October 29, 2008

There was a piece of nonsensical link bait published last week asking whether blogging was dead. Obviously not. But it is changing and that means that some aspects of blogging will inevitably die. Standing in one place it is hard to judge which, so what do you think is on the way out?

Calendars

When was the last time you decided to put a calendar in your sidebar? Once upon a time they were de rigueur but they don’t really add much to browsing a blog and they aren’t seen very often any more.

Come to think of it, when was the last time you even used one?

Blogrolls

It used to be that linking out from a blogroll was a way of creating connections. It showed your interests, provided search juice, and, by way of referrers, maintained an awareness of your blog in the minds of others. Now though linking is much more about context, and giving someone a specific reason to follow that link.

Although there are still a few about I see less and less of them and it has been a very long time since I have wanted to declare my allegence to a group of friends on my sidebar. So are they dead? or do you still see a value in them?

Personally I wish the links / bookmarks / blogroll feature would be removed from the WordPress core as I think it is a niche application now.

Linking In general

Blog rolls aside, the whole point of blogs used to be to link. The idea that you could link from one post, to one post of another blog, to one post on another blog, and so on ad nauseum, was a strong and interesting one, but more and more, blogs are being written by freelancers with the end game being for you to exit the blog in a controlled way, i.e. through adverts or affiliate links. Not so much fun for the casual reader.

I do still see a lot of linking going on so pronouncements of death are hideously premature, but the madly incestuous linking to anyone and everyone that used to define the blogiverse seems to have calmed. Even this post has no links (although I would have to do that just to prove a point really wouldn’t I?).

Reverse Chronological Layouts

OK, this one is a little specious, but once you add a sticky post, then decide to show the most recent post from a number of different categories, magazine style, even though some of those categories may not be as recent as other posts, you are heading down a dark road towards issues, and editions rather than a simple list of dated posts.

This may be nothing but a passing trend or it may be the future for serious blogs, as opposed to fun light hearted blogs (like this one :-) ), but as people get more interested in being published, and find more and more weight can be added to their words by following a more professional style of presentation will the blog layout as we know it start to die?

Would that in itself mean that blogging is dying or is a small online media outlet nothing but a blog in disguise?