When blogging was young, enthusiasts rode high, with posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google’s search results for any given topic, fueled by generous links from fellow bloggers. In 2002, a search for “Mark” ranked Web developer Mark Pilgrim above author Mark Twain. That phenomenon was part of what made blogging so exciting. No more. (Wired)
Just a few days ago, I submitted a conference proposal that asked whether academic blogs are the new five-paragraph-essay, so this article comes at a good time. Here’s the concluson:
Bloggers today are expected to write clever, insightful, witty prose to compete with Huffington and The New York Times.
Twitter’s character limit puts everyone back on equal footing. It lets
amateurs quit agonizing over their writing and cut to the chase.
As a writing teacher, I’m perfectly happy to hear that bloggers are expected to write good prose.
I don’t plan on giving up my own blog anytime soon, but the fact that so much energy has moved to feeds and commercial social networking sites — the Wal-Marts of the blogosophere — means that I have changed what and how I write on this blog.