The End of the 'Blog As We Know It?
A while back, I speculated a bit about where the Blogosphere was heading, and postulated that the era of general link-blogging might be entering a phase of slow decline.
While it's way too early for me to start claiming any prophetic status here, I just may have sniffed out a trend: this week 3 of my favorite sites, Exclamation Mark, Life In the Present, and Lonita's Link Log, sadly hung up their link-blogging hats.
Fortunately for us, 2 out of the 3 quit to refocus their efforts on content creation:
Michelle still maintains Tiny Bubbles and Captured, which deal with her original poetry and photography, respectively.
Mark has done a really clever re-engineering of his weblog, by turning it into a B-movie review site for old monster flicks.
I think that this is a good trend, and you may have noticed that I've started doing a lot more original stuff as well. Apparently, lots of you agree, because my average readership has jumped by almost 100% since I started Ephemeraholic, so I'll continue to post a mix of original content and high-quality general linkage with a pop-cult skew.
Comments
I think it's a good trend, too. It's great to be excited about blogging again.
I'll still read link blogs, but I'm glad I'm getting out of the game and getting into something I can put more of myself into.
You certainly were prophetic, Mr. BaliHai. I had no idea so many great link bloggers were getting to the same point that I was.
And your Ephemeraholic is fantastic. If I was still an link blogger, I'd link to it.
;-)
Thanks for advertising my B-Movie Review page, too. It's going to take me awhile to build up the reviews, but I'm really looking forward to it.
Posted by: Mark | August 28, 2005 3:37 PM
My pleasure, Mark. I predict that you'll have a lot of success with your new format. People are tired of the seeing the same recycled links over and over again, and the best thing about posting original content is that it's much more difficult for other bloggers to steal it without credit!
Posted by: MrBaliHai | August 28, 2005 6:35 PM
I agree.
Posted by: The Cartoonist | August 29, 2005 6:00 AM
i know i'm comparatively new to this game (compared to you three old salts) but my recipe is as much original content as possible using links to fill the gaps. even then i try to offer as much commentary on a link as i can. "make it my own" as it were. works for me fairly well. also i was careful to keep things as open ended as i could so even massive change could happen comfortably.
if blogs turn out to be anything like traditional media, as time goes on, the name of the game will be specialization. each of us blogging about that one tiny morsel we know and love best. niche blogging i guess you'd call it.
in any case i think it's great for individual bloggers to evolve. looking forward to seeing what happens next. best wishes for mark, michelle, lonita, ralph, and you as well matt. heres to the future! (glass clink)
Posted by: jmorrison | August 29, 2005 9:30 AM
Thanks, jaime. I think your format is a good one because you're not painting yourself into any corners. I really loved the hand-drawn illo of Giornale Nuovo's front page and the pinball backglass.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | August 29, 2005 1:28 PM