Another bubble bursts: blogs

Has growth in blogging stalled?

A new article in BusinessWeek says the numbers are pointing to a plateau in active blogs. The magazine is using stats from Technorati for the analysis, which found a decline in the percentage of blogs that are active compared to the total number of blogs tracked by Technorati.

It's a familiar pattern--millions of people got excited by blogging and set up pages of their own. But after a while, they grew tired of maintaining them--or moved on to newer social phenomena like MySpace or Twitter--and let their blogs go silent. Does this mean blogging has joined the ranks of "mature" media? And is that good or bad? The bloggers who are still around are debating the issue.

Blog community response:

"Why, after all, do we do it? If we really had a good answer to that we'd be in a better position to understand why so many of us stop."
--Virtual Economics

"If the 15 million blog figure is, indeed, accurate, I'm torn. On one hand, it's disappointing to see the medium lose some of its momentum. On the other hand, the disappearance of blogging wannabes, personal diaries, etc. may be a healthy development if it raises the profile of blogs generating solid content on a regular basis."
--Mark Evans

"Interesting reporting by Green, but I see this as the inevitable shakeout that had to be coming to the blogosphere. Those that aren't committed to the space will go away, and leave less clutter for the rest of us to wade through. That makes the better blogs that continue to grow and thrive, that much easier to find, and more influential. I see that as a good thing."
--The Viral Garden