"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. It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter." - or FriendFeed. :) - Meryn Stol from Bookmarklet

What Chris said. I think what's happened is that people who couldn't write worth a damn, nor had anything interesting to say in the first place are using these other services. A blog, for a writer, is still a good thing to have. But then this is in Wired and we all know how much time MSM spent denigrating blogs & bloggers. Now they've turned their sites onto Twitter or Facebook. The more things change... - Anika

Chris, indeed, this isn't applicable to everybody. In fact, I think that blogging will become ever more pervasive, but then as a kind of "supplement" to the fast-paced conversation on places like FriendFeed and Twitter. I think that literally *everyone* wants to write something a few paragraphs long at some point in time. The primary channel of staying in touch won't be the blog anymore, but blogs will be part of everyone's toolbox. - Meryn Stol

I think that being on Twitter or FriendFeed (or like venues) will be more important than having a blog. If you want to write something, you can always "paste" it somewhere, then link to it from Twitter or FF. It doesn't need to be on a blog perse. - Meryn Stol

It was inevitable, really. Given the ever-diminishing attention span of the average internet user, who wouldn't bail on blogs for a Twitter account? These type of services work because (a) brevity, as stated in the article, (b) no coding required, which is a considerable hurdle for the non-techie and (c) everyone is in the same place - no more having to search for a blog. - Steven Perez

Oh, and (d) you can do FriendFeed, Twitter and Facebook from your cell phone. Good luck trying to blog with a cell phone. Believe me, I've tried; the setup alone would probably make most people throw up their hands in frustration. - Steven Perez

I think people mainly just want to talk. Blogs have always been there to facilitate conversation. I think the more "dense" the network, the more friends - or people with similar interests - are connected and online at the same time - or nearly the same time - the smaller the unit of conversation will become. Long monologues are frowned upon in normal social settings. - Meryn Stol

All this about the death of blogs sounds to me like saying "because we have McDonalds, restaurants are dead." - Rebecca Lasley

"You are commenting on a blog article proclaiming the death of blogs." Yup, but I didn't have to write my own blog post for it. I don't have a blog, but still can have online conversation. I might have had the same result if I had written some nice provocative text myself, maybe even adding a cute birdie. :) And Chris, be honest, have you taken the time to read the whole article? I didn't! - Meryn Stol

"Maybe social media is a replacement for the sort of chatty, tedious personal blogs people were throwing up a few years ago" I think it's this kind of blogs this one author is talking about. Not the blogs doing intensive journalism. - Meryn Stol

I keep thinking about literary forms -- short stories, novels, epics, sonnets, haiku, essays, letters, journalism...the list goes on. Why would we expect online communications and self-expression to be any less multifarious? - Rebecca Lasley

Rebecca, true. It's just that blogs have become a very dominant mode of communication. I think that Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook will take over, also for the more "serious" things that need to be talked about. And this means emphasis will shift to shorter pieces of text, with faster back-and-forths. Less essays, less 20 or 100 page PDF reports. - Meryn Stol

I sure hope that the book as an art form will be around for a long time. But photography hasn't really displaced paintings either, so I see this quite rosy. :) - Meryn Stol

If anything, there is more art out there than ever. I think it's too early to know what will and won't survive as formats. Most of what we're talking about didn't exist a very short time ago. But individuals will always gravitate toward the forms that suit their situation, skills, and comfort levels. - Rebecca Lasley

@Meryn- I'm with Chris on this one. Blogs are evolving, but they have a place. When well written and with a point to make (call to action), they're what web sites would be if you flipped them- rapid, coherent, integrated publishing that people can pull and build upon. While I don't write "intensive journalism", I believe there is value in the content I propose - and so do my readers :) Blogs are hard to commit to, people want/need immediacy. Wrote about it recently. Thank you for the conversation. - Valeria Maltoni

everyone always falls for wired's linkbait - Adam Singer

Rebecca, yup. And I think that for most people (e.g. non-artists) that's talk, plain talk. :) And blogs are too far from regular talk. I do think the "conversation model" of blogging will survive: That is, "throw something in the group" (where the group is your subscribers/followers). This has big benefits over starting a conversation with a specific person. Twitter and FriendFeed also follow the blogging model closely. - Meryn Stol

Adam, indeed. Now I have even tricked *you* into joining this conversation. :P - Meryn Stol

Another good point, Chris. A fair amount of attrition was inevitable in any case. How many books ended up in the remainder heap compared to the successful ones? And those numbers are tiny compared to the deluge of words that never made it into print. There's a vast quantity of people who dream of having an audience for their writing. While the web may cut out the publisher as arbiter, the winnowing happens all the same. New media is not exempt from all of old media's constraints. - Rebecca Lasley

In fact, there's a vast quantity of people who just dream of writing -- look at the success of NaNoWriMo. - Rebecca Lasley

That's not true. I don't agree with this title. Haven't read the post, but disagree strongly. - Richard A.

Pardon my French, but the logic of Boutin's essay is ass-backwards. If people who used to blog are fleeing to the micro-blogs then now is the BEST time to write long form because there will be less competition for attention. After all, the people who spend all their time on FF, FB and Twitter have to chat about something -- it might as well be your blog! - Sprague D

"Most people go to sites (MSM or blogs or whatever) for information. Nobody Googles a "conversation."" I think what matters most is not so much what people are looking for, but what people are willing to produce voluntarily. They say "talk is cheap", and this contains much wisdom. Just typing away some comments like we're doing on FF is much easier than thinking up a blog post. Still, in all our sentences, the same knowledge is contained as can be found in those much harder to write articles and essays. - Meryn Stol

+1 Sprague - Bec Rowe @d0tski

At this moment in time, writing quality content still might bring you some fame or advertising revenue, but I have much doubt that this will hold. The revenue part will go first, followed by the fame. The difference of expertise between people doesn't differ as much as many people still think. - Meryn Stol

No money, no fame... Why would you make it hard for yourself then? The only reason I can think of is that you truly wish to create art. Art will survive. Serious discourse will gravitate to a conversational style. That's my prediction. - Meryn Stol

I read the article, and I think the person who wrote this is just saying it because they want less competition. Blogging isn't dead by a long shot. And I also think someone is just upset that they get hecklers on their blog. Hell, if you are popular enough to get hecklers I would say your doing pretty well. - Mathew™ aka Youngblood

+1 Mathew - Sprague D

Mathew++. I came back here just to say how ridiculous this post is. - Rah-PM 2012

The intertubes would freak if all blogs took one day off ... no blog posts for a day and people would stop jabbering about blogs being dead. - AJ Kohn

Another fairly lame attempt at defining something that goes beyond the author's ability to define--or even to understand. It's classical journalism, hypocritically offered (through a blog, of course): "I'll shape opinion, goddamnit; that's what I'll do." Blahblahblah. Whatever. - Shawn Michel de Montaigne