regarding Mr. Rowse it seems that he’s been busy recycling his archives into a book. Can’t wait to read it (again).
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[…] it’s true. Further to my rant the other day about the proliferation of social network sites hijacking the blogosphere, Blog Bloke has seen the writing on the wall and decided it’s time to pack it in. It’s […]
[…] also been thinking about bloggers like Rory Sullivan and Juggling Frogs amongst others that I enjoyed reading and who have now long […]
[…] discussion in the comments section. The conversation carried on over at Blog Blokes place in his post about the end of blogging where we looked at once prolific bloggers who now either post infrequently or not at all. People […]
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