The death of the blogosphere

Nicholas Carr wrote a blog post last week bemoaning the death of the blogosphere . In it he comments on how blogging is increasingly becoming the preserve of corporations/companies who employ teams of writers to ensure a continual output. The concept of a blogosphere of independent writers sharing and debating ideas is being overwhelmed by the unmatchable output of those with something to sell.

There's definitely something in this, and it reflects Henry Jenkins; ideas about Convergence Cultures. In that context blogs are just one more platform on which output is consumed and brand attachment (or kissmarks) is created.

Perhaps it's also a reflection of the realities of life. Blogging is time-consuming, it takes a committed individual to maintain a blog over a long period, particularly in the face of reader apathy or dwindling subscription levels. Figures quoted by Carr from Technorati reflect this:

"Technorati has identified 133 million blogs since it started indexing them in 2002. But at least 94 percent of them have gone dormant, the company reports in its most recent "state of the blogosphere" study. Only 7.4 million blogs had any postings in the last 120 days, and only 1.5 million had any postings in the last seven days. "

To my mind, it's debateable how much of this drop off is the result of corporate invasion and how much is the result of a fad finding it's place. Much like many people have found social networking sites have marginal use in their lives and their engagement is only maintained by a few particularly active friends, blogs seemed like a great idea for a while and now they're merely something good but not epochal.