Blogosphere Net Balance?
You’ve probably read how the blogosphere continues to grow, and that there are X number of blogs out there.
The thing is, I don’t think any of those statistics* take into consideration the number of blogs that are abandoned each month. And, how would you account for such a blog, unless they were permanently deleted from their host? Most just end up sitting idle, left for posterity or forgotten by their owners.
Since the October 10th post linked above, another two blogs have gone silent (maybe more, but only two that I recall right now). Most recently is Rolando. Rolando understandably wants to spend more time with his family, and has decided to drop blogging to reclaim that time. Even Jon has mentioned the possibility of shutting down his blog, which I absolutely forbid him to do until he has completed my photo meme, with which I’ve not yet tagged him.**
And, now, for no reason whatsoever, I’ll interject with a link to Joanne. Have I mentioned I knew Joanne in high school? Okay, that was a different Joanne, and that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, blogs seem to keep dropping like flies. For every new and interesting one I find, an old one goes AWOL. By the way, has anyone heard from Chris Bloczynski lately? He did an interview with me, then promptly disappeared, which does not bode well for Deborah.
Anyone heard from Budget Babe? She never finished her ten part series, stopping at day 8 of the series. Bummer. And, now her blog has been overtaken by spammers.
Has anyone heard from Tom at The Net Business Journal? He inquired once about me doing something similar to guest blogging for him, then he promptly disappeared. And, Mom’s Writing, which I think was his wife’s blog, has gone silent too. Again, I’m telling you that this does not bode well for Deborah.
Bloggers interview me or want to work with me, and then they vanish without a trace. Come to think of it, there are a number of interesting people that seem to drop out of my life. They either die, disappear or move far, far away.
But, in lieu of exploring this disturbing trend further, I’ll swing back to my original point, which is blogs going silent. Some, like Rolando, may have understandable reasons for dropping out, but at least he left a closing message, whereas many others do not. And, you’re left to wonder if something serious happened to them, or if they just got up one day, said “the heck with this!” and never bothered to return.
I think there are probably a good number of bloggers that started out with the intention of making John Chow money. Who wouldn’t want to make $20,000 per month blogging? And, even if you realize that you won’t come near that amount, you still rationalize that, hey, I might not make $20,000 per month, but surely I could get $2,000 a month!
A few months later, combined with an AdSense income of $1.63***, they figure they’d do better with a part-time job at McDonald’s.
As recently as the beginning of this month****, I thought about throwing in the towel. I wasn’t even sure if this blog would last the rest of this month. I didn’t sign up for NaBloPoMo, but I figured I would try for a post per day anyway, and then maybe call it quits at the end of November. Still, I wasn’t sure I would make it through the month, having largely run out of ideas. Then again, it’s not like this month has been a stunning achievement of quality posting, as exemplified with this post. Actually, I’m pretty pleased with that post, to tell the truth. It says a lot in so few words. Or, no words, depending on whether or not you count the title.
Maybe it was Joanne-withdrawal, since we really haven’t had a real sparring session in quite some time. And, I’m pretty sure I owned her in the last one. We just won’t mention Technorati rank. Nope. That’s a fluke. A mistake. A conspiracy. But, I take full credit for her rank, ’cause, really, I pushed her there. So, that was all me.*****
Then again, sometimes I don’t readily accept defeat. Or admit defeat. There’s a point where you just have to admit to yourself that, this isn’t working! And, rather than keep beating a dead horse, you move on. But, perhaps that part of my brain doesn’t work that well, because I’ll give the dead horse CPR, shock it with electricity, say a prayer for it, or leave it alone and hope it gets better. Even when nothing is left but the skeletal remains, heck, that’s just a flesh wound. It could still recover. If I could just lead it to the water…
There’s a delicate balance between giving up too soon and sticking it out too long. I used to do the former, but now perhaps I lean too much to the latter.
*Yes, I know I’ve not given any actual statistics, but I am referring to the statistics in general and not any specific statistics. Okay, yes, I didn’t feel like looking up any actual statistics, so I just used “X” in place of a gazillion or whatever the number of blogs out there is currently estimated at. And, yes, I still do appear to have a problem with run-on sentences. I never used to have such a problem, but I digress…
**I’m sure my forbidding will carry a lot of weight with him. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Right now, Jon is thinking, who does this guy think he is? Well, actually, he’s thinking ejp fprd yjod hiu yjoml jr od? because I’m pretty sure that’s the way his mind works… now.
***A made-up number.
****Where the heck did this month go? Seriously. I didn’t participate in NaBloPoMo, which Phil suggested, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage a post a day for November! And, here it is almost the end of the freakin’ month already!
*****You’re not buying it, are you? Why does no one ever believe me?
Hahaha, love it when you have long posts. The asterisks are ridiculously perfect.
And you have been owning me in sparring (as well as in the tags)…seriously, technorati may be my only consolation.
Regardless, you’ve brought up a good point, as is usually the case. Knowing myself, my blog always has the temptation to call it quits (but too many times, I’ve looked back at how I stopped journaling right before an important phase change in my life, often reminding me that a couple years from now I’ll probably be looking for answers for, “Cripes, what the hell was I thinking?!”).
I’ve seen blogs call it quits for many different reasons, too. I remember how one blogger explained it for himself…how it was most definitely a good time for him, for that specific time period of his life. How he’s moved on.
So I guess it depends on the person and whether he/she chooses to incorporate blogging/writing into his/her life changes. I remember I used fiddle around with a xanga back in my early high school days because that was just so cool. Though, the blogger of me today almost scoffs at those xanga journaling days, lols.
This better not be a prelude to calling it quits yourself. I’d hate to slay my sparring partner, you know.
Oh, is that why you’ve been putting off the move to the new domain?
Perhaps you ought to worry about what ammunition your future children will be looking for. “But, Mom, back in 2007, you wrote in your blog…” I wonder how many bloggers are writing things they wouldn’t want their future teenage children to find out about?
I didn’t know you were into anime!
j/k
Don’t worry. My final blog post will have so many links to you that you will be so owned. And, I’ll also tag you with so many memes that it’ll take you years to complete them all. You’re already behind with my past meme tags.
In fact, it may look something like this, but more creative:
Joanne
I Want to Date a Buddhist
Too Laid Back?
Drunk Chinese Girls
Abulia
The Laidback Buddhist
How to Coax Out a Splinter
Meaning of Shady Character
How to Be Laidback
Buddhist Widget
Self-Haircut Tips & Techniques
Super High Resolution Buddhist
Joanne, How to Woo
Lazy Buddhist
Procrastination Buddhism
Woo, Woo, Woo
The Pirate King’s Daughter
By the way, owned.
it’s true what you are saying Dan. Blogs are dying or being left to rot all of the time. I’ve been blogging since september. Not every day but most days and I do want to make money online with it. So far I have made $3.67 from adsense. well worth the effort
I still want to go on and give it more time. I am starting to make some more friends through blogging and my traffic is increasing, if only slightly.
I had hopes of blogging full time but i may be a lot longer than I had origanlly hoped, but I will keep trying. what I make from bloggin won’t go to waste, wee all have bills to pay.
I understand why some people give up. Sometimes it can be frustrating to be blogging and no one is either reading your content or is interested in what you have to say. Some times i feel like giving up but always find a reason to keep going, nothing like a bill in the mail to motivate you
It’s not terribly dissimilar to pre-blogging days, where people would set up websites and try to make money from them. Except, there is far less interactivity on a website, and you didn’t really build a relationship with any readers you had. So, if a website went silent, no one was there to notice.
And, people would give up on their websites too soon, too. But blogging is even more work than a typical website of old. True, some sites did update their content daily but, overall, updates were far less frequent compared to a blog. Daily new content wasn’t as important on a website as it is on a blog. Depending on your niche, of course.
So, I guess we start out realizing we have to build up our traffic before we can even approach 10% of John Chow levels, but, assuming your goal is making money with a blog, it can be frustrating to work day after day building up traffic, only to plateau at a certain level and earn pennies rather than dollars.
On top of that, it is hard to create quality content every day, which I think necessitates engaging your readers in other ways. I skim one blog daily–he puts up a decent article everyday, but, after a while, it’s almost like you’re reading different variations on the same topic, so you begin skimming instead of actually reading the posts. I am beginning to think that you have to maybe mix things up more, where you have quality content without a lot of repetition as well as lighter fare to keep readers from getting bored or straying too far away.
With void comes opportunity?
Assuming, of course, anyone misses the AWOL blog. If it didn’t have a lot of readers to begin with, then there is not much of a void to be filled.
And, in other cases, you can’t fill the void. Take Rolando’s blog, for example. He became friends with many of his readers. That’s not a void you can ever really step in and fill. You can still become friends with other bloggers, but you can do that regardless of whether any of their other friends have stopped blogging or not.
The opportunity may be in examining where previous bloggers might have failed, or at least recognizing in which niches there is little demand for a new blog!
I actually stopped blogging for 2 years. I did write 2 posts during that time because I got an email from an old reader asking me if I was ok and I felt bad about worrying people. I just didn’t feel I had anything to say, so I couldn’t stick to it.
I started blogging again a couple of months ago when I got a comment on one of my old posts. I thought it would be interesting to see if it is possible to bring back a dead blog to life again. I was surprised to notice that I got some life back to the blog in a couple of weeks. I moved to my own host last week and I guess I have to stick to blogging now, since I’m paying to have it up. I still don’t really know where to go with my blog. I keep thinking of posting about my photography, but somehow my posts have their own life and hand my their own subjects, so will see what will be of the blog…
I actually stopped blogging for 2 years. I did write 2 posts during that time because I got an email from an old reader asking me if I was ok and I felt bad about worrying people. I just didn’t feel I had anything to say, so I couldn’t stick to it.
Sussie, It shows you have a heart.
It’s probably easier to restart an old blog than to start a new one from scratch, as you already have an archive of content that new readers can check out.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. The good news is that, by doing so, you’ve elected to join an elite group of people that are among the best commenters in the blogosphere. The tradeoff is that you’ve now made yourself fair game for future meme tags. Every ounce of pleasure must be paid for with an ounce of pain. Sorry.
I am in it for the long haul. no intentions of quiting here.
I don’t know what happened to the missing bloggers. Maybe they quit. Maybe they were abducted by aliens from the Triangulum galaxy. I don’t know. I’m just giving you fair warning that I have no idea what karma may have in store for you should you choose to publish my interview–which I have been working on, by the way–so I wash my hands of any responsibility in the matter.
I figured my way out of your twisted Kobyashi Maru!
Can I interview you?!
I see that my mention of Chris Bloczynski was a little vague. He interviewed me, not the other way around. So, while I don’t mind interviews, you would be boarding the Kobayashi Maru. Do you dare?
You might want to wait until after I finish Deborah’s interview request. See if she’s still posting a few days after she posts my interview.
By the way, you’ve earned geek points by knowing what the Kobayashi Maru is. Unfortunately, you lost the geek points with the typo. In all things, the universe seeks balance. Dpttu.