Is the Blogosphere Shrinking?

In the past, we've highlighted the growing popularity of blogging. But, as it turns out, there's a big difference between reading and writing.

Recently, Technorati released its 5th annual State of the Blogosphere report. While it notes that 133 million blogs have been indexed since 2002, it also shows that only 1.1% of them -- 1.5 million blogs -- have been updated in the last seven days.

To assert that blogging is a mainstream activity may be a bit of exaggeration. People may have blogs, but they may not actually be blogging.

This could be an indication that the blogging industry, just like the economy, is slowing down. In 2007, about 1.5 million blog posts were created every 24 hours. This year, it is only 900,000.

The decrease in activity may not really reflect a decrease in popularity. After all, according to the BlogHer/Compass Partners 2008 Social Media Benchmark Study, 21.1 million women read and comment on blogs weekly.

Shifting to Microblogging and Web Publishing

The world of blogging is definitely changing, taking different shapes and forms, which may signify a blurring of social media. What a blog to some, may not be a blog in its truest of forms to others -- being something that is meant to be updated everyday. Not to mention the prevalence of microblogging.

Technorati expects that microblogging may become more popular than blogging, as more and more people blog in the way of status updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Recently, we also looked at the blogging trends from the Micro CMS perspective. Many of the blog platforms are starting to look and act like web content management tools, as blogging vendors are offering more and more Web CMS-type features like versioning, workflow, templating and asset management.

Where's the Blogosphere Going?

At best, the State of the Blogosphere highlights the changing, evolving nature of blogging media. At worst, it's just another way that online publishing is suffering. But in between, maybe it's a Darwinian way of weeding out the dominant blogs from those that don't have what it takes to remain relevant and significant.

Perhaps, it's a good thing that out of 133 million blogs only 1.5 million have the staying power. It's hard work to keep blogs constantly updated and informative; in the Blogosphere, it's survival of the fittest.

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