Yesterday I stumbled on an intriguing blog post by Ana Hoffman, titled in a slightly provocative manner: “The Slow Rotting of the Web and Blogosphere.”
Ana shares a pretty scary picture of where blogging and the web are heading to today. To sum up Ana’s blog post: Blogging and blogs are heading toward extinction. Talk about ice age, the dinosaurs and the meteors…
The premise of “the end of the blogging world” is pretty simple, really…
You see, it’s easy to set a blog these days. Just purchase free or nearly free web hosting space, install the free blogging platform – like WordPress – on it, add some plugins, and voila! You are ready to start writing your first blog post in less than 15 minutes.
Again, it’s darn easy to start a blog today. And yes, like Ana mentioned in her post, blog posts about how to start blogging is becoming boring and obsolete.
A couple of years ago you can write a blog post about how to make money online blogging, and your blog will become a big hit. Not today. I know because I’ve been there 🙂
I’ve tried to post “how to make money online via blogging” on TFB, and the results suck real bad. Ana is right – these are the situation with many of today’s blogs:
Over-saturation. Watered-down information. Over-exaggeration.
Over-saturation
Well, how many “how to make money online blogging” posts you read these days? How many of them are actually rewritten, summarized, and even scraped?
Watered-down information
Some topics in blog posts are diminished in effect. “Learn how to blog easy here”-kind-of-topic is no longer powerful.
Over-exaggeration
“How to start a blog and make a difference for your business” kind-of-blog-post is over-exaggerated. You can’t make a difference for your business by start a blog. You need to focus on what to offer in the blog; you need to do beyond blogging – social media marketing, perhaps? I’ve seen many corporate blogs that are as boring as doing nothing at home in summertime. Businesses are trying to use blogs to reach clients and prospects better. The thing is, not many read the blog posts because, honestly, they all look generic… and again, boring.
Why your blogs need to respond to all of those changes?
Well, the simple answer is: If you didn’t, your blog will die eventually. Nobody really read blog posts that are not having the “wow” factor. The been-there-done-that blog posts won’t win readers.
It’s sad really to read a well-written blog posts in blogs that are only visited by less than 50 people a day. All I can see that the blog posts are not intriguing enough to attract readers into them.
How to keep your blog alive and well
Telling your readers what you are doing for the day is no longer effective in getting them engage. “Wohoo! I just bought an iPad!” is not an engaging post. “Why I bought an iPad” might be more interesting. “I just bought 2 iPad. Do you want one?” is a better blog post than the other 90% in the blogosphere!
That’s right – this is what I should do more with my blogs: Engage readers. Influence people. Stir opinions.
You and I need to write blog posts that are compelling, controversial and provocative that 90% of others can offer their readers – this way, your blog and mine will survive the natural selection happening in the blogosphere.
So, what do you think – will blogs and blogging become extinct in the near future? Please let me know your opinion by commenting on this blog post!
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Today, it will be very easy to start blog on here. But at the time, its very difficult to maintain it on here 🙂
This was an interesting post. I think you are correct on all your points. Talking about just what you do will bore the reader. I had this same conversation this morning, as I was thinking of adding more content to my own blog.
Thanks for the reaffirmation!
Michele
SBrownART
Hi Michele,
Yeah – I wrote this blog post after I read Ana Hoffman’s post… so I was reminded what I should do. So we are on the same page here 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!