Most Blogs Now Abandoned 290
The Narrative Fallacy writes "Douglas Quenqua reports in the NY Times that according to a 2008 survey only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days meaning that "95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled." Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but it's probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views. "There's a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one." Many people who think blogging is a fast path to financial independence also find themselves discouraged. "I did some Craigslist postings to advertise it, and I very quickly got an audience of about 50,000 viewers a month," says Matt Goodman, an advertising executive in Atlanta who had no trouble attracting an audience to his site, Things My Dog Ate, leading to some small advertising deals. "I think I made about $20 from readers clicking on the ads.""
... and nothing of value was lost (Score:1, Funny)
The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
*one week later*
Oh, blogpost is so last week. It turns out only about one person was reading it but now you can see Mr. Freckles on Flickr! You can actually see the vomit and the piece of yarn covered in bile that Mr. Freckles produced! And we have pictures of Mr. Freckles at the vet getting his temperature taken! People LOVE IT!
*one week later*
Oh, Flickr isn't as great as Mr. Freckles thought. It turns out only about one person was looking at Mr. Freckles but that doesn't matter because I just figured out how to get my own podcast! Now people can hear my awesome squeaky super opinionated voice explain how cuddly wuddly my cat is! Who's more cuddly than Mr. Freckles? Nobody, that's who! Listen to Mr. Freckles complain about his ear infection!
*one week later*
I guess those five podcast downloads were really just me if you count my laptop/desktop/work computer/iPod/iPhone but that doesn't matter, Mr. Freckles is a movie star! We have our own YouTube channel and we get over 100 views a week! Mr. Freckles is friends with Play Him Off Cat too! We just wish they weren't from the same bad egg posting that "nobody wants to watch your fucking cat!" Well, I know the world loves Mr. Freckles almost as much as I do and you're going to hear about him. No matter where you live or what you do, I'm going to leave a bunch of accounts that are nothing but shells like a trail of used condoms behind a frat boy. And if you post painful anti-Mr. Freckles posts about me and Mr. Freckles, I shall only redouble my efforts. I will not stop until I find a way to bring Mr. Freckles' love to you!
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Most blogs abandoned? (Score:5, Funny)
Only most? Well at least it's a start...
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Can anyone explain Twitter to me? For all my efforts to comprehend its allure, it still seems like a bunch of hobos talking to themselves while they ramble around a city.
"Ok, gonna take a crap behind this here dumpster..."
"Cop saw me, gotta run!"
"Lady gave me two dollars, gonna buy ripple"
(etc)
Seriously. What's the attraction? Why post one-line updates constantly? Wasn't annoying everyone with an end of the day blog entry enough?
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
10 or so of them are mine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdot post from the Future (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:3, Funny)
What, you aren't MoVlogTweetStreaming yet? Are you, like, old?
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Re:10 or so of them are mine (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh, so YOU'RE Rusty Shackleford.
Re:Things his dog ate?! (Score:3, Funny)
When you came in here, did you see a sign that said "dead blogger storage"?
Re:Wow, you mean fads burn out? (Score:4, Funny)
exactly. Blogs are the 21st century equivalent to the CB craze in the 70's. Everybody had to have one but they soon found out any conversations were stupid and boring.
That's a big 10-4 on that, good buddy. I'm leaving the front door open, but we'll catch you on the 9's.
Man I'm old.
Re:And nothing of value was lost (Score:1, Funny)
You dropped this... *hands you a tin-foil hat*
Re:Blogs != Get Rich (Score:4, Funny)
Here here. I don't blog, because it has never interested me. I don't use social networking sites either, seeing as most of my friends don't. But I don't see them as inherently bad if they're used right.
If you treat a blog as just something for your friends and family, or as essentially a non-private diary, that's fine. If you're using a blog as a get-rich-quick scheme or are just whoring for attention, it's not fine; but then you're probably an obnoxious pillock in everything else you do too, so that isn't really the blog's fault.
If you treat a social networking site as just a way of communicating with variable groups of people (and that's something Facebook can do better than phone calls or emails), that's fine. If you're using it to install 300 apps about turning people into zombies, or stalking your friends/girlfriends/relatives, it's not fine; but then you're probably not someone I'd like in real life either, so you can't blame the website for that.
I'm still trying to figure out a legitimate use for Twitter though. Twitter seems to be up there with herpes as something desirable and fun to try with my friends.
Looking at the front page of that dog site (Score:3, Funny)
I can see why he never made more than $20.
Site is an eye-fright.
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:3, Funny)
Well, rumor has it that the term was originally going to be "webjournal", but "bjourn" didn't roll off the tongue nearly as well.
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:1, Funny)
That reminds me. The first few times I saw a post containing "tl;dr" I assumed it was some idjit trying to post some insane HTML or JS thing to a web form, and that's all that got through alive. And then I saw it more, so I googled it.
And thus I learned that it was some idjit trying to be clever or terse and instead coming across as a newb or owner of a keyboard-loving cat.
Congrats on being the first person to use it in a genuinely clever manner.
tl;dr!
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Well, rumor has it that the term was originally going to be "webjournal", but "bjourn" didn't roll off the tongue nearly as well.
It does, in Sweden.
Re:I hate the word "blog" (Score:3, Funny)
You can call it a Blag if you like...
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
Key to Republican success lies in the ethernet
Those intolerant bastards. Won't somebody please think of the token rings?
Re:The Mysterious Reoccurrence of Mr. Freckles (Score:5, Funny)
2006 is like.. the stone age of the internet. Did they have like.. google back then? What about electricity and running water?