The BBC reports predictions from research company Gartner that blogging will peak at the 100mn mark in 2007:
Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so.
He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on.
“A lot of people have been in and out of this thing,” Mr Plummer said.
“Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.“
Will it? Well I think it’s common sense in some respects. If you fancy the idea of blogging, you’ve probably already had a go. The report says that 200mn people have already stopped writing their blogs. Here’s three ways in which it won’t go away, though:
(a) Only about 5% of businesses have a blog (read it somewhere (??)). Almost any business could benefit from one. So plenty of room for expansion there.
(b) Asia represents 56% of the world’s population, but only 10% have internet access. Africa is a further 14% with only 3.6% internet access. (internet world stats)
© There are lots of different types of blog. Not all of them are the public soapbox style you see here. In the little report I compiled about Asian blogging last week, I noted that most Asian blogs are written for small groups of friends and family. This sort of informal, intimate usage, which might be considered to run to things like Piczo pages and Twitter accounts haven’t been registered on Technorati nor promoted outside its intended audience.
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Good to see people starting to talk sense about the size and the potential of the blogosphere. There are not going to be billions of bloggers out there. First time I heard the stat about 200M people who have stopped blogging. Interesting.
I suspect that might actually be 200mn blogs that have been abandoned. Hard to tell from the reports, but it makes sense to me. I had this blog on both blogger and livejournal before moving to my own domain and wordpress, for example. I have also tested other services, like Vox. If other people are as picky/fussy then it soon cuts down the numbers involved.
One of the things that might also be happening is that “blogging” by itself is just being talked about less. What I’m hearing is interest in how a variety of tools — tagging, bookmarks, social networking, wikis — fit into an organization’s overall communications and/or content management infrastructure. That suggests less attention will be paid to tools by themselves and more attention will be paid to functionality. That’s not necessarily a bad thing!
I can certainly buy that the word ‘blog’ might disappear, just as no-one talks about having a home page anymore. The introduction of new purposes to what we currently call blogs will ultimately demand a new vocabulary.
I’ll be glad. It’s an ugly, ugly word!
People make the future. Not Technology.
If you can predict people, you can predict the future.
Change is the only constant.
lol … I’m starting to dig speaking in verses.
Marc
Is this what moving to California does to you, Marc! :)
I think this is true. Blogging sounds a bigger issue that it really is. In fact, many people have little or nothing to say. However, blogging can transform into other ideas.
I teach in China and our Business School students have just launched an ambitious new Web 2.0 concept, called “the Krem Trekker Diaries”. It has really triggered a craze back here.
It’s an interactive adventure published twice a week. The readers give advice to the principal characters and influence the story by voting. Then the story is published in English in form of a blog, however called “Diary”.
The venture is non-commercial and the ultimate goal is to give the students a — so far unheard — global voice.
The English pages (with the access to the Chinese ones) are at: http://www.kremtrekker.com
regards,
Mauri G Gronroos
Associate Professor
of Knowledge Management
and Intellectual Property Rights
361021 Xiamen, P.R.China
I agree with Professor Gronroos. Blogs sound fantastic but there are few problems regarding them: a) it takes too much time to try to find an interesting blog, b) it is very time consuming to write your own blog, c) takes time also to contribute to other people’s blogs, and d) MOST PEOPLE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING SAY THAT IS ACTUALLY WORTHWILE TO PUBLISH (from the writer’s point of view).
I checked Trekker Diaries out and I see there a potential. It’s an easy and quick way to entertain yourself and also give yourself a feeling that you have participated. The urge to be part of something built inside us but laziness is also built in…
[…] An accurate prediction doesn’t bother Joe Wikert. Ian Delaney sees growth coming from businesses and intimate weblogs devoted to audiences of a tiny few. […]