In 1996 I had a geocities website which I coded entirely in HTML using notepad. Old school. I also used HTML based chat rooms. That was big then. But times changed.
10 years later I started blogging here on my desktop. And blogging as a concept came to be.
A huge leap to be sure. But, as is the case with print media, blogging as we know it is dying.
It was cute to see people describe thier blogs as ramblings, thoughts, opinions, and the like. It gave humans insight never previously available. Access to restricted news and innermost thoughts to humans. But, is this even valid right now?
I concider my self a good measure of when things are gaining popularity and when they begin to die. It is my opinion that blogging in that sense is dead. I really do not care what bloggers think anymore.
Example: if you overheard someone talk about anything on a supermarket line or on a train or a bank, does it really matter to you? Probably not. It's just something someone anonymous to you said. So what? Why on earth would the same thing matter to me if it was printed on a blog?
Gaining an insight on peoples thoughts was once what blogs enabled you to do. Twitter has since took over that responsability. And still, twitter reflect only the tweeting community, not general public, it is then still a limited tool but it has two advantages. For one, I would think that hot topics and breaking news are better represented by an average of a group rather than the one sided argument of one or two bloggers. Trends in Twitter does that. I also think that the common blogger does not resemble the common man much, twitterers however, while still different, are a closer match.
Twitter is not complete. It will either evolve or something better will come along. But blogs ceased to provide me with solid opinions representative of the masses or unbiased credible news.
So are blogs dead? No. They are simple different.
Specialized blogs are a valuble source of information and expression. While the musings of a random girl or the rants of some man start losing interest, specialized blogs by informed people gain importance. They resemble newspaper columnists. A finance website by someone with a solid background in finance or investment can provide valuable insight. Car blogs by racers and die hard car guys, fitness blogs by trainers or amature players and movie blogs by film aficinados are all good examples.
It is from this understanding that I started two other blogs, arablish.net is one that focuses on the lack of respect and attention we show to the Arabic language, being an ex newspaper columnist and the son of a renouned poet I saw my self able to add value there. My other blog, ithnain.com is a video cast presented by my self and fellow blogger Eyad Ebrahim in Arabic as we both have around 20+ years of gaming experience.
This blog (theredbelt.com), being unfocused has been losing both readership and my interest. Infact, most Bahraini bloggers feel a slump is taking place. Blogs, as they were, are ineffective in this age and have little, if any, impact at all. Posts are dwindeling and bloggers are stopping. In fact, if you are Reading this, chances are that you are, or were, a blogger yourself. It is a small closed inactive community.
It is a shame but it has to be realized sooner or later. Blogs and bloggers need to evolve and provide significant value added. The times are achanging.
I used to blog from my desktop. But not anymore. I now wrote this on an email on a very different device.
Times changed We must change.
Sent from my iPhone
11 comments:
an iPhone? now that's a turn for the books from Mr. Omnia Whatchamakallit is the best thing there is!
I'm glad you saw the light at last.
From an on-again-off-again-blogger ;)
Seriously Mahmood, me getting an iPhone is the only thing you got out of the article?
The problem is more severe than I thought.
yeah I agree. I would like to add that the simplicity of creating a blog might be another reason for millions of people creating useless blogs and leaving them pilled up shadowing the rest of the good ones. Aside from that, I think here in Bahrain, bloggers are very little to be found and the majority of people still don't know what blogs are and people like us are the only ones know about them and check them out. Anyways, I bothered you with all this blabbering, just don't give up on blogging because I think there are still people reading them and Mahmood Al-Yousif reading it is a reason enough for you to keep blogging ;)
P.S: I loved the idea of Arablish, I have it on my google reader to catch up with anything new you add. Keep up the good work :)
Ali, I totally agree with everything you said.
I am glad you like Arablish. Please keep reading and participate by sending us photos.
I see you have a nice gaming blog yourself, did you ever watch our show on Ithnain.com?
Thanks for the comment!
I called the death of blogging a couple years ago for the simple reason no one wants to sit in front of a computer anymore.
It made sense when that was the main device for accessing the internet and interacting with people all around the world. Now we have wonderful handheld devices that we take with us and do that and more.
The real issue is not that people aren't blogging anymore is that they have moved to other things that "blog" for them.
Its all one click and its posted ala Twitter, Facebook and other social media. You really have to see the content created as a whole instead of focusing on a blog.
Currently search engines are focusing on real time data. Public opinion is changing on a minute rate and trying to capture those up to the minute updates on twitter, flickr and FB is the key.
I called the death of blogging a couple years ago for the simple reason no one wants to sit in front of a computer anymore.
It made sense when that was the main device for accessing the internet and interacting with people all around the world. Now we have wonderful handheld devices that we take with us and do that and more.
The real issue is not that people aren't blogging anymore is that they have moved to other things that "blog" for them.
Its all one click and its posted ala Twitter, Facebook and other social media. You really have to see the content created as a whole instead of focusing on a blog.
Currently search engines are focusing on real time data. Public opinion is changing on a minute rate and trying to capture those up to the minute updates on twitter, flickr and FB is the key.
not belittling your thoughts which I largely agree with of course, I just found it intriguing remembering how against an iPhone you were.
as for the blogging thing... like nibaq said, people are moving on, as you have. Now your platform is communicating through a vlog, mine is to tell stories with my twist for my corporate customers via video.
facebook and twitter are the latest fads, so are a zillion others. one thing is constant; however, regardless of platform, content is really king.
Thanks, I'm trying to update my blog frequently whenever I have the time.
Sure, I will send pictures if I found something interesting and yeah I watch your show most of the times but I see that you stopped posting for a while now.
Nibaq> Very interesting points. You think that they moved on to different platforms?
I think that people don't care about random thuoghts anymore.
Mahmood> The Omnia was great. I lost it on a London Taxi. iPhone was a stupid decision up to 3Gs. now it is more bearable.
It is a sweet peice of kit.
As for the content, it is always king. However, I propose that not the quality that matters only, they type of content is. Random thoughts of randome people? out.
Ali> I blame it on tech trouble. first my editing PC went nuts, now I'm trying to upload an episode for three days with no luck. Shasawee?
Bloggers are the ones who are letting their blogs to be dead, but letting Twitter & other social network medias suck them.
They don't want to fight it, they just loved the fancy techology, simple and fast. With the help of mobile broadband, it became more easy, 'Click on Move', they realize when its too late that their blogs is dead, blame it to twitter & dive more within twitter insted of revieving their blog.
Wake up before its too late.
Wake up why? Any value added if they went back to blogging?
Maybe they are not asleep. Maybe it is conscious.
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