Today I* was asked:
Is the blog hype over?
My answer:
Yes, the hype is over, but blogs are still around and will not disappear any time soon. In my humble opinion, blogs are becoming more and more mainstream (read “boring” for all of those geeks looking for the next big wave).
Reasons:
- I no longer need to explain the term “blog” as often
- The Web 2.0 party crowd has moved to Friendfeed and Twitter and similar services
- (i’ll try and think of more reasons tomorrow…)
- …
There’s a lot of people that read blogs, but don’t know it’s a blog from a technical point of view. For them it’s a dynamic website with frequent changes.
Some blogs are evolving into new media outlets, a lot are serving niche purpose like providing an easy and fast way to get the news out on a specific, dedicated topic.
There are people in “old school” PR and marketing that are starting to adopt blog software, as well as journalists that use blogs to enhance their online presence. A sign in itself.
There’s the SEO aspect and the regular stats mining that blog technology has made more accessible than in Web 1.0 times.
But, obviously a lot of people have noticed that creating a good blog is hard work. Blogging isn’t an easy way to get rich quick. At least not in Switzerland.
*As somebody that jumped onto the blog bandwagon early on, I guess I’ve evolved into an expert of sorts. I’m curious what blogs will eventually develop into.
I believe that individual blog sites or collaborative, mini social networks (formerly known as home pages) will remain attractive, cos I control and determine what happens on my own site (cf advertising, server downtime, centrally controlled maintenance, data ownership) instead of some corporation.
I cant agree more! Indeed “creating a good blog is hard work.” As for me, I feel too lazy to do the twitter thing. But it seems blogs are still going to hang on before being relegated to the sidelines.
Cheers!