Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.That comes from a recent Wired article, called Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.
I disagree. So do others.
Blogging is not dead. Is it evolving? Certainly. Most things do.
The Wired article claims that it is impossible for standalone bloggers to get to the top of Technorati because it has been overrun by what are essentially professional magazines hiring teams of bloggers and updating 30 times a day. This is true. A lone blogger probably can't get to the top of Technorati.
But they don't need to.
Blogging is a medium. Using Technorati as the sole metric of which is the "best blog" is as silly as using a single metric to rate "the best book." Do you mean fiction? If so, do you mean only novels, or short story collections and novellas as well?
I say that bloggers, or companies, should use their blog to tell their story. They should make it an interesting story, one that's worth reading, and to heck with the latest social networking site.
The New York Times' website now runs on Wordpress, a blogging platform. I get valuable information on personal finance from a number of finance blog archives I've recently started working my way through. I follow the American presidential election through a number of blogs on both sides of the political spectrum. Are all these things going to be replaced by status updates on Facebook or tweets on Twitter? I doubt it.
If you have something to say, say it. To quote McLuhan's Understanding Media, a medium is "an extension of ourselves." Pick the most appropriate one and get cracking.
