Kids today don't blog, they facebook.
The President gets his church on via Blackberry.
I'm the only person in the entire universe without an i-Phone.
Well, not exactly.
Those of us who are still on blogspot, hacking away on a full-sized keyboard, and there are just a few of us old-timers left, ahem, are here in the blog world because it's our art studio and online writer's journal. Those who read us (thank you thank you thank you) are here because they get that.
I'm not terribly worried that there's been this 'abandonment' of blogging. An informal experiment on my part showed at least 64 (and let me throw out a wild guess and add "young") people per minute typing the word "bored" into their twitter stream this morning. Eventually they're going to realize that the little mental-meth delivery system in their handheld is not getting them high. Yeah, they were probably blogging this 23 and a half months ago. Something easier came along. I absolutely refuse to condemn teenagers for choosing socializing over creating -- they're teens, for heaven's sake! Friends are everything at that age. And I refuse to take what they are doing right now as some sort of harbinger of doom for what I choose to do.
I do miss some political bloggers who abandoned their craft in the past year. Some of them, I know, are still creating in other venues, and good on them. No one medium is for everyone. For now, this one works for me. Not everyone is going to be a writer; if we were, we'd all starve.
That said, to paraphrase Will Rogers, the world is full of people who can tweet but can't read. If we read their tweets out loud to them, in front of the very friends they sent them to, they would throw away their i-Phones forever.
Two old-skool fogey bloggers (in our FORTIES!) will be posting a podcast tomorrow.
indeed :) i still type away on a pc keyboard- i refuse to tweet and i have a basic cell phone with a keyboard to make my texts to hubby easier for me :) i love facebook games- that's my not so secret addiction :) but i still love blogging the best for communication :)
ReplyDeleteBlogging is best for habitual writers. Good bloggers express frustration when they only have time to copy & paste something. The "what I'm reading" copy & paste bloggers gravitated to Facebook (if they're not at Huffpost or Kos), ideal for a link & brief comment.
ReplyDeleteThe nice thing about tweeting is one can ignore it altogether & not feel like one is missing much.
My iphoneless self misses blogging. I cannot wait to have this manuscript done. This self discipline thing sucks, but you'll never read me tweet I'm bored.
ReplyDeleteLoved this. A shift has definitely happened.
i blog-therefore, i am!
ReplyDelete: )
Old-skool meanie bloggers, rather.
ReplyDelete;)
Tweeting's useless for what I do, when I do it, save as secondary publicity. Therefore no new content on the blog means no Twitter (or Facebook, for that matter).
'scuse me while I run for the shelter of my mother's little helper...
;>)
Speaking as mid-20 something without a smart phone, I'm very much into blogging. Some of my friends are too. Except they're all on livejournal and it's all about tv and movies. Looking forward to your podcast tomorrow though.
ReplyDeleteWell my philosophy is each have their place. I have both blog and iPhone. The iPhone is great when you are out and about and useful more for Tweets and quick Facebook posts...however if you really want to get your point across blogging is the way to go. It's just too damn hard to type much more than a paragraph with an iPhone on screen keyboard especially if you have big fingers.
ReplyDeletePlus if you want to do wonderful Photoshop montages like Blue Gal, you really can't do that on a smart phone very easily if at all.
So Blue don't be blue - that article just shows that the youngsters are not at the point in their lives where they have real ideas to express like you! :-)
I think most people are consumers of content rather than creators of content, so maintaining a blog is more real estate than they really need.
ReplyDeleteO UR SO FUN E!
ReplyDeleteI think my husband has decided I am having an affair with the blogosphere. On the computer AGAIN???
or STILL?????
What can I say... I am an admitted news junkie, and I struggle to narrow my editorial comments to 250 words or less (for the local newspaper)... so twitter is out of the question for 3 reasons...
Do I really want to participate in a medium that involves the word "twit"?
I am too verbose to have such a small # of word restrictions.
I really don't need anything that involves MORE time sitting in front of a computer screen, (or cell phone micro keyboard) or not interacting with real people in real time.
If blogging is more like the big old album covers- full featured art & info, then so be it.
Color me old school.
40s?!? Well, I guess the old fogey cool hippie thing works... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've been earning a living on the Web since 1995. And for many years before that, I was online, using the old BBS's. This was before the Web was even invented.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm pretty much old-school. And I've seen a lot of trends come and go over the years.
I don't claim to be Nostradamus. But over the years, I've managed to get a feel for what works and what doesn't work, online.
The very first day I saw Google, I knew it was going to be huge. And back when pop-up ads were all the rage, I had a feeling that they'd only be a temporary fad.
My gut feeling on Twitter is that it is a gimmicky fad that won't last. Well, maybe it'll be around long-term---but the massive success it now enjoys will only be temporary. Like MySpace, it'll eventually go into decline, as the novelty fades.
On the other hand, I think that blogging is here to stay. And the bloggers who stick with it and who write worthy prose will eventually find success, if they haven't already. And by "success" I mean, their audiences will build to the point where they can either earn a living online, or at least enjoy a nice side income.
There will always be an audience out there for well-written, compelling articles. Despite all the bells and whistles of the modern Web, good, old-fashioned, well-written prose will never go out of style. And at its heart, the Internet is mainly about one thing: information.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
Hey Blue Gal,
ReplyDeleteI missed Amnesty Blog Day this year. That may be an indication of something. Like maybe all my time is spent on Facebook now. I still blog, but not with the same fervor as I once did. Nobody really reads anymore, it seems, and if they do it's in 146 characters or less word bites. I read a lot still.
I am not ready to go out and buy that solid gold blogger/dinosaur charm for my charm bracelet quite yet though like an oldie but goodie Classic rocker. Blogging is still an info dispensing place for me. Love your podcast.