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Life After Blogs: What's Next in Social Media
Robert P Witham
The Death of Blogs
There has been quite a bit of buzz around the Internet lately about the death of blogs. Thisdiscussion is fueled in part by the recent departure of some high profile bloggers from theblogosphere. The irony of this discussion, of course, is that much of it is occurring on blogs.Fallen! Fallen! Oh, how the mighty BLOG has fallen!The arguments that blogs are dead usually center around several key points.
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The growth of high-traffic, high-profile, multi-author blogs destroys any hope for theaverage individual blogger to be discovered and gain any meaningful audience.
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Newer forms of social media, like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr make theneed for personal blogs obsolete.
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The never-ending comment spam, coupled with comments from obnoxious readers,simply require too much energy and time.These observations are completely accurate based on my experience with blogs and theInternet.
The Trouble with Blogs
Comment spam and obnoxious people hiding behind the pseudo-anonymity of the Internetserve to deter many people from starting or continuing their blog. Even when the commentsare not spam it is hopelessly frustrating to see an endless stream of comments that prove theperson leaving the comment did not bother to actually read the article before firing off acomment.The advent and rapidly growing popularity of multi-author blogs and high-traffic blog networksmake it very difficult for the new blogger to gain any significant audience or to achievereasonable search engine placement. Further, multi-author blogs are able to deliver quantityof content due to multiple authors and quality of content by having multiple authors withdifferent specialties. The average solo blogger simply cannot compete against mega-blogsand sites like Wikipedia for search rankings and traffic.
 Are Blogs Really Dead 
The question must be asked though - are blogs really dead? Is there really no future on theInternet for blogs?Nothing lasts forever - especially on the Internet! However, blogs have redefined how peoplecommunicate, obtain and interact with news, and even elect presidents (in the US). Blogshave become an integral part of the Internet landscape and it is certainly hard to imaginethem going away any time soon. Blogs (to use the term loosely) have further become anentrenched part of the Internet as blog platforms like WordPress have increasingly seendouble duty as both blog platform and CMS. WordPress is my blog platform of choice and myCMS of choice because of the power and flexibility of the program. So where does the blog
 
end and the CMS site begin?I suspect that part of the problem is that blogs were over-hyped as the ultimate solution toonline publishing. This situation is reminiscent of the dot com boom of a decade ago. Thetechnology was (and is) destined to become a major player in the emerging Internet economy- but the hype needed to be tempered by reality.
Blogs Still Have a Pulse
Despite the challenges associated with blogging I believe the humble blog is not really dead. Isuspect we will witness a continued evolution of blogs for some time as blogs continue to beintegrated into the Web fabric. For instance, many CMS-powered websites now also have anintegrated blog. Many social media sites also offer integrated blogs for their users. Blogs aswe know them may eventually decrease in popularity as newer forms of the blog emerge butthe blog is not likely to be buried any time soon.Comment spam is a significant problem for bloggers. Anti-spam measures can help (Akismet,etc.) but are always an imperfect solution as spammers continue to develop new methods tobeat the filters. Comments can also be disabled or restricted to registered users. Some socialmedia fans will chafe at this suggestion but, for many sites, this is the best solution to thespam and unwanted comment problem.Multi-author blogs do present a formidable challenge to new bloggers. Competing for searchengine placement against established mega-blogs is a tough challenge. However, this doesnot mean that it is not possible to compete with established blogs and websites. The blogdoes level the playing field and provides a voice to anyone willing to invest the required workto make it happen. Blogging in the context of an established network (HubPages, Squidoo,and Associated Content are a few examples) provides a free and easy way to blog whiletaking advantage of the traffic of an established network. This can greatly increase a newblogger’s traffic and exposure. New bloggers can also compete by focusing on a niche, bywriting in a unique voice, or by providing a perspective or information other similar blogs donot provide. Competing with a mega-blog is somewhat like a mom and pop store competingwith WalMart. Many small operations will not succeed because they fail to differentiatethemselves sufficiently to build a loyal customer base. Independent blogs, like independentstores, can always deliver unique value to their customers.
What’s Next After Blogs
What is next in the world of social media? What will replace the venerable personal blog? Thetransition appears to already be underway. Social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter,Delicious, and a host of others, offer a synthesis of photos, videos, blogs, status updates - inother words, lifestreaming. Blogs are optimized around text rather than multimedia and, whileit is now possible to integrate a variety of multimedia into a personal blog, many people findthe technical challenges too great. Social media sites facilitate the integration of multimediainto a personal web portal - usually at no cost to the user.The most recent trend that I have seen in social media is toward convergent media. There areseveral social sites now providing convergent media services. I have recommended YUDUseveral times recently as a great example of a convergent media site. The idea of convergentmedia is that multiple types of media are all hosted in one online space, including text,pictures, audio files, video files, and web bookmarks. This appears to be the direction that
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