As Daily Postings Slide, Blogging Peaks

Technorati is out with their latest report, which they are re-branding the State of the Live Web. However, at least in my view, that is not what it is. The reality is that no one can scale to capture the entire Live Web, other than perhaps a big search engine. The pie - MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and onward - is way too big.

The Technorati data provides all the usual. However, this nugget is key: blog posts per day, the most critical measure as it relates to blogging, slid. Clearly people are publishing in other places and it's taking their time away from blogs. The overall impact of Web 2.0 is healthy, but blogging has matured and it's peaked - just as we and others have suspected.

Comments

[Jesse Ciccone]

"Clearly people are publishing in other places and it's taking their time away from blogs."

That's likely one element, but don't you think people are starting to realize that quantity of posts isn't the only measure of a good blog and starting to adjust their approach to posting accordingly?

With information overload a persistent problem, my "must-read" blog list has both shrunk in number and shifted to blogs with fewer, more thoughtful, interesting posts (note, this does not necessarily mean longer posts...see Guy Kawasaki). Surely other readers have this preference, too, and smart bloggers are adjusting accordingly.

[LonelyBloggers]

To say blogging has peaked 'could be' a little premature to call. Maybe we need to re-define exactly what a blog is?

If I post my regular thoughts on a social network, how is that different than blogging? If I vlog on youtube everyday, is that not blogging?

Blogging has not peaked, it's just morphed into something else and taken on a different form (and will continue to do so) from the original concept of a blog.

The next presidential elections will show more evidence of this when you see video-rich blogs everywhere covering the elections. Video, social networking and blogging continue to co-exist, mash and mingle which re-defines what we classify as blogs moving forward.

Political and global events can also create huge spikes in blogging activity, to say blogging has peaked (even with your reports in hand) is complete speculation at this point.

[engtech]

I agree that it's peaked.

It's so much easy to use something like Facebook or StumbleUpon for blogging and get a guaranteed audience. Blogging is much harder to build up a number of RSS subscribers and get your posts discovered by strangers.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Maybe I state the obvious. The more people begin to blog, the more interesting conversations can take place. With this being a tool that can lead to dialogue vs. pushing content through, we are often engaged in writing thoughtful comments as well.

While I agree with the medium beginning to mature, I am not sure about it peaking just yet. And some people post on more than one blog not to dilute niche conversations, etc.

[Eric Franklin]

After reading the post by Sifry, I wonder if the decrease in splogs and spam he mentions is also related to the flattening of the curve? Have they attempted to remove splog counts retroactively from their data? It's got to be a difficult problem.

Fortunately, spam rates have decreased somewhat since then, as blog hosting providers have responded to the issue during the months of January and February. My personal take on the issue of spam is that all healthy ecosystems have parasites - the only question is whether or not the system is structurally vulnerable to being overwhelmed. Thankfully, because of the accountability that is built into the web itself (the URL structure is fundamentally accountable), I believe that while the vulnerability of the live web to spam is real, it is managable.

[Brad Levinson]

Hi Steve,

I've posted a friendly rebuttal, to add to the "has blogging peaked?" debate. Let me know what you think.

- Brad

[Easton Ellsworth]

Hmm. Gonna have to chew on this one for a bit. Thanks for these thoughts, Steve. Something gnaws at me saying it's not that simple, but something else tells me you're at or near the core of the situation. I completely agree that attention fragmentation is becoming more prevalent. Can you remember what you did, what you read, who you talked to or what you worked on yesterday? Not so easy anymore. :)

[Toby]

Technorati tracks numerous types of blogs that includes both personal and business. What I would be curious to know is which category of blogs have "peaked" and therefore, are on the down-slide. From what I've seen in talking to marketers and bizz folks in the U.S., and in other countries, business/marketing blogs still have a way to go before they reach the top of the slippery slope.

[Chris Knowles]

Hopefully, the drop in post quantities is due to bloggers realising that the more frequently they blog, the less time there is for conversation.

[Mike Sansone]

I'm open to the possibility that blogging *as we know it* is starting to plateau - but the use of various social media/participation media hasn't peaked, IMHO.

Phone use hasn't peaked, we just have alternative and multiple choices of use.

Even if blogging has peaked, there are many sectors of people who have just begun engagement. There are still spikes ahead, though maybe not at the rate we've seen in the last 12 months.

[Dave]

I wouldn't say blogging has PEAKED or reached a PLATEAU - a better word is EVOLVE.

It shows how technology continues to progress as other online mediums come into their prime.

Source: http://www.agencynext.com/2007/04/11/execs-and-blogs-trouble-getting-it/

[Ann Handley]

As Mike says, above: "...there are many sectors of people who have just begun engagement."

Seriously -- most of my friends are only now understanding what a blog IS.... Maybe blogging has peaked for some of us. But there's a whole lot of others out there who are only recently embracing "the conversation."