The death of blogging?

Are we seeing the end of blogging as a useful source of information and ideas? I don't think so. I think we use blogs differently.

Jim Finister said recently (on his excellent blog)

I think we are seeing the death of the individual consistently influential ITSM blog. There is still some very high quality material being pushed out on blogs, but day to day ITSM reading for many will be based on the ITSM communities with blogs only attracting interest when a post is particularly important.

Apparently companies are moving away from blogging towards social media. I'd say that is because companies are online to attract customers not to contribute original content. They know they have to try to come up with original content or at least pretend to have some, but that's not their agenda. So social media serves their purpose perfectly well: all they want is to engage. If what they say vanishes into the ether they don't give a toss.

For those of us who are actually trying to develop ideas and share information, it is different. I regard this blog as my body of work. I want it to be permanent, for me and for the two of you who are interested. I want it to be so permanent that I compiled the first three years into a book (an actual paper my-descendants-will-still-be-able-to-read-it book) and I hope to do the second volume this year.

For anyone who is actually creating content not just whoring attention then the blog still matters. Tweet this. You're blog matters, Jim.

What has changed is how the blog is found and consumed. Social media provides extra channels for readers to know what is here and to choose to read it.
Originally you checked in every week or month to see what was new, or saw a link on another blog, or stumbled in via a Google search.

Then there was RSS, and still is.

Then Reddit and Digg and Stumbler.

Now there are twitter and facebook and G+ as channels where you can recommend a post to friends.

The channels change but the need for a permanent repository doesn't. I'm not going to put this much effort into content then drop it into G+ like a pebble into the ocean. I'll put it here then share it on G+. Different.

The other change that goes with that is that the community seems to have moved. There was a group who commented here and interacted with each other as much as with me. That interaction has shifted out into the front-end social media channels: Back2ITSM especially.

BAck2ITSM is an interesting study. It has a website that doesn't do much, a group on Facebook that I no longer visit (I was always uncomfortable with Facebook as a business platform), and now a community on G+. It is slowly drifting around the internet following the core community of content-providers.

Part of that movement is driven by England's Law: all online channels degenerate into babble... and hence fall into ruin. Tweet this. Yahoo Groups is fit only as a source of amusement. Online forum websites are there only for the patient to help the clueless. Linkedin groups are dead or drivelling. Twitter #tags are full of crap. Facebook groups are going the same way. I nearly gave up on the G+ Science community after two weirdo morons posted conspiracy crap - the moderators are holding the line for now but it is only a matter of time.

Sadly the internet is the wisdom of the commons, and the commons is on average thick and ignorant. The Folly of the Crowd.

Social media is still useful. I can find like minds. I'm stimulated by thoughts and debate into developing new ideas. And I like the fact that twitter allows me to share a thought or fact that is too trivial to be worth a blog post.

This blog remains what it has always been: a place where I can record ideas and information, and store them, and develop them over time. I've never been afraid to go back and update a post with additional thoughts: this site grows as a storehouse of my mind.

It is egotistical to think anyone else wants to see that, but apparently you do like to share, so many thanks for your interest and I hope this blog continues to provide you with entertainment and value into the future. You can find me everywhere on the Web but you can always come back here for that most valuable online resource of all: actual content.