DISQUS

Seth E · 2 years ago

Professionals come in and ruin a new platform?! So it goes... Most of the blogs I check out, and most of my readers, are all coming via Twitter. It's like a, as you say, A list. If one of my "friends" says "hey, just wrote this post etc." it's more likely to catch my attention then when I'm just J-ing mindlessly through GoogReader. Also, I don't think Twitter is necessarily killing blogs, but making us all ask if "we should just Tweet this?" and therefore may actually be helping blogs get better and more thought-out.

Jim "Genuine" Turner · 2 years ago

I'm with you Seth, and "J-ing" I'm going to have to remember that one. I have noticed that Twitter is a better conversation tool than my blog at times. I can have many conversations at once on Twitter and not just related to the topic of my blog. I have my Daddy blog where I talk about kids and of course my business blog, and I have Twitter friends that are grouped in the same way. I can talk about diapers in one tweet and the latest socnet app in another and carry on both conversations at once.

webprofessor · 2 years ago

I genuinely like that all the cat posts are going to Twitter. It makes the blogs I read more topical and interesting for me.

gwhiz · 2 years ago

Digital nomads always find that niche product that suits their need best.

What will we do once all this stuff matures? (I'm thinking that, like the hermit crab, we'll simply find new digital homes to suit our new, larger, digital selves)

MichaelDotNet · 2 years ago

Ironically, I mentioned this on twitter. If you have an editor (or editors as the case so often is), then you are not a blog. Now the Techmeme leaderboard may be a useful resource to track the current "Tech Memes" (eh, funny that). But as some blog list? It falls short IMHO. Where are the MSDN Blogs? Where are the QuickSolution blogs? Where are the NuSoft blogs? Where is FrazzledDad, AlongTheWay, Martin Fowler's Bliki, or the other 100 subscriptions I have in Google Reader? Besides, I'm already subscribed to Techmeme's leaderboard... The sites are good news resources, but they don't inspire me like a true blog does.

Note the above doesn't apply to the ENTIRE leaderboard, but it's sure heavily skewed that way.

MichaelDotNet · 2 years ago

Oh and Scoble, the automatic "follow" thing is kind of crazy. Usually of people have a high follower amount AND a high following rate I don't bother following them. Usually they're just trying to sell me something. I figure someone with a large about of followers but aren't following that many people must have something interesting to say...

It's a fine line to be sure.

Yuvi · 2 years ago

Well, I think it's not exactly supposed to be a Top 100 Blogs list. I think it's more of a Top 100 News Sources list. Both of them are quite different.

I did a very, very quick and dirty comparison of the Techmeme Top 100 with the Technorati Top 100 (and the Digg Top 100 as well) in a kind of a mini Statbot, and the numbers show that the Techmeme Top 100 is more closer to the Digg Top 100 than the Technorati Top 100. Supports my theory that it's a list of Top 100 news sources. Here's that mini statbot: http://blog.yuvisense.net/2007/10/01/mini-statb...

My problem with Twitter? You can't follow conversations unless you are subscribed to all the people in the conversation. If you are talking to Dave Sifry and Dave Winer, I can make sense of the conversation only if I am subscribed to them both. Bummer.

On a side note, I'm waiting for December, so that I can analyse how your Blog, LinkBlog and Tweets changed before and after Milan was born. Should be fun :D

thatedeguy · 2 years ago

If you think of blogging as simply an online version of many, many small real world dailies, it does make some sense. However, if you use the "one voice" bit, then no, they are just another MSM outlet.

Bob Warfield · 2 years ago

The interesting list are those people just off the A list because the A list is too pasteurized and commoditized:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/the-...

Maybe Twitter is the answer to seeing beyond the A-list, but I hunger for tools expressly aimed at sailing off the edge of the known world.

Christian Burns · 2 years ago

when a jjjj feels like work, I will play with scoble and the rest of my a-list on twitter.

Eric Eggertson · 2 years ago

If you have an editor, it's not a blog.

I hope that doesn't include my wife, who sometimes helps me find what I'm really trying to say hidden in a long, rambling first draft.

Orville Chomer · 2 years ago

I'd love to join twitter but our corporate fire-wall blocks it. :(

Michael Moncur · 2 years ago

I don't really use twitter, and I have not noticed any particular lack of posts in the 150-odd blogs I read as a result of twitter or anything else.

If some of the "noise" of blogging is moving to twitter, though, I'll gladly enjoy the less noisy blogs.

Mathew Ingram · 2 years ago

Just a quick note that I don't have an editor (not even an internal one sometimes), and therefore I think I qualify as a "real" blogger :-)

francine hardaway · 2 years ago

Let's also remember that this is "tech"meme's list, and not the world's list of the top 100. What about real estate blogs, health blogs, political blogs? These lists are bulls**t. Which is not to say that the MSM hasn't come to blogging. Most of their "blogs" suck, but David Pogue's doesn't.

Paul Robinson · 2 years ago

Actually, I think Twitter makes my blog much, much better.

Why?

Because it gives me an outlet for all those little twitters of thought that, while interesting at the moment (maybe), are not going to be interesting 5 minutes or 5 days from now.

And turn, Twitter's limited message length keeps everyone terse. I can catch up on what's up in the Twitterverse in a few minutes. Try a few hours for my RSS catch up :)

scott anderson · 2 years ago

Great conversation...It took me a while to find value in Twitter and now I'm finding it to be the perfect compliment to my blog...my biggest challenge is getting readers/friends/colleagues to get on board with twitter...I wish more were aware...or that I could just get a decent posse of relevant "followers"

Jim Tobin at Ignite Social Med · 2 years ago

I think the point about Twitter and blog fatigue is a good one, but I'm not sure about the blogs have to be individuals thing. I know that's the popular thing to say, but if corporations take the advice in Naked Conversations and elsewhere, it's natural that they adapt it to their needs.

If they "stuffed shirt" it, people will just ignore them, but to define blog as one person only doesn't quite cut it for me either. It's just a content management system, it could be used well or poorly, by individuals and companies...

My two cents...

Jim Tobin at Ignite Social Med · 2 years ago

Oh, and I found this post by following Steve Rubel on Twitter. Totally agree that's often more interesting than GoogleReader...

Deepak · 2 years ago

First things first ... Francine is quite right. Tech is not the end all of blogging.

Let's also not forget that there are a lot of people airing out their thoughts on the Facebook's, Twitter's, Vox' etc of the world. I know a lot of people, especially back home in India who are not on Twitter, but are on Vox, cause they can control who gets to see what.

Jeremy Pepper · 2 years ago

People like lists, and that's the basic premise of it. Lists help people keep things in order. And we like order.

Yes, this is a tech list - and lists are not bullshit, despite others claim - but it still is a measuring stick of influence. One that is important and valuable to a lot of various people. Robert, she wouldn't have had you come to AZ if you weren't high on that list. ;)

And while Twitter has value, the downside to Twitter is that the very stupid stuff gets buried. You stick your neck out on your blog, people notice it. You Twitter something interesting, odds are it's going to get buried or die. Or, well, get erased before becoming part of the Google cache.

One last thought - while the A list might be insufferable at times, it is a ranking of influence for certain areas. But each space has its own A-list, and those are the people that are passionate about products, spaces, services, etc.

TDavid · 2 years ago

Death of blogging? Nope. Just shows what a lot of bloggers like to link to that are highly regarded by Gabe's algo. This is such a micro niche, Scoble, I'd expect you'd see through this (don't you?).

I am curious by your definition of blogs being "single voice of a person"? So what about group blogs? Is the group I'm a part of that has never had an editor not a blog in your eyes because we all share our writing at one place instead of having eight different less updated blogs?

Can't "single voice" bloggers band together on a publication like Boing Boing and still be considered bloggers? I think so.

buckpost · 2 years ago

Still don't get Twitter - and definitely don't see it as an alternative for blogging if you're looking for any kind of insight or perspective. To be clear, Twitter is not blogging or micro-blogging. It's just instant-messaging with a twist.

Lynn · 2 years ago

As a newbie to the internet, I find blogs like this useful to learn about the differnet technologies out there. Keep up the good work. Now I need to find out what a Twitter is.

tish grier · 2 years ago

hi Robert...no, *everybody* isn't moving to Twitter. Only a select few are taking on Twitter--probably the same select few who obsessively monitor Techmeme. There's huge swaths of the blogosphere that don't really care about either (check Roni Bennett's blog for some commentary on that.) What *has* changed are the 'sphere's within the 'sphere--the multiplicity of blogs and blog communities. And the multiplicity of blogs out there tell us how we can make money from our blogs. Both of those aspects are new. I'd say Techmeme's Leaderboard is just one community's way of showing who the movers and shakers are. And who's talking about them. No death just yet.

anon · 2 years ago

I wish someone would do a demographic analysis on Twitter.

Michael · 2 years ago

I'm with Yuvi on this. Techmeme top 100 is just a list of news sites. Telling me that Forbes is a good place for news is fine and dandy, but it's not a list of the top 100 blogs.

Beyond that, I don't read blogs for my news. I read blogs for the insight and perspective of others on a recent topic.

The Twitter evangelism is getting a bit old. The value of your twitter posts are 1/10th of the value of your blog posts a year or even 6 months ago. Everytime I visited your blog, I found something worth investigating further. I don't think I've seen that yet on Twitter.

apetra · 2 years ago

You misunderstand the TechMeme/Memeorandum algorithm. It uses link-rich blogs to qualify and quality rate media articles higher in the food chain. Most often that's link-sparse mainstream media articles. Less often, it's a blog article that captures the content better.

Aaron · 2 years ago

It's interesting [to me] how much more readily bloggers seem to jump into Twitter. Maybe it's because they've already gotten past the question: "why would anyone care what I'm doing?"

FTR, Twitter's hit me too. I'm amazed that a single app could have such an impact on attention.

Dennis McDonald · 2 years ago

My use of Twitter has caused me to think much harder about what to put in my blog. But Twitter is not so good a conversational tool, unless you follow all parts of the conversation. (I actually blogged about that issue here: http://www.ddmcd.com/turing.html.)

daxell · 2 years ago

is it really the death of blogging, when others claim it as the new revolution of voice out?

Graham Jones - Internet Psycho · 2 years ago

It all depends on your definition of blogging. Number 8 on the Techmeme list is the BBC. Not, by your definition a blog, but essentially using blogging type software. Indeed, all the news sites on Techmeme's list will use some kind of blogging software - because blogging is really content management. Defining blogging as the single voice is restrictive - even simple old Blogger allows more than one person to contribute to a blog.

For years newspapers and magazines have had their columnists - essentially print versions of individual bloggers. It's not what we call the system we use that matters - it's the content that's important. Most people have given up blogging and gone to Twitter because they don't have much to say - or unlike news organisations - have no system in place to generate content.

The reason the Techmeme list has so many news sites in its top 100 is because they provide fresh, updated content, constantly. That's the secret to online success - fresh content. Whether you do that using what you call "content management", "blogging" or just "web design" doesn't matter. It's not the system that's important - it's the content; that's what readers are looking for, they don't care how you produced it or how we define it.

Vincent van Wylick · 2 years ago

Hmm, I checked Andrew Parker's posting rhythm on his blog, and it seems pretty healthy. Alternatively, he posts like once a day on Twitter, as far as I can tell, pretty healthy too. So what is the point exactly?

As I commented on in Andrew's post when it came out, I think it's pretty impossible for Twitter to kill blogging. We will always need people like you, Scoble. But what we are seeing is the death of bloggers without business-models, which has been going on for several years. Scoops + blogging takes money, as sad as that may be.

Vincent van Wylick · 2 years ago

And considering there's about a million blogs out there, covering a range of topics, I think it's difficult to draw conclusions about the state of blogging from a list that only shows a 100, who are focussed on tech mainly.

krsnaKhandelwal · 2 years ago

The blogging is going to develop in to some thing invalueable.The material with permanent value would be discovered without any body making effort and there would be identifiers of such material for the spread of wisdom covered in such blogs.Give it time and let no body interfere not even the govt.. Through such open books no body can have a damaging effect on society and the sobreity would be seen in blogging . You do not find people ridiculously dressed on road although there usually is no prescribed dress code.

Vero Pepperrell · 2 years ago

Bah! I still feel both Twitter and my WP blog have a purpose. Twitter is for brain farts and short statements. Blog is for real posts or longer comments.

Not everyone likes writing run-on 10-tweets messages, Robert ;)

Vero Pepperrell · 2 years ago

And in addition to my comment above, I wouldn't have believed it either a few years ago if you'd told me my blog would lead to getting a job in mobile blogging!

Thankfully, it all happened, and I'm loving it!

insomniamg · 2 years ago

I totally agree. I just think the list is pointless and is just as relevant as the "top 50 bloggers of alltime list", etc.

Jake Ludington · 2 years ago

The TechMeme list says nothing about the death of blogging and everything about the way large percentages of people continue to get their news. 60% of the top 10 on that list are old media companies. Even TechCrunch is growing into a larger news outlet. Like most businesses, the business of blogging is pooling more talent in fewer places because it's easier to get your voice heard if you are part of one of the trusted sources (something you surely understand as an aggregator of original tech video). That doesn't mean people aren't still blogging as individuals, just that the places people read most are multiperson efforts.

dogslol · 2 years ago

That's an interesting observation. I was also wondering about top blogs being works of journalists because when you review the lists of top blogs under different blogging platforms, many belong to journalists/big media outlets.

GraceD · 2 years ago

As I told your panel at the May Cybersalon with Andrew Keen, "I don't know what Internet YOU GUYS are looking at."

(http://www.wordyard.com/2007/05/20/amateur-hour/)

The blogospheres (the spheres within the sphere, as Tish wisely observed) are alive and well and carries on without these sort of doomsday predictions from myopic A-list tech bloggers. I mean that in the nicest possible way, Robert.


Anyway, Twitter is "lite" beer. A good blog piece is a pint of stout. There will always be a need for both brews. It's a well stocked tavern, this World Wide Web of ours.

/cheesy pub analogy

Andrew Parker · 2 years ago

@46 - My blogging has fallen off as of late. That's why I wrote the post. Prior to the post, I blogged about 1-2 times a day. Now it's more like 2-3 times a week. But, sometimes I binge and post like 4 or 5 times in a single day. While working I Twitter about 4 times a day, but on the weekend its much less. And, I see the trend skewing even further towards Twitter. Thanks for taking a look at my stats though.

David Binkowski · 2 years ago

I'm going to go out on a limb here, Robert, and say that most people who've switched over to Twitter have run out of things to say or are tired of the drain that "professional" blogging can bring on. Alternatively, maybe their "blogging as therapy" has worked and they're much healthier individuals as a result of it. ;)

Those of us blogging around passion points have plenty to write about.

Paul Chaney · 2 years ago

Forgive this late reply (I'm catching up on some of my feeds.), but Jeremy Wright just Twittered, "I'm now following more twitterers than I'm reading blog feeds... And twittering more than blogging... Not sure what to make of it!"

If Jeremy is blogging less, then I think that must mean the sky is falling so far blogging is concerned.

There are just more options now and everything is finding its place in the conversational media spectrum.