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March 26, 2007
There is an article from the Sunday Times downloaded into todays Australian that talks about the death of blogging. It is not attributed to any journalist. It's central argument is:
The extraordinary failure rate of online diaries and claims that interest in blogging will soon begin a precipitous slide are sparking an intriguing debate about the future of self-expression on the internet and whether blogs, once seen as revolutionary, are destined to become a footnote in the history of computing.To the embarrassment of millions of internet users ... the evidence of failed diary-keeping cannot be easily erased from search engines that continue to provide links to blogs that have lain dormant for years. Some internet analysts call them "ghost blogs", lingering reminders of a cultish enthusiasm for self-expression that is rapidly wearing off. Others liken the abandonment of blogs to "the suicide of your virtual self". At least one internet writer blames the blogging culture for helping to turn the internet into a "dictatorship of idiots".
it reads like professional disdain for the amateur. It makes no attempt to address the political blogs (which remain very lively in the face of newsroom budget cuts) or cultural blogs. Blogging is equated with personal diary writing--hence we have ghost blogs---not the rise of blogging as citizen journalism in response to the decline in the quality of the mainstream media.
Presumably political blogs would be dismissed as just chatter by freeloaders --- regurgitating someone else's reporting work. It would not be considered commentary upon the work of journalists.
The critical edge of blogging in relation to Canberra Press Gallery journalists on a drip feed is ignored in this turgid piece, as is the migration of audience to the Web. What is not explored is the significance of the changing nature of the audience as the Internet continues to transform the average person from a media user to a media creator producing online content. The shift in the online world is to more open conversations and open discussion is not mentioned, nor the view that the print business model cannot sustain journalism, nor the slow death of the local newspaper or the lack of great regional papers.
How can newspapers can survive in an age of free online content? The issues are explored here by David Lazarus at SFGate.com. Lazarus says the issue is one in which the Internet is a potentially fatal threat to newspapers.and that only an elite handful of newspapers can currently get away with directly charging customers for online access to their content. Consequently, newspapers will need to invest in creation of the sort of unique content that readers (and Internet users) simply can't find anywhere else. Then they can charge for their content.
So why is the Guardian so successful? Their newspaper content has value but they don't charge for it online.
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Interesting stuff Gary. It takes a lot to maintain an interesting blog. There is only so much you can fit into an average day. Remember that almost nobody other than the professional journalists, who masquarade as bloggers. That said, I think that there are more than plenty of good blogs around. It is part of the process and we shouldn't worry too much about ghost blogs.