le petit mort
October 8, 2003 8:34 AM Subscribe
Weblogging, the fad most poplular amongst teenage girls, is dying. The "blogosphere" will number ten million souls by the end of 2004, but almost all of them will be dead.
"...most teenagers will experience but a brushing pass with weblogging, and will continue unscathed to develop normal and healthy lives."
Priceless.
posted by fletchmuy at 8:38 AM on October 8, 2003
Priceless.
posted by fletchmuy at 8:38 AM on October 8, 2003
Yay! Know weblogging can go back to being the exclusionist clique we want it to be!
posted by PenDevil at 8:42 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by PenDevil at 8:42 AM on October 8, 2003
If there is anything more boring than weblogging, it is surely Andrew Orlowski writing about how weblogging is so boring. Just think how much he's being PAID to write all this screed about a phenomenon that no-one is purportedly interested in. He is a zit on a barnacle on a crab. And here I am wasting words on him.
*disappears in a puff of logic*
posted by walrus at 8:50 AM on October 8, 2003
*disappears in a puff of logic*
posted by walrus at 8:50 AM on October 8, 2003
blah blah blah - it'll never die or go out of style... at least not as long as Adam Curry is blogging.
[ahem.]
though I do find that a lot of people start blogging and just vanish. They never have the decency to send a "dear john" letter to the rest of us that were all hopeful after their first three posts about antidisestablishmentarianism and its effects on immigrants from countries where endometriosis is present.
posted by djspicerack at 8:59 AM on October 8, 2003
[ahem.]
though I do find that a lot of people start blogging and just vanish. They never have the decency to send a "dear john" letter to the rest of us that were all hopeful after their first three posts about antidisestablishmentarianism and its effects on immigrants from countries where endometriosis is present.
posted by djspicerack at 8:59 AM on October 8, 2003
By similar reasoning, the Internt is dying. Used to be everybody put up a home page, usually with garish tiled backgrounds and mismatched fonts and colors. Most of these sites atrophied.
So what? Most blog sites wither and die. Good. Most fof everything seems to follow the same pattern. What remains are the (mostly) worthwhile, robust sites, kept alive because there are people with a genuine interest.
What's nice about the net is *you don't have to look*. The same medium can be used to broadcast (so to speak) to 10 people or 10 million. Deriding a site because it doesn't appeal to some minimum number of viewers misses the point.
Seems too many people want to think of the web as a another version of television, where only big numbers count.
It's like TV, but it's not. It's like book publishing, but it's not. It's like 'zine publishing, but it's not.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:17 AM on October 8, 2003
So what? Most blog sites wither and die. Good. Most fof everything seems to follow the same pattern. What remains are the (mostly) worthwhile, robust sites, kept alive because there are people with a genuine interest.
What's nice about the net is *you don't have to look*. The same medium can be used to broadcast (so to speak) to 10 people or 10 million. Deriding a site because it doesn't appeal to some minimum number of viewers misses the point.
Seems too many people want to think of the web as a another version of television, where only big numbers count.
It's like TV, but it's not. It's like book publishing, but it's not. It's like 'zine publishing, but it's not.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:17 AM on October 8, 2003
Let's just rewrite that Perseus report intro, shall we:
"Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services, exactly the kind of service used by people trying out blogging to see whether or not it was for them, and the kind often abandoned when webloggers upgrade to fuller-featured hosting services and blogging tools. (Our analysis did not cover nonhosted blogs.) Surprisingly, we found that many of these hosted blogs had been abandoned. We therefore conclude that the entire blogging world is an iceberg, and what with the global warming being brought on by Andrew Orlowski's hot air, you teenage girls had better watch out. KTHXBI."
I await Mr Orlowski's article on the Death of the Novel, citing reports that many aspiring novelists give up after writing a single page, and that even those who get published often have only one or two books in them.
posted by rory at 9:30 AM on October 8, 2003
"Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services, exactly the kind of service used by people trying out blogging to see whether or not it was for them, and the kind often abandoned when webloggers upgrade to fuller-featured hosting services and blogging tools. (Our analysis did not cover nonhosted blogs.) Surprisingly, we found that many of these hosted blogs had been abandoned. We therefore conclude that the entire blogging world is an iceberg, and what with the global warming being brought on by Andrew Orlowski's hot air, you teenage girls had better watch out. KTHXBI."
I await Mr Orlowski's article on the Death of the Novel, citing reports that many aspiring novelists give up after writing a single page, and that even those who get published often have only one or two books in them.
posted by rory at 9:30 AM on October 8, 2003
Reading this post, I had an image of all these weblogs being written by dead teenage girls, or that they would start a weblog, and mysteriously die. What a macabre image.
posted by jpburns at 9:31 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by jpburns at 9:31 AM on October 8, 2003
The web is not done. The web is never done. Others will come to replace the ones who leave. Meanwhile, some are more dependable than others. For example, Bill Chance has been chronicling for over seven years and is still going strong. Perhaps [B]logging may come and go, but [c]hronicling has been here, and is here to stay.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:39 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by ZachsMind at 9:39 AM on October 8, 2003
Register: Anne Frank Hasn't Updated in 700 Months; Diarosphere Doomed.
posted by rory at 9:42 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by rory at 9:42 AM on October 8, 2003
ASL?
posted by angry modem at 9:56 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by angry modem at 9:56 AM on October 8, 2003
yeah -- rory's point is good. I started a Blogger weblog, decided that I didn't like it, and moved on to Movable Type. By their standards, though, I "abandoned" blogging after a few entries...
posted by dagnyscott at 9:57 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by dagnyscott at 9:57 AM on October 8, 2003
angry modem -
28/m/nj u?
HA
the Internet will never die (although AOL might...)
posted by djspicerack at 10:01 AM on October 8, 2003
28/m/nj u?
HA
the Internet will never die (although AOL might...)
posted by djspicerack at 10:01 AM on October 8, 2003
Whut? You mean that blogs won't solve all the world's problems? I been decieved!
posted by HTuttle at 10:18 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by HTuttle at 10:18 AM on October 8, 2003
Don't be so quick to slam this article simply because Andrew Orlowski wrote it. The part about how he licks greyhound balls makes it more entertaining than the last 10 pieces he wrote making exactly the same points.
posted by rcade at 10:30 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by rcade at 10:30 AM on October 8, 2003
I think the phenomenon described in the article is very real. I know for a fact that this once-excellent weblog has not been updated in, like, months.
posted by soyjoy at 10:33 AM on October 8, 2003
posted by soyjoy at 10:33 AM on October 8, 2003
rcade: The part about how he licks greyhound balls makes it more entertaining than the last 10 pieces he wrote making exactly the same points.
Oh, but you're leaving out the best part - the image of Winer as a greyhound, licking his balls...
Oh, the humanity!
posted by JollyWanker at 10:38 AM on October 8, 2003
Oh, but you're leaving out the best part - the image of Winer as a greyhound, licking his balls...
Oh, the humanity!
posted by JollyWanker at 10:38 AM on October 8, 2003
Of the services that they surveyed, I have personally had at least one blog on each of them over the course of the last two years. Several of them I have had more than one blog on. All but two of them have been abandoned by me, and the two I maintain at all are only updated on rare occasions. I've used them to check out the system and see how it works, or for side projects or group projects (or to figure them out so I can explain them to friends who use them), mostly because it was something I wanted to work on that was so trivial, boring or outright stupid that I didn't want to waste my own server space on it. I kept one Blogspot for my Haiku, and only because someone paid for it to be ad-free for something like the rest of my life (and I felt guilty about not using it for something), and I have to keep the LJ account so I can read my friends juicy private posts.
The point I think I was trying to make is that lots of people do this exact same thing (use them as side projects or just try them out to see whether they suck or not), and even more people start out with one of these free hosted systems, and then discover that it's SO much better to run something on your own server where you have complete control (and all your files to back up easily yourself). These free things suck as far as reliability goes (the reason I abandoned Blogger for MT years ago in fact). If they are only looking at the free services that are hosted, they are getting a VERY limited view of blogging. Of the 100 or so people I know who are bloggers, only 6 of them use any of these services, and all of them update more than once every 14 days (more like every 14 minutes).
OK, I'm babbling. Too much caffeine and stress this morning ... but the survey just seems skewed to me.
posted by Orb at 10:48 AM on October 8, 2003
The point I think I was trying to make is that lots of people do this exact same thing (use them as side projects or just try them out to see whether they suck or not), and even more people start out with one of these free hosted systems, and then discover that it's SO much better to run something on your own server where you have complete control (and all your files to back up easily yourself). These free things suck as far as reliability goes (the reason I abandoned Blogger for MT years ago in fact). If they are only looking at the free services that are hosted, they are getting a VERY limited view of blogging. Of the 100 or so people I know who are bloggers, only 6 of them use any of these services, and all of them update more than once every 14 days (more like every 14 minutes).
OK, I'm babbling. Too much caffeine and stress this morning ... but the survey just seems skewed to me.
posted by Orb at 10:48 AM on October 8, 2003
Reading this post, I had an image of all these weblogs being written by dead teenage girls, or that they would start a weblog, and mysteriously die.
If only.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 12:12 PM on October 8, 2003
If only.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 12:12 PM on October 8, 2003
Somehow this thread makes me think of this Flash animation.
Warning: Flash, and rude words.
posted by chrid at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2003
Warning: Flash, and rude words.
posted by chrid at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2003
You know, most people don't last more than a year with any hobby, why should blogging be any different?
posted by me3dia at 2:05 PM on October 8, 2003
posted by me3dia at 2:05 PM on October 8, 2003
Don't be so quick to slam this article
Who's slamming? Everyone agrees, blogs suck.
posted by carfilhiot at 4:27 PM on October 8, 2003
Who's slamming? Everyone agrees, blogs suck.
posted by carfilhiot at 4:27 PM on October 8, 2003
Orlowski is a long-proven idiot. Same guy who decided to make vicious personal attacks on the people who appeared in apple 'switch' ads for no apparent reason.
posted by benh57 at 6:40 PM on October 8, 2003
posted by benh57 at 6:40 PM on October 8, 2003
soyjoy: Well, you *did* eventually shut up about Joe Jackson, right? The rest kinda writes itself.
posted by arto at 11:47 PM on October 8, 2003
posted by arto at 11:47 PM on October 8, 2003
Dammit, Zach, Bill Chance is not now, has never been and will never be a blogger. And Curry? He can't even properly set a background color. (His site looks really cute with my default orange.)
All of this metacrap is really grating. Blog. Don't blog. Blogs will fade away or blogs will be the epoch of civilization. Does it really matter?
posted by Dreama at 12:25 AM on October 9, 2003
All of this metacrap is really grating. Blog. Don't blog. Blogs will fade away or blogs will be the epoch of civilization. Does it really matter?
posted by Dreama at 12:25 AM on October 9, 2003
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posted by the fire you left me at 8:35 AM on October 8, 2003