The importance of being connected to the world on the Web is undeniable. Creating a presence is no easy task, but it’s worth the effort. Not only do social media and blogs allow you to share articles, images, videos, etc. that you find interesting or discussion-worthy, but they also provide places for you to share what you generate on your own, from ideas, opinions, or solutions. Blogs especially are a platform that allow for engagement that go to depths that Twitter and Tumblr can never reach.
At the end of January, Andrew Sullivan, a prolific political blogger, announced on his website that he and his co-bloggers had reached the end of their time blogging at The Dish. Why is this significant? Because Sullivan was one of the first to plunge into the blogosphere. He was able to make a respectable living from his website/blog, but now that he’s decided to let it go, many are saying that the era of blogging has ended. With the existence of sites like Medium, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, it’s easy to see how some might think that the time of individual blogs on WordPress might be winding down.
Yet what I want to draw your attention to is an article written by Ben Thompson over at Stratechery. In it, he outlines the arguments supporting the opinion that blogging is dead and goes on to rebut them, explaining why blogging is still alive and well, and why it is still viable as a business venture. That’s not to say that all blogs can be used to create business; that’s just one way a blog/blogging community can be used. Regardless of how a blog is used, there is no argument about the importance of a blog:
…when I speak of the “blog” I am referring to a regularly-updated site that is owned-and-operated by an individual (there is, of course, the “group blog,” but it too has a clearly-defined set of authors). And there, in that definition, is the reason why, despite the great unbundling, the blog has not and will not die: it is the only communications tool, in contrast to every other social service, that is owned by the author; to say someone follows a blog is to say someone follows a person (Thompson).