Are Blogs Outdated?

[vtgorilla]

Personally I believe that blogs are no longer the correct route to go for internet entrepreneurs. Not to take anything away from those who do it, but I think it is kind of a past idea. Sure blogs can still be profitable but I think it takes a lot more to become successful at one now that the blogging boom has passed.

The exception is that if you come up with an idea that is unique, then I think you are on the right track. But for the most part, a content related site in a specific niche or category would most likely be more profitable.

Just my 2c, but hey, what do I know? Any thoughts?

[moviestar]

Blogs cannot be outdated if there isn't anything to replace them.
What do you propose is the new medium?

[vtgorilla]

Originally Posted by moviestar

Blogs cannot be outdated if there isn't anything to replace them.
What do you propose is the new medium?

Maybe outdated is the wrong word to use. I don't believe there is a new medium just a larger lack of interest in blogs. I think they can be looked at as opinions rather than factual and that detracts from the overall user interest. Where as a 'standard' informational website holds more value in the eye of the user because it does not appear to come from a sole person's point of view (although it may). I have never been much of a blog reader because of these basic assumptions even though I know that they are not necessarily true.

Blogs are by no means dead...just blog profitability for new sites is on the decline in my opinion.

[jer]

Blogs are becoming more important than ever as a way to promote
your website, as long as you put up good content. A blog can be a online journal, but it is more useful as a business tool.

Set-up correctly everytime you post, you can ping many directories, and tag important keywords. If your content is good and people find it in digg, or reddit, delicious, your article will become popular. People will bookmark it,
and return to your site, again and again. Eventually you don't have to rely
on the search engines.

Blogs are a neccessary evolution to website promotion otherwise people will keep trying these link and spam schemes to manipulation the serp's.
The SE's hate this. Good quality content, audio, video, properly promoted
will win now and in the future.

[Dani]

Originally Posted by vtgorilla

Maybe outdated is the wrong word to use. I don't believe there is a new medium just a larger lack of interest in blogs. I think they can be looked at as opinions rather than factual and that detracts from the overall user interest. Where as a 'standard' informational website holds more value in the eye of the user because it does not appear to come from a sole person's point of view (although it may). I have never been much of a blog reader because of these basic assumptions even though I know that they are not necessarily true.

Blogs are by no means dead...just blog profitability for new sites is on the decline in my opinion.

Do you have some figures to back this claim of decline up?

I tend to dissagree with you in that people LOVE opinion. More than fact in many cases.

A website with a strong opinion gets linked to everywhere, because it evokes emotion in people. A website with 'facts' doesn't have the same effect. Why do you think the popularity of the internet in general has soared in recent years? Because fact sites were getting replaced with opinion sites.

You very rarely see a fact page with crazy numbers of hits in a day, but that is regular for opinion sites.

I agree there are more, and it's getting harder to make money because of the competition, but blogs are by no stretch of the truth dead yet.

[Grigor]

Recently we conducted a small experiment related to future of blogging. Initial purpose of the experiment was to test MindMeister collaboration tool. Finally we created a small mind map about the future of blogging.
There were some interesting ideas noted in the mind map and none of them mentioned that blogs are dead. What can be seen there, though, is that there could be a lot of new forms and types of contents in the (near) future of blogging.
Blogging in a form which is common today can at a certain point in time become obsolete and outdated. But, as blogs, as a form, changed the contents of Web pages, the new forms (podcasts and video blogging, to name two most obvious and most radical) will change the contents even more.
The same applies to blogging as a way of making money. It is not the form that makes money, it is contents. It doesn't matter which form you put your contents, it will make money as long as a) form suits a contents and b) contents provides some value.
Uh, this is a huge topic and we just scratched it's surface.
PS. You can see the mind map on my blog or publicly shared and bigger here.
Kind regards,
Grigor

[Scott H Young]

Given that technorati is expanding and blogs are getting more publicity, I would say that the opposite is probably true.

[CeciL]

Are no longer? Are you serious? Thats as silly as saying "I think eCommerce is outdated". Blogs have just really started picking up steam and the market gets bigger and easier as time rolls by.

When it comes to blogs you just need to give people something they WANT to read, it needs to be entertaining, thought provocative or explain how to do something. You get a good following this way with a lot of repeat traffic.

With factual content it could be as boring as a book report but it still holds what they want to know at that time. You get a lot of one-timers surfing along to find what they want to know at the moment...

Most free content sites were very difficult (next to impossible) to make money from before "contextual ads".

I see both markets exploding, in essence they are the same... exchanging information for free in hopes of clicks...

[vtgorilla]

Some of you made very good points that I hadn't thought of...so I'm reconsidering. Although I'm not surprised at the response, due to where these forums are .

[SeriousKidding.com]

Blogging is so accessible to everybody. You don't need your own website anymore. Your free blog is your website. While the number of blogs grows exponentially everyday, that's because they ARE so popular. For nothing, you can start marketing, rant & raving, providing info, a web diary...whatever your little heart desires. So, while blogs are almost as omnipresent as websites, or soon will be, that's because both mediums and can compliment each other work IF you find the right niche. Have I found it? Not exactly. But, I'm workin' on it everyday, and many hours a day.

[da1prophet]

Originally Posted by vtgorilla

Personally I believe that blogs are no longer the correct route to go for internet entrepreneurs. Not to take anything away from those who do it, but I think it is kind of a past idea. Sure blogs can still be profitable but I think it takes a lot more to become successful at one now that the blogging boom has passed.

The exception is that if you come up with an idea that is unique, then I think you are on the right track. But for the most part, a content related site in a specific niche or category would most likely be more profitable.

Just my 2c, but hey, what do I know? Any thoughts?

I'll join the chorus in disagreeing with your assertion.

You could make the case that the mainstream media is losing their infatuation with blogs and blogging, but that's the nature of the beast. The typical MO of the mainstream media is to hype something as the next big thing and when it starts to achieve some popularity to do the opposite and hype that the same thing is no longer popular or even "dying out".

At its simplest level, the blog is just another vehicle for content on the Internet. Until it is replaced by something else--which may not happen for a long time--it'll still be a valuable tool.

The reality is that as long as you create content that readers find valuable the "medium"--be it blog, a traditional website, an email newsletter, podcast, et. al.--is of secondary importance. Now obviously some mediums are better suited for specific applications/audiences than others, but in theory its the content that drives the medium, not vice versa.

If you were an early adopter of the web you can remember the early days when just finding a website on a topic you were interested in was a novelty. The quality of the content on the site was less important than the fact the site existed at all. In time, the web became ubiquitous and there was a proliferation of websites--good, bad and in-between. The number of websites has exploded exponentially in the past decade, and someone who's developing a website (business or otherwise) has a wider variety of tools at their disposal but the fundamental equation is still the same--if you offer content that users find valuable the rest pretty much takes care of itself.

Face it, no one is going to get excited about reading a blog just because it *is* a blog. There's very few technologies that are so revolutionary that they transcend the content they provide, and even in these cases this is a very short term phenomenon. In the early days of TV, people would get excited just to watch TV but that novelty died off quickly. It wasn't long before the TV networks started having to compete on a qualitative basis which is how early pioneers like Milton Berle became stars. The content that the TV provides has changed somewhat over the years but its still around. And even though its a mature medium, there's still some content that it serves better than any other medium. If I can't catch a big boxing match live, the next best option is getting a bunch of people over and watching it on a big screen TV. I love movies, but I'm usually too busy to go to the theater--so I catch most films three months late on PPV. I've got a laptop and a desktop computer with a nice flat screen display but I'll only watch movies on my computer if I'm traveling. My life is not "TV centric" in the least, but there are still ways in which it provides value to me.

And "blog" as a verb is also in good shape or, very likely, becoming more significant. I probably get more information through blogs (via my RSS feed reader) than through traditional websites. Again, its the content, information, opinion, or whatever it provides that I find valuable not the way in which its served.

From a business standpoint, a blog is no different than a more traditional website. Regardless of the prevailing media hype, there was never a point where you could put up a website and watch the money roll in--you still had to provide value for customers. Blogs are no different--you just can't put one up and wait for the traffic/revenue to start streaming in. You still need to provide value. In reality, this is no different from any other business--you can't just open a store and just sit by while customers and money come pouring in, for example, unless you're providing value for them.

Once a technology gains some traction--even in a fast moving climate like the Internet--it takes a lot to render it completely irrelevant. I'm not talking about things that were all hype to begin with (like the Cue Cat or the original mania over "push" content) but technologies that have actually proved valuable. Its now easier to put video online than ever, but there's still plenty of written and audio content out there. In my experience, most worthwhile technologies serve to compliment the existing technologies. Since blogs are simply another way of serving up written content and since despite the growth of audio/video (both online and off) the written word remains relevant I expect that blogs are going to be an important component of the Internet for sometime to come.

For a business person, its better to view new technologies not in the "zero sum" terms that they'll replace an existing technology, but rather as another tool at your disposal with which to provide value to your customers with a greater degree of flexibility and efficiency.

[jakeyang]

I think blogs are just beginning to pick up steam. Like another poster said - if they're outdated - what's going to replace them?

Writing will always be important because of search engines. There's no other way to search for content without words - unless we can search audio and video

[Isis Kali]

I'd say that problogging is becoming an honest-to-God job option for many these days. It's a career track that has its risks, kinda like day trading, I guess. But, really, I think it's only been really pumping in maybe, oh, the last three years? It's got a LOT further to fly.

[radeldudel]

Originally Posted by vtgorilla

Personally I believe that blogs are no longer the correct route to go for internet entrepreneurs. Not to take anything away from those who do it, but I think it is kind of a past idea. Sure blogs can still be profitable but I think it takes a lot more to become successful at one now that the blogging boom has passed.

The exception is that if you come up with an idea that is unique, then I think you are on the right track. But for the most part, a content related site in a specific niche or category would most likely be more profitable.

Just my 2c, but hey, what do I know? Any thoughts?

You are right: there was a short time where you could start a blog and everyone would have a look 'whoa, look, a blog' even though you just posted pictures of your cat.

And now people are back to normal: owning a blog does not help you if you are not able to provide good content.

So we are back to the pre-blog-state of business: if you can provide interesting content you can be successful with a blog, a website, anything. If you have no original content it won't help you to create a blog.

Still I think blogs are a good tool. No more, no less. A tool.

Love You.

[Brian Lee]

I'm not sure if blogging as a whole is outdated, but there is only so much room for personal development blogs. Have you seen how many have popped up since Steve Pavlina?

You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned uniqueness.