Let's make blogging good again

Picture from Russell, usual stuff applies

I don't think blogging is as good as it used to be. It's lost a little magic.

I know this is down to rise (and ease of use) of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and all them but I miss blogging. Proper old fashioned blogging, like this and this and this.

So let's bring it back. Let's make blogging great again. Come on, we can do it.

I don't know how to do it, but I'm sure that just by writing this everyone will just start making blogging better. That's what used to happen. In the old days.

I've got some meetings today. I might start by blogging about them.

Comments

[GrahamSalmon]

Blogging has gone the way of letter writing.I've tried to blog again but haven't got the enthusiasm for it any more. It's too much effort writing more than 140 characters. It's easier to retweet/link to somebody else's work on Twitter and obtain shallow satisfaction from that.
People adjust their priorities more rapidly now. Anything that doesn't fit neatly on the screen of an iPhone, Android or iPad just gets by-passed.
I have to say that even following a link on a tweet is a bit of an effort if you've then got to play around with a smartphone screen.
Happily this morning I'm also sat in front of a laptop so I can type this. I am sure you must be delighted.

[worm]

plenty of old-fashioned blogging going on over here :
http://thedabbler.co.uk

[Pearl]

Couldn't hurt to say. I don't know that the other options displaced blogging. It's always a choice. I do them all. I also still read books and talk to people live. And use phones. Room at the table for everyone. But not with a phone ringer on of course. ;)

[Rob Mortimer]

I feel like i blog much the same as I used to, just alongside twitter and other things. I look forward to the revamped NDG, with the mysterious Stig like Ben at the helm again!

[Katy]

When I started blogging in 2000, alongside still-blogging bloggers like Meg Pickard, Tom Armitage and Dan Hon (amongst others) the way we blogged was very different. Firstly, we all blogged at different domains and all used Blogger code in hand coded html pages, because that was the only blogging tool available. The permalink hadn't yet been dreamed of. Comments weren't available, unless you rolled your own CMS. And the content was in some ways quite different. Our blogs really were weblogs (and we were webloggers, not bloggers) featuring a mix of links and daily personal commentary and update. Our blogs didn't have a theme as such, it was random ephemera that interested us. And because there weren't so many places to find interesting links, posting random links was perfectly acceptable / interesting / commonplace. In some ways nothing's changed. But in some ways it's a very very different world. 10 years eh? Whoda thunkit.

[Paul H. Colman]

Good stuff.
You know my theory is that everything went wrong when you stopped being anonymous.
But as I said - good stuff.

[Duswain]

Does Tumblr count?

[Brett T T Macfarlane]

The Campaign for Proper Blogger salutes you - http://campaignforproperblogging.tumblr.com/

[Nick S]

I think Tumblr counts plenty, and got a bit miffed with Khoi Vinh when he talked about it encouraging "shallow identity". I don't think it's coincidental that plenty of old school bloggers (and proto-bloggers) now use it.

It's a bit weird to think that you can talk about the olden days of blogging, but it's weirder still to go on a nostalgic jaunt through old bloggy neighbourhoods and find so much missing.

[Ed]

Microblogging's too easy. Where's the fun when it doesn't involve staying up until the wee hours, typing and retyping a meaty article??

I'm with you on this, Ben.