Guardian Says Some People Are Blogging Less

Posted on March 27, 2007

The Guardian has an article that says many people are blogging off and abandoning their blogs or not posting as much as they used to. The article also cites a Gartner study that found 200 million blogs have been abandoned. They list a few examples of bloggers that haven't been posting as much lately.

Sandra Gidley, the Liberal Democrat MP, hasn't posted since January 2006. In one of her last entries, she wrote, "I made a new year's resolution to resume the blog, but to be honest the beginning of the year was depressing" (Gidley was one of those who called for Charles Kennedy to go). Tory MP Theresa May hasn't posted since December, stating the obvious with the comment: "OK, so my previous promise to make my blogs more frequent may have fallen by the wayside."
Sandra Gidley, the Liberal Democrat MP, hasn't posted since January 2006. In one of her last entries, she wrote, "I made a new year's resolution to resume the blog, but to be honest the beginning of the year was depressing" (Gidley was one of those who called for Charles Kennedy to go). Tory MP Theresa May hasn't posted since December, stating the obvious with the comment: "OK, so my previous promise to make my blogs more frequent may have fallen by the wayside."
Celebrity blogs are faring little better. "Oh my goodness, I am so sorry it has taken me so long to write!!" posts the actor Gillian Anderson in one of the last entries on her website in August last year, which shows she can't have been that sorry. Barbra Streisand's sideline in political commentary can't be dependent on keeping up the pressure - her last entry was four months ago. Some blogs, such as Mariah Carey's, in which she famously left rambling, incoherent messages before going into therapy, seem to have disappeared altogether.
"You have to be opinionated and passionate about what you write, or your enthusiasm will wane," says Drew Benvie, social media adviser for Lewis PR and a blogging expert. Benvie thinks now is the time to dig out your old password and get back to blogging. "Companies are starting to see them as a way of promoting their products. Write about films and you might get tickets to screenings; write about gadgets and you might be sent gadgets to test."

There is no question that many bloggers do not keep to a daily or even weekly schedule. Many blogs have probably also been abandoned over the past couple years. However, people still have plenty to say and love talking about themselves so the idea that blogging will go away completely is silly. What will happen is that blogging will peak at some point but there will always be networked communication and publishing tools that resembles blogging. The peak could literally be once every young person has some kind of profile somewhere. This seems like it is almost the case for the 13-21 year-olds. Tools like Flickr and Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace also show that blogging can take a wide variety of forms: blogs, microblogs, photoblogs, social network profiles, etc. These variations on blogging will also make it very difficult to pinpoint exactly when blogging has peaked.