Just yesterday I pointed to Andrew Sullivan’s insightful Why I Blog in which he compares blogging to jazz and argues effectively that blogging heralds a golden age of journalism.
Then today I find Paul Boutin in Wired arguing that blogging’s heyday has passed. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004:
Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.
Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths.
He goes on complain that the lone blogger no longer skyrockets to the top of Google’s search results for any given topic and says instead the only audience that’s left is “the Net’s lowest form of life: The insult commenter.”
Ouch.
Mathew Ingram is having none of it:
And what evidence do we have that blogs aren’t the place to be any more? Just this: Jason Calacanis quit blogging and moved to an email newsletter, and Robert Scoble is mostly doing video posts and Twittering.
So there you have it. Case closed.
Mathew’s take:
Is everyone going to have a blog? No — and they never were. Facebook and Twitter are probably enough for many people. Not writing at all is enough for many people. But why does it have to be all or nothing? What we have now is the option to micro-blog (i.e., Twitter) some thoughts, post others to Facebook, share things on FriendFeed or through Google Reader, and blog things that take longer to think through. But I guess that’s not as catchy as a “blogs are dead, Twitter killed them” scenario.
Aren’t blogs wonderful!?!?