The death of blogging slides from the MAC114 module

1. ><
BLOG
LONG LIVE THE BLOG?
RIP
THE DEATH OF THE BLOG
1

2. ><
41%2008
2

3. ><
-50%2006-2009
3

4. ><TECHNORATI BLOG INDEXER 4

5. ><STATE OF THE BLOGOSPHERE ANNUAL REPORT 5

6. SED UT PERSPICIATIS
UNDE OMNIS ISTE
NATUS ERROR SIT
6
‘We were all bloggers, or
so it seemed circa 2003’
- Jeet Heer, 2016

7. SED UT PERSPICIATIS
UNDE OMNIS ISTE
NATUS ERROR SIT
7
‘power was shifting from the
gatekeepers of the traditional
media to a more open, fluid
information society’
- Trevor Butterworth, 2006

8. ><THE BLOGROLL 8

9. SED UT PERSPICIATIS
UNDE OMNIS ISTE
NATUS ERROR SIT
9
‘The Stream represents the triumph of
reverse-chronology, where importance—
above-the-foldness—is based exclusively
on nowness.
- Alexis Madrigal, 2013

10. SED UT PERSPICIATIS
UNDE OMNIS ISTE
NATUS ERROR SIT
10
‘Information is increasingly being
distributed and presented in real-
time streams instead of dedicated
Web pages. The shift is palpable,
even if it is only in its early stages’’
- Erick Schonfeld, 2009

11. SED UT PERSPICIATIS
UNDE OMNIS ISTE
NATUS ERROR SIT
11
Web companies large and small are embracing
this stream. It is not just Twitter. It is Facebook
and Friendfeed and AOL and Digg and
Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop and
Techmeme and Tweetmeme and Ustream and
Qik and Kyte and blogs and Google Reader. The
stream is winding its way throughout the Web
and organizing it by nowness
- Erick Schonfeld, 2009

12. >< 12
aggregators

13. ><
RiP2005-2013
13

14. ><
RiP2005-2013
14

15. >< 15
the social stream

16. ><
In a blinding flash of inspiration, the other
day I realized that "interactive" anything is
the wrong word. Interactive makes you
imagine people sitting with their hands on
controls, some kind of gamelike thing. The
right word is "unfinished." Think of cultural
products, or art works, or the people who
use them even, as being unfinished.
Permanently unfinished.
Brian Eno (1997)
16

17. >< 17
1997 2013

18. ><
“In 1997, wired teens
created online diaries, and
in 2004 the blog was king.
Today, teens are about as
likely to start a blog (over
Instagramming or
Snapchatting) as they are
to buy a music CD. Blogs
are for 40-somethings with
kids.”
- 2014
Jason Kottke
18

19. ><
1. Too conversational
2. Unfocussed
3. Professional competition
Kevin Drum (2015)
193 REASONS FOR THE DEATH OF THE BLOG

20. ><
“The most successful bloggers are
now running corporate media
empires like Vox, or working for the
mainstream media. The first cohort
of feminist bloggers have moved
on to media development and
books. Conservative spleen has
reinvented itself as Breitbart.com
and Nazi-themed anime memes
from the alt-right”
Jeet Heer (2016)
20

21. ><
“The Japanese have a word for
blogs that have fallen into neglect
or are altogether abandoned:
ishikoro, or pebbles. We live in a
world of pebbles now. They litter
the internet, each one a marker of
writing dreams and energies that
have dissipated or moved
elsewhere”
Jeet Heer (2016)
21

22. ><
“The necessity of nowness plus the
professionalization of content production
for the stream means that there are
thousands and thousands of people
churning out more crap than can possibly
be imagined. And individual consumers of
information have been tuned by social-
media feedback mechanisms (Likes!) to
do for free what other people do for
money. They, too, write viral headlines,
post clickbait, and compete for
mindshare”
Alexis Madrigal (2013)
22

23. ><
“Blogs haven't disappeared – they
have simply morphed into a mature
part of the publishing ecosystem. The
loss of casual bloggers has shaken
things out, with more committed and
skilled writers sticking it out. Far from
killing the blog dream, this has
increased the quality of the
blogosphere as a whole.”
Onur Kabadayi (2016)
23

24. ><THE DENIGRATED USER GENERATED CONTENT 24

25. ><BLOGGING’S TERMINAL DECLINE 25

26. ><BLOGGING’S TERMINAL DECLINE 26

27. ><BLOGGING’S TERMINAL DECLINE 27

28. ><BLOGGING’S TERMINAL DECLINE? 28