FriendFeed And Twitter Have *Not* Killed Blogging
November 23, 2008
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This topic keeps coming up around the blogosphere, on Twitter, on FriendFeed, even in Wired and The Economist. Let me bring a dose of reality to the situation: microblogging won’t “kill” blogging: they are not the same tools nor are they even in competition.
In fact, I refuse to link you to any of the articles talking about the death of blogging because they merely are great examples of linkbait. The people writing the articles on the death of blogging know perfectly well that blogging is thriving and use that to their advantage. They know merely by writing that blogging is dead, they’ll cause an uproar of attention for themselves.
The trendy thing to do is talk about how Twitter has replaced blogging. There was even a discussion on Daily Blog Tips arguing what was worth more: a Twitter follower or an RSS subscriber to a blog. Those two things are simply not comparable. Why not compare a Facebook friend to an RSS subsriber, or a FriendFeed follower to an RSS subscriber? It makes zero sense to start comparing subscribers in different services to each other.
In reality, microblogging services and blogging have a symbiotic relationship and complement each other.
Why microblogging has not killed blogging (nor will it):
Signal-to-noise ratio
Twitter, FriendFeed, even Facebook have a terrible signal to noise ratio. There is a lot of noise in those networks, even if you follow smart people. Twitter, for example moves so fast that I miss far more than I see – but that’s kind of the point. Twitter is about what is happening right now.
Search
Your updates in Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, while searchable on those networks, don’t show up in Google. So if no one reads what your recent updates are as they happen, you’re forever lost in archive purgatory.
Archives
Speaking of archives, blog archives are incredibly useful and when discovering a new blog, it’s great to read through someone’s previous detailed thoughts. Again, people don’t go through microblogging archives, the archives on those networks are great for marketers to peruse and get free data, but other than that there’s not much function other than posterity.
Half of microblogging is actually linking to blogs
I pose this question: If people stopped blogging and creating content on unique, independent sites and we all purely used microblogging platforms what would everyone link to? Exactly.
Snack-sized content
Yes, we all know many people on the web have short attention spans. But, blog readers are actually smarter than the average bear and have a deep enough attention span for content in greater detail.
When you create content in a blog, it’s yours
When you create content in microblogging, lifestreaming platforms, or monolithic social networks – you are building material for someone else (read the terms pages when you agree to sign up for someone else’s network). When you put material into a blog, you own it and are contributing to something that you can build upon over time in a media brand all your own.
Consistency
Popular blogs are popular for that reason: consistency of compelling, useful and top-quality content on a niche. I fill my RSS reader with blogs and web publications that have proven themselves and eventually read almost everything published. I know before I click any of it I am getting well-thought out content that is worth reading.
Just to sum up:
- The apples to oranges discussions on the social web about different services on the social web competing with each other (that aren’t) are purely meta linkbait.
- Blogging is alive and well, people writing stories that Twitter has killed blogs are sensational nonsense (can we please stop linking to them).
- Microblogging/lifestreaming is not the same thing as blogging, they are not in competition and in fact the two complement each other.
- If you are a blogger, don’t link to negative or sensationalist articles and perhaps people will stop writing them…only pass link-love when it’s something positive and we will inspire more worthwhile content to be created.
Related posts from around the web
Twitter For Business (Duct Tape Marketing)
Are RSS Subscribers Worthwhile If They Don’t Visit Your Blog? (ProBlogger)
Twitter As A Business Tool (Information Week)
Related posts from The Future Buzz
Ari Herzog replied | Nov 23, 2008 (7 comments)
Smart stuff, Adam. I agree completely.
If only more blog posts would link to Twitter messages.
eschnou replied | Nov 23, 2008 (1 comment)
It all depends on what you call blogging in fact. I agree with you, because you look at blogging from a content perspective. And obviously, a tweet will never replace a well thought, insightful, blogpost. However, many on the internet decided to create a ‘blog’ just like they had a homepage on Geocities: to have an online presence. Only to realize after a few months that their blog was dormand (much like the infamous ‘last updated march 6 1998) many years ago. People want to exist online but don’t have time/commitment to sustain that presence.
This is where twitter or facebook comes in. But what I truly believe is in the future of lifestreaming application, that enable users to build a presence out of their online activities. Check my page (http://eschnou.com). I don’t blog, but I feel happy to have a presence online that my friends can check from time to time….
I’m one of the developer of storytlr.com, the platform behind this. Would be great to have your opinion on this !
Adam Singer replied | Nov 23, 2008 (550 comments)
@ari – Thanks for that, and you’re right – would be neat to be able to integrate all conversations, including those on Twitter, neatly organized with the original content. I believe one day that will happen.
@eschnou – You’re right, I do view blogging from a content perspective, I think that is what the platform has evolved into (at least for me).
You have a great point, the tools are flexible enough to do whatever you want with them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I will check out storytlr and let you know my thoughts.
Angela Connor replied | Nov 23, 2008 (10 comments)
I couldn’t agree more with this post. I engaged in the debate once and decided never to do that again. It’s pointless, and the blogs I’ve read claiming that blogging is dead made me wonder: “Well, why are you blogging to tell me this, just tweet it?” My blog is growing steadily and it’s great to see new people find it and most importantly find value in it that makes them want to return. I am still finding great blogs and adding new ones to my RSS feed weekly. This platform is alive and well. Great post. I will now point people to this post when the argument resurfaces in my world.
Adam Singer replied | Nov 23, 2008 (550 comments)
@Angela – exactly!
…and thanks
lonelypond replied | Nov 23, 2008 (18 comments)
excellent; adding linkbait to my vocabulary and glad for the bonus chuckle in the snack department.
Internet Strategist replied | Dec 2, 2008 (13 comments)
Excellent insights. Content-rich quality blogs will only be helped by micro-blogging and if less driven bloggers only micro-blog that will be no great loss.
I see blogs less linearly than many bloggers. To me they are reference sites and I structure my own to make it easy to select a topic and quickly see all of the posts relevant to that subject.
Eric Reid replied | Dec 5, 2008 (1 comment)
Twitter won’t kill blogging. Fewer people may blog, of course, as Twitter is so much easier to post on. IMHO though, the quality writers of blogs won’t transition over to Twitter out of laziness. Blogs are still an important resource for getting industry information that major news outlets have never and would never and will never have the time to fully explore.
If anything, the only blogs that will die away because of Twitter are the ones written by people who aren’t well suited to that format.
Hutch Carpenter replied | Feb 8, 2009 (1 comment)
I agree Adam. Blogging is longer form thinking, complete with analysis and rich context. Tweets are great for quick hit engagements with others. They’re complementary, not competitive in terms of use cases. One point of “competition”, if you will, is the amount of time one has in a day to do either.
One other note – tweets and FriendFeed entries do show up in search results. I recently ran a search for my company, “Connectbeam”, and Enterprise 2.0 industry analyst Mike “Gotta”, you will see tweets and FriendFeed entries in the results. Not at the top, but they’re in there. Link to search: http://bit.ly/f28s
Cirurgia Plastica replied | Apr 13, 2009 (3 comments)
Twitter and blog are different and can coexist