Weird times for personal bloggers…damn those “Social Networking” Sites!
OK, so you’ve seen over the past year I’ve made little or no effort to keep my blog up to date. There are a number of reasons for this…
- I can’t be bothered
- “Social Networking” sites
- I do have a real life to persue and I just don’t have the time to replicate it all in the virtual world
I want to talk more about item 2 as I think this is the key item which is having most impact on my blogging days…
With the introduction of “Social Networking” sites (I hate that word…) it makes communicating with people easy and seamless. The main things I use my blog for are to put some of my random thoughts and to share photos friends and family. Generally, people/readers are lazy. Unless you consistently have interesting topics/photos they won’t make an effort to visit your Blog. Also from a Blogger’s perspective, it does take a large amount of time and effort to provide new content and maintain a fresh Blog.
Facebook and MySpace allows you to replicate similar Blogging site functionality but with additional features allowing you to connect and communicate with groups of people. Ingenious, as it removes the onus on the reader to make the effort to recieve the latest information. It will be delivered to them automatically but the readers also have the choice to disable these updates if they wish. As a technology paradox, it’s a very similar concept between “Traditional Email” and “Push Email” while your are travelling. As a social paradox, it’s the equivalent of your friends/family in Celebrity News Magazine like OK! or Hello. The majoritiy of people like gossip, especially on people who you know…
When Push Email was introduced, it was RIM that changed the face of email on the go. Over the next few months, Facebook will do the same for personal blogging by allow people to share:
- Photos
- Events/Invites
- Groups
- Messages/Comments
So I think within the next year, my blog may come to a steady halt and I’ll have to think some other sneaky scheme to use my personal url…