Blogging: Like a 'soap bubble'

This week's news that AOL will buy The Huffington Post, the wildly successful website that's become synonymous with liberal political commentary, gives me a chance to look backward and forward.

Right after Christmas, as I was scouring the near-empty book shelves of our downtown Borders store before it closed, I stumbled upon a deeply discounted copy of "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging."

Oy. If only I'd known about it two years earlier! It was published in December 2008, three months before I began my blog. And now that I read it after nearly two years of blogging myself, I see that much of the content would have been useful. What's comforting, though, is that I'm familiar with virtually all the vocabulary and the main concepts behind a blog, as well as many of the best practices.

What I could have used starting now -- and still need even now -- is more discipline at writing short. That's going to become increasingly important as I develop a voice for blogging at work.

Perhaps the most memorable anecdotal piece of advice in the book comes from Huff Post blogger Nora Ephron, who once worked in daily journalism but has since moved on to writing books, screenplays and magazine articles. She says that when she first started blogging, she thought it was "like other short things, like essays for instance, which are polished and have a kind of history as to form and length."

"But then I saw," she writes.

"Blogs were different from whatever had gone before. They weren't meant to be polished, like essays. They were informal, they were temporal. The comments they engendered...were a conversation, and one of the reasons for blogging was to start the conversation and to create the community that comes together briefly to talk about things they might not be talking about if you hadn't written your blog.


"The short lifespan wasn't a detriment, it was the point: A blog was a soap bubble, meant to last just a moment or two. The medium is the message: The medium was high-speed and the message appeared quickly and vanished just as quickly. The odds on a blog being relevant or even comprehensible days later were remote; just as well that it lasted only a moment.


"And a blog didn't have to end, as essays do. It simply had to stop."

I knew that, of course, both in my head and in my bones. But the soap bubble metaphor is something that, for better or worse, brilliantly captures the essence of a blog. I now carry that image in my head.

Photography by Iman Sadeghi

Evolution of the blog

Here it is, the day before I teach my "blogosphere" class at PSU and today's Oregonian has a front-page story that couldn't be more timely or relevant.

The headline and deck say it all: "A new age in blogging: 30 and up | As youths give up blogging for sites such as Facebook, adults take their places, a poll finds" (Evidently, we didn't post the story on OregonLive.com, but you can find it here instead.)

A study has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging because they tend to communicate in shorter bursts and on the run. Think Twitter and text messages, delivered via their cell phones. That's not so surprising, given that tweens, teens and younger adults have been migrating to those forms of communication rather than e-mail.

According to The Associated Press:

The study, released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that 14 percent of Internet youths, ages 12 to 17, now say they blog, compared with just over a quarter who did so in 2006. And only about half in that age group say they comment on friends' blogs, down from three-quarters who did so four years ago.

Pew found a similar drop in blogging among 18- to 29-year-olds.

So, who's stepping into the void? Older adults -- with "older" in this case meaning 30 years or more.

The study estimates that about one in 10 online adults maintain a blog -- a number that's held steady since 2005, when blogs became more of mainstream activity. That would mean there are more than 30 million adults in the U.S. who blog.

Significantly, the Pew study found, "the percentage of Internet users age 30 and older who maintain a blog increased from 7 percent in 2007 to 11 percent in 2009."

Interesting to see that Rough and Rede lies squarely in the middle of that trend. And great timing for tomorrow's class.

Graphic: Associated Press/Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.

A good day in cyberspace

A fellow blogger once told me:

Blogging can feel like such a private activity, words I'm shouting to no one in particular, and it's encouraging to know there are real and actual readers.

I agree completely. So it was gratifying yesterday to see signs that Rough and Rede is being read and appreciated by a few more people than is evident on a daily basis. (Sorry if this sounds self-indulgent, but I think any journalist is curious to know who's reading his or her work and how they're reacting to it.)

Anyway, Obama's Blackberry drew a first-time commenter. The Joni Mitchell video posted under Quick Takes prompted a lovely reminiscence about the part Joni played in bringing a couple together 30 years ago. I picked up a new follower, bringing me to 20. (Yay!)

And...three fellow journalists, ranging from Portland and Vancouver to Washington, D.C., let me know through regular e-mail or Facebook messages that they read the blog regularly. (Yay, again!)

Part of me feels silly sharing this. Does it do anything besides draw attention to a writer's insecurities? I'd like to think so. The positive feedback gives me incentive to keep at this, knowing that somehow, someway people are getting something out of this.

Thanks, readers.

Blogs Falling In an Empty Forest

So reads the headline over a story in the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times.

Even before I begin to read the article, I know where it's headed. (Of course, that's the test of a good headline, but let's not go off a tangent...)

The piece begins with Judy Nichols, 52, creator of a blog called Rantings of a Crazed Soccer Mom. She put up her first post in late 2004 and, surprise, it generated no comments. Her last entry was December of last year. Who knows how many posts she logged in between -- or how many comments. (Actually, it would be pretty simple to find out. Just go to her blog.)

"Like Mrs. Nichols," the article says, "many people start blogs with lofty aspirations -- to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?"

Good question. I've got a couple of thoughts. But, back to the article.

"According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days (my emphasis added). That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream -- or at least an ambition -- unfulfilled."

Well...

I can't say I'm surprised by the statistics. Is blogging any different from any other activity that a person might begin -- dieting, exercising, praying, learning a musical instument or a new language -- but eventually let lapse? Probably not. But still...

Why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

My quick take: Without the desire or the discipline to provide care and feeding of a blog, it's bound to collapse from neglect. Without attention to consistent quality or timeliness, why would anyone bother to read something that's poorly organized, poorly written or outdated? The analogy to restaurants is a good one. When you dine out, you're looking for consistently high standards, fresh ingredients and, along with reliable menu items, the occasional chef's surprise.

The blogosphere is nothing more than an amalgamation and reflection of everything we are, everything we say, do and believe -- for better or worse.

Some people blog because they are highly opinionated and want to share their views with others -- that's obvious enough. Others have a special interest -- be it cooking, music, movies, skiing, pets, fashion -- and want a forum for it. Some people create a blog for themselves and their family, to have a place to post vacation pictures and videos. Others do so with the idea of keeping a diary or journal, perhaps to think out loud and, in the writing, discover what they believe.

Me? I started my blog a little over three months ago, simply because it was so easy and because it related to my professional interests -- you can't be a 21st century journalist and not know your way around the World Wide Web, including how to create and maintain a Web log. Creating a personal blog would allow me the freedom to do and say things I can't (or shouldn't) as a contributor to The Oregonian's Opinion blog. Doing so, I hoped, would connect me with friends, family and people I didn't even know. It's never been about feeding my ego or imposing my worldview on anyone else (and certainly not to make money), but rather a form of self-expression; a way to share information, emotions and interests; and even a path to self-discovery.

Like any restaurant owner serving up a meal, I hoped people would find the content nutritious and worth coming back to. I hoped readers and followers would provide feedback and, in the best of worlds, even exchange ideas and comments with each other. I have no illusions about building a large audience. But I do feel the time and effort invested has been worth it. Several friends and fellow journalists have been very complimentary. I've reconnected with my best friend from early childhood. I've planted the seeds of friendship with other bloggers. And putting my thoughts and activities here for anyone to see has challenged me to find the right words and tone to express them clearly, with passion, humor or detachment, as warranted.

I absolutely get the image of blogs falling in an empty forest. I can only hope that if I continue to water and prune, the sapling known as Rough and Rede will grow into a sturdy old tree.