Is the Economy Killing Blogging?
Blogs don’t seem to be getting as many comments as they used to. I’m not just talking about mine, but other blogs I visited as well. Commenting seems to be down.
Maybe it’s become harder to come up with something to say. In good times, we all have opinions on, well, darn near everything. Our favorite TV show gets cancelled, and we’re miserable. Nowadays, who cares about a TV show when we’re trying to figure out how to pay our bills or deciding which bills will get paid this month?
Blog traffic is down too, probably for the same reasons. Who cares about reading a blog when you’ve got more important things to do, like digging through your cushions looking for change?
There are some people that think economic woes in the economy won’t affect the Internet. With the low-cost of starting and running a web business, there’s no better place to be than online! You don’t have all the headaches and costs associated with running a bricks and mortar store. You just have a website. Maybe it costs you $10 a month. Maybe it costs you $50 a month. Either way, that’s a far cry from the hundreds or thousands of dollars renting a store space would cost you.
Then again, you have to consider that, when money gets tight and people start cutting down all the expenses they can, how certain are you that people will continue their Internet access? People need food. People need water. Many will want to keep their electricity too. Internet? Where will that fall in their budget? Necessary? Or something they can drop to save money?
Maybe newsletters will be big again. Instead of writing on our blogs, we’ll type up our thoughts once a month, print them out, fold them up, and put stamps on them. It could happen. Too expensive, you say? Well, if your subscribers’ eMail addresses start bouncing back message because the address is no more, what choice will you have to keep in contact?
Get ready for the post-Internet economy because, with hard times getting even harder, it’s no longer a sure thing that more and more people will go online. It might be the other way around.
Yes the economy is killing blogging and bloggers. I heard John Chow now eats bloggers on his blog… it’s because we can’t get enough of what that guys is eating!!!
I think he’s been replacing the lunch and dinner posts with video posts now. Maybe they’re videos about what he’s eating. I don’t know. I usually skip video posts. People need to learn to edit out the junk and make the things shorter.
See! That is another reason I don’t post my own videos. It would be like getting stuck at a freind house watching a vacation slide show
With all the triple play packages you can’t help but have internet access. However the price of electricity might make it impossible to get online if you can’t afford to pay the electric bill.
As far as running an online business it is a lot more expensive than you portray it to be, granted there is not the overhead of a brick-n-mortar store but you still have advertising, hosting, 800 #’s, staff, packaging if you sell product, etc.
The internet seems glamorous from the outside looking in, I mean work from home in your PJ’s at anytime you like and make big bucks! Who could ask for more, however for many it is not as simple as it sounds.
That being said, I think it is just a slow down because of all the news to blog about as well as the presidential election. When that is finally over and winter sets in, it will be back to normal…
These are just my thoughts, what do I really know
Depends on what kind of online business you’re doing. If you’re just doing affiliate sales and referrals, all you need is a website.
For an actual product website, yes, you do need a bunch of other things.
I blog because I love to write and making money blogging doesn’t interest me. Since I never think about using my blog to earn cash, my attitude towards writing flourishes and gushes out of me
I see that.
Everyone is watching YOU TUBE …. and TMZ.
I find that my comments will equal 1/2 of the comments I leave. That simple.
On comments, I think it depends. With people you know, sometimes it’s closer to 1:1. I don’t really keep count too much on that, plus it’s hard because different people have different commenting schedules.
Some people will comment everyday. I think they have a routine where they post on their blogs and then go out commenting, or vice versa. I used to do that, somewhat. I think others (maybe they’re scheduling their posts too) will comment a couple times a week, but leave multiple comments at a time.
And, sometimes too, they may visit but not have a comment to make. I try to avoid the generic “Great post!” comments. Sometimes I do them just to let people know I’m still reading, but I generally try to avoid them. So, sometimes I’ll just have nothing to say, so I don’t leave a comment.
With newly discovered blogs, I find that the comments I get will be about 1/10 to 1/20 of the comments I leave.
I think blogging in general has slowed because those that entered it with the ‘get rich quick’ mentality are finally dropping off.
I also think that blogging would be more fun if everyone took on the ‘lend a helping hand’ mentality and reciprocated the favor. It seems like everyone is out for themselves and not the better good of the blogging community.
There are tons of blogs I have commented on or linked to and definitely Stumbled and hear neither hide nor hare of a thank you or a back at cha’ from the blog owner. It really is a shame and I don’t think we can blame the economy for people’s rudeness.
Well those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t rant too badly. I just think some bloggers get on their high horse and take a stance of I am better than you because I post (probably fictitious) monthly income reports. They don’t really participate in blogs outside their scope, which I suppose is okay to but it sure makes things stagnant.
Am I even still on topic, was I ever on topic? Any who!
I think the “get rich quick” bloggers cycle out about every 3-6 months. I know that several blogs that started about the same time I started this blog were gone 3-6 months later. One even started a series of posts on a topic, and stopped blogging at about number 4 of the 10 part series.
If I start doing viral stories again, I think I’ll just include people that have commented on my blog. The last one I did had around 150 links to other blogs. From that, I got 26 comments (not counting mine). Of those, 18 were not from regulars. And, I got 1 linkback. Granted that’s a 17% conversion rate, but I’m not selling anything. I’m giving them a link. So, if I do viral stories again, I’m going look things up and eliminate all the ones that haven’t commented or linked back to my blog.
I agree with what you are saying and I hate that we have to be that way. I used to do a Friday post called Fab Five where I would link o blogs I liked during the week and sometimes even more than five. The recipients of the link would perhaps visit and leave no comment or not visit at all, let alone link back. That is another reason I no longer participate in MeMes.
It is frustrating. And I know the mantra is don’t do thing looking for something in return, but come on now, everyone should understand common courtesy.
Back on track:
I do try to make a little bit of money and the economy has hampered that effort a little bit. I am not getting as many paid Sponsored Reviews. Those reviews pay for my site and some of my other expenses. I could lie and say I make thousands but I don’t just a few hundred bucks a month. If that revenue source were to cease I would have to roll up the mat and call it a day. Or move back to lame ass blogger.com for free. Yikes.
I think that shipping costs greatly affect online businesses. Only so many services can be sold online and only so many things that don’t require shipping like e-books and the like. So in that sense, some online businesses probably really will suffer but I don’t know why blogs should suffer - they aren’t really providing a physical product. I think people in general may be too busy to comment right now. Everyone has to start working four jobs to be able to survive the American economy right now and afford gas to get to the next job!
I know it’s down for me cause I know I have been busy and not been posting. I wouldn’t comment on my blog either, lol.
The elections and economy, etc. has taken too much of my attention. Oh yea for week’s I’ve been trying to catch up to all episode of ‘Prison Break’. I should have watched it when it first came out, lol.