Yeah, that's it.In between the slow bloggers and the rapid-fire ones, there is a vast middle, hundreds of thousands of writers who are not trying to attract advertising or buzz but do want to reach like-minded colleagues and friends. These people have been the bedrock of the genre since its start, yet recently there has been a sea change in their output: They are increasingly turning to slow blogging, in practice if not in name.
“I’m definitely noticing a drop-off in posting — I’m talking about among the more visible bloggers, the ones with 100 to 200 readers or more,” said Danah Boyd, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies popular culture and technology. “I think that those people who were writing long, thought-out posts are continuing, but those who were writing, ‘Hey, check this out’ posts are going to other forums. It’s a dynamic shift.”
Technology is partly to blame. Two years ago, if a writer wanted to share a link or a video with friends or tell them about an upcoming event, he or she would post the information on a blog. Now it’s much faster to type 140 characters in a Twitter update (also known as a tweet), share pictures on Flickr, or use the news feed on Facebook. By comparison, a traditional blogging program like WordPress can feel downright glacial.
Ms. Ganley, the blogger in Vermont, has a slogan that encapsulates the trend: “Blog to reflect, Tweet to connect.” Blogging, she said, “is that slow place.”
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Someone Else Says What I've Been Thinking
From today's New York Times:
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Tweets that simultaneously update Facebook status to connect, yes. I agree. It's interesting to think about my shift away from blogging is situated in a cultural practice and not my personal preferences. It's interesting the way personal preferences evolve as options for connecting and interacting evolve / become available / become popular / as others choose to use different tools, too.
ReplyDeleteI noticed when I took a little break from my blog I basically started to microblog on Facebook. I've enjoyed that format, as it forces you to try to be amusing or informative in a few characters. But it does leave me wondering now how to combine the two and how to parcel shorter things between the two formats.
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteBut I all my twitter friends also have blogs so when they tweet something interesting, I often click through to their blog. So there's an overlap.