Kent Newsome lists the five phases of blogging, in his piece, they are:
Stage 1: Excitement
Step 2: Expectation
Stage 3: Frustration
Stage 4 Alienation
Stage 5: Abandonment
Technorati has published some stats and indeed, you get a sense that the number of new blogs might be rising, but the number of bloggers is slowing because people either sign up for new blogs (ie. have mutliple blogs) or they simply abandon and stop updating their blogs.
Blogs are (were?) in vogue, not “everyone’s got one”, so I’m not sure if the novelty has yet worn off, but trust me, it will.
I’d say blogging increasingly has to be put in a greater context. Blogging is simply a platform and a software, it is not an end to a means, it is the means to publish.
If you want to start blogging or are wondering if you should continue to maintain one, ask yourself if you like to write and pontificate on matters, if you do, then go ahead. If you don’t, don’t kid yourself: blogging is hard, takes a lot of time and commitment and worst off: chances are readership will never build.
The major blogs and blog networks have either been around for a while or they have network effects (ie. GigaOmniMedia will launch a blog and cross promote it on their other blogs, overnight, it can build readership). Of course, this is exactly what freaks out magazine publishers, because the cost of adding a new title is much higher for them than it is for blog networks.
And blog networks are not all that scarce either, there are probably several dozens, though only 5-10 will succeed in a given language/market.
Of course, success is relative. For me, our blogs fit in a greater media company, I’d never do a blog network only. But having blogs alongside search, video, contests etc. makes sense.
The key for each blog is to have a differentiating factor. For me, and this blog, I was not going to start reviewing every other widget etc., I have no patience. But I quickly realized that no one had that mix of ad sales experience, financial analysis and strategy know-how, so that’s how HipMojo.com became “Wall Street meets Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley.”
One thing in Newsome’s post tha is worth adding is when others do link to you, that should serve as some kind of validation of what strikes a chord, but the flip side is that you need to write about others are talking about for that to happen. That is not exactly going to create a lot of originality in the blog space, so take the time and chance to come up with creative and original posts.
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July 1st, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I think after a blogger abandones his or her blog there is little recourse, so likely there is no 6th step
There is an alternative 5 steps to blogging that I’ve outlined that can go another direction. While not easy, it worked for me
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/07/01/from-creation-to-achivement-the-other-5-stages-of-blogging/