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7.02.2010

Blog Ritardando ma non Troppo

It might be too soon to tell, but it seems to me there's a gradual blogging slowdown happening. I know that a lot of people have gone over exclusively to Twitter or Facebook and that's fine. Posting several paragraphs day-after-day year-after-year isn't easy. Even those of us who tend to be verbose articulate have trouble sometimes. But Facebook is where I chat with my friends and I just don't get Twitter. It reminds me of standing on the roof yelling out to the neighborhood, "I'm standing on my roof!" Not that I've ever done that, but that's what it feels like; I don't get the point...

I'm not only seeing fewer interesting blogs, I'm seeing some that once were interesting being filled more and more with posts about television shows. Again, nothing wrong with that. I just happen not to watch TV so it bores me. I can't imagine spending hours watching TV only to spend hours writing about it. Maybe writing about our daily life is beginning to hammer home how routine our lives actually are. Maybe we're finally over ourselves. Some of us, that is. Not me. I like reading about people's lives and I get a kick out of writing about my own.

In two weeks this blog will be eight years old and I still enjoy thinking out loud for my readers. My posts aren't always interesting, but I consider this as the continuation of the handwritten journals I kept for over 20 years before the Web was created. Of 50-odd volumes I think there are three that might be considered really interesting. If I'm lucky. There's no reason to expect my blog to be any different, except that it has improved my skills as a writer.

One of my greatest fears has been that blogging will phase out entirely in a few years. What will I do then? Will I go back to handwritten journals? How will I keep up with those of you whose blogs I read every day? And what will happen to a decade of entries? When Blogger closes down will they just evaporate? I don't even like thinking about it.

Until then, I'll be here and, as long as your blog is there, I'll read.

15 comments :

  1. Don't even THINK of Blogger closing down! Too horrible to contemplate...

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  2. Don't worry - as long as there are 'mommies' there will be bloggers galore.

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  3. I put up a bit on another "outsider" today. Come on ovah!

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  4. I like blogging, it makes me feel like someone is actually interested in what is going on with me and my family because they actually have to go to the blogger to see it. I'm not real interesting, but it is fun to blog about what I've been up to because I get to relive the events I'm blogging. Thanks for reminding me to keep it up - cheers!

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  5. well said.

    i too have noticed a slowdown of traffic on my site in the past 6 months... ive noticed others bemoaning the same thing.

    i blame it on just the sheer AMOUNT of us who are blogging nowadays. It seems that every shmuck with a pc has 1-3 blogs up and running. its just too much to keep up with everyone, as more and more blogs get added.

    thats MY take on it anyway. the only other option is that my blog sucks. that CANT be it.

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  6. I'm sure that some other thing will come along someday that might lure people away from Blogging in general, but Slyde hit on what the current situation is that is causing a slowdown.....so many bloggers, so little time!! You can only read so many, after a while it just all blurs together. I hope it doesn't go away, I've only been at this for a year. I've still got LOTS more to say!!!

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  7. never really thought about blogs "not being here". You know better than most how I've come and gone and come and gone and come again.

    Life distracts me at times. But I always feel alive and complete when I blog...whether it's interesting or not. It's me.

    As long as you're here I'll read too and chit chat with ya on Facebook!

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  8. You guys are great. I'll probably be that last surviving blogger--I'm not going anywhere!

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  9. Imagine, eight years! I am in awe. *bowsdeeply*


    Four and a half years later, I still have a hard time seeing myself as a blogger. I think of myself as a photo diarist. When I moved from DC, I promised my friends to take a picture a day of my new hometown and instead of stuffing their mailboxes, my daughter suggested and helped me set up a blog. That's how VfB was born. I never imagined I would stay with it for so long and that my little blog would propel me to go back to school and study for a degree in photography. And I know whom I have to be grateful for: that fabulous blogger community out there, people like you who gave me so much positive feedback and kept me going taking pictures, even during times when I had a hard time doing so.

    I sure hope and count on you to keep on blogging, my friend.

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  10. well... I was thinking the same, but let's just hope that blogging will go on, because it's so much more fun than just writing for your own...

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  11. I haven't blogged for long, though I have kept journals as far back as when they had to be kept on "loose-leaf" paper and when they were called "Nothing Books". Ha! Nothing, indeed. I was telling my cousin today that there is a fine line between what I share on my blog and what I journal - although many people would find that hard to believe based on the personal subjects I blog on. LOL Feel free to read my blog if you'd like to understand that! (Thanks for the free plug, Steph!) Anyway, I think many things are "fads" when they first happen, and I think blogs were very much that way. Maybe they have hit their peak and are waning now. Fine with me. That leaves those around that are really good and/or really dedicated to the art - or themselves - or their readers - or all the above. THAT is also fine with me.

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  12. Zounds! I don't blog about teevee that much, do I?

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  13. I'm not a big facebooker and I don't use twitter, and I find myself blogging slightly less frequently than I used to. Not sure why.

    About the Blogger archives: I wonder if we can export our entries out of Blogger into a text file or something. or else just do a whole lotta copying and pasting. Doesn't sound like fun.

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