Everywhere you look it seems like YouTube (and similar sites) are the talk of the Internet community. Once a burgeoning site, its blessing and purchase by Google took a popular form of online “infotainment” and made it even more popular…something that Google seems to be able to do.
With all this attention to online video, including copyright issues, marketing opportunities, and the ability of “the common person” to produce videos with cell phones and share them with the world, one has to wonder what this means for blogs.
Are blogs dead? Will we see Blogger and friends disappear?
According to David Sifry, blogs are still growing strong: There are about 57 million of them as of an early November count by these authoritative blog-counters.
As a business person I’m looking at the numbers and trends and even though I don’t disagree that blogs are growing, I think the shine has worn off.
I think people realize just how much work is involved in sharing their life. This is the reason that many blogs don’t make it past 3 months…few people start a blog and can keep up the content beyond that time.
There’s also the factor of video being the latest and greatest thing and you no longer have to post it on a blog, you can simply create an account at YouTube and share your favorites there…foregoing the excessive typing that some bloggers may not enjoy.
And recently I reported audioblog shutting down its ability for most people to phone in a blog to be posted by MP3.
My opinion? We moved past the growth phase of blogs: it’s not a Wild West free-for-all of untamed adventure with unknown vistas over the next hill. People know what blogs are now and what to expect when they link to a blog. There has been a “shakeout” of the things that don’t work profitably (such as audioblogging). The result? Blogs will continue to grow for a while yet but not at the tremendous stage they once did. We won’t see as many new and exciting blog-related products come out anymore; instead we’ll just see general improvements on current blog technology.
In business terms we’ve moved from the growth stage to the maturity stage of the blogging world. There’s still growth but it’s not nearly as dramatic and cutting edge. In another year or so, blogs could be pass if new efforts are not made to revive their ability to connect us with each other (in the way that MySpace does it, for example).
What does this mean for businesses? My suggestion is to revive that blog! If you have a blog that has lagged behind for some time, you should revive it.
Why? Blogs are in the maturing stage but that does not mean that they are unpopular or ineffective. As well, many blogs that today are left untouched will fade away while regularly updated blogs will remain widely read in the tight blogging community.
Make sure that your blog has a really distinct purpose. If it just takes up a lot of your time and you end up posting similar content to your other (corporate) site, get rid of it. Your blog should support your business but act as a separate entity to drive traffic and make customers happy.
