Is Blogging Too Normal Now?

There have been a few comments lately about blogging being dead or maybe it’s been replaced with Facebook walls and Twitter. The so called death of RSS or at least RSS readers is said to be affecting blogs too.

I don’t think so.

I do think that we are confronted with a plethora of ways to get our opinions out there and to share neat things. The real issue is to determine what MIX of tools work for you personally and, horror of horrors, is there a different MIX of tools for your work environment?

Personally, I lead a fairly integrated life. I have my family, friends, colleagues, workmates, and everything else in seamless single feeds. It’s probably a little too firehosey, but it has worked for me. I am not too bad at absorbing a huge quantity of inputs and still avoid being overwhelmed. I am sure it’s quite different for other people and that’s fine. I am also a proponent that most of the tools that work for me personally are also useful for work purposes. That may not work for others too. And that’s OK too.

Anyway, back to Blogs, here are some links and graphics that help to illustrate that as the blogging format matures it integrates back into the background where it belongs. I certainly see a lot of people who can’t tell a blog from a website (especially those simple websites done up in WordPress!). I like it when content trumps the underlying technology.

State of The Blogosphere in 2010

How many blogs are there? Blogpulse says that. as of Sept. 24, 2010:
“Total identified blogs: 147,027,076
New blogs in last 24 hours: 56,372
Blog posts indexed in last 24 hours: 1,020,810”

And ReadWriteWeb points to a report that according to a “new report from research firm eMarketer, however, blogging is still alive and well. Today, half of all Internet users read blogs and while blogging itself remains somewhat of a niche activity, about 12% of U.S. Internet users update a blog at least once per month.”

Stephen