What’s Your Reason?
Blogging less. . . . Some folks say it’s because bloggers are moving to social networks. That made sense at first. But does the rise of social networks really have anything to do with blogging less? I took a closer look. Five bloggers I highly respect gave other reasons.
1. I have to pay the rent.
Hugh MacLeod at gaping void gave 6 answers to why we’re blogging less. He used one of his illustrations from 1998, called “Dorothy.” It says:
My flame has gone out
My fuel has been spent
I forgot how to love
I can’t pay the rent
2. I got some kind of busy.
In That Blogging Less Meme, Josh Hallett says
Yeah there was the meme going around about blogging less. A good friends recently said, “Yeah, I live that meme…no need to post about it.” Ha. Well I’m living it as well.
All my friends that work in the space are busy, very busy. We’re all damn busy.
I used to blog quite a bit in what could loosely be termed the ‘thought leadership’ vein….that was commentary on this evolving world of social media. It was great for business development, but then I ended up getting busy, too busy to blog 🙂
3. I’m talking in shorter bits.
Last March, Steve Rubel was predicting this in Twitter, Human Attention and Moore’s Law.
Ahh, Moore’s Law. Thank goodness for it. Moore’s Law says the speed of chips and storage capacity double as they get shrink in physical size and get cheaper. Therefore, everyone benefits. This includes consumers/users and developers/producers (which frequently overlap in this new era). It gives rise to new services like Twitter.
However, there’s a serious catch. Your brain does not obey Moore’s Law. It’s aided by it, for sure. But the truth is. there’s only so much you can pack in there. That’s why David Allen sells so many Getting Things Done books. . . .
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Will people spend less time writing or reading blogs and more time Twittering? I posed this question on Twitter and got a resounding no. I am not so sure.
4. I think blogging more means blogging less.
Eric Kintz says blogging less isn’t the point in Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore.
If you want to be a top 50 Technorati blogger, you will most probably still need to post several times a day. But for the rest of us, we should think seriously about the added value of frequent blogging. Actually, according to Technorati, only 11% of all blogs update weekly or more. What will matter more and more is what you write and how you engage, not how often you write.
As the blogosphere matures, the measure of success will shift from traffic to reader loyalty. As Seth Godin says in his post, “blogging with restraint, selectivity, cogency and brevity (okay, that’s a long way of saying “making every word count”) will use attention more efficiently and ought to win.â€
5. My blog is not my life.
I like the way Deb Weil approaches it. Why I’m blogging less . . .
Because I’d rather be planting my garden. Or picnicing with Lucy, age 3 – see feet at left.
Are you blogging less? If you are, what’s your reason?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
