It's the End of Blogging as We Know It, According to Jason Calacanis

FC Member Blog

BY Norman BirnbachWed Jul 16, 2008 at 2:22 PM

This blog is written by a member of our blogging community and expresses that member's views alone.

Blogger Jason Calacanis has retired from blogger, saying blogging is
dead. He's now shifting to email. Read about why in TechCrunch's Jason Calacanis’ First New Email Post.

Here are Calacanis' main reasons for saying blogging is dead:

"Folks
are so desperate to be heard–and we all want to be heard that’s why we
blog–that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual
hearing."
"Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves."
Five
years ago, to be a successful blogger, you had to “show up every day.”
"Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your
message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from
whatever you’ve said."
"Excelling in blogging today is about link-baiting, the act of writing something inflammatory in order to get a link."

He
also provides an explanation why he thinks communicating by email is
more personal. TechCrunch says it expect Calacanis's objective in
switching to email "will not achieve what he has set out for - and that
is to have a conversation with the top slice of his readers." And I
agree with TechCrunch.

Why? Here's what TechCrunch says: because
"You will likely see his emails re-published, probably on a blog and
probably with comments and everything else."

Just like I've done here.

Topics:

Innovation, Technology, Leadership, Management, PR, media, blogging, public relations, journalism, Science and Technology, Technology, Internet, Media, Blogs and Blogging

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Recent Comments | 6 Total

July 17, 2008 at 11:13am by Kevin Ohannessian

I agree. More thoughts on this in my blog.

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July 17, 2008 at 12:07pm by Kyle Dylan Conner

I just got an email from him about a day ago, and its not appealing to me. I don't feel like reading an email that long.

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July 17, 2008 at 2:27pm by Norman Birnbach

I agree, Kyle, that the emails may not be the best format for what Jason is trying to accomplish. Today's email is a case in point -- a review of the new Batman movie. Sounds interesting, but not what I'm looking for, too. What I do find interesting is that Jason is still using Twitter. Why isn't Twitter dead?

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July 22, 2008 at 4:57pm by Kay Smith

Certain niches may cut back on blogging due to a lack of overall effectiveness, but I don't think blogging will become extinct. The fact that TechCrunch blogged and had his post shared/commented on is proof enough that people are interested in using blogs as a source for information and the spread of ideas. As long as bloggers are writing and masses are reading, blogging will stick around.

-KAS-
Cortera

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July 23, 2008 at 9:46am by David Mullings

Blogging isn't dead, it is growing up.
-
So far the blogosphere has been more about quantity than quality and too many bloggers are focusing on making tons of money instead of providing good content for readers.
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I am not trying to monetize my blog, I am trying to keep people posted about my adventures in business and share my lessons along the way. If people find it via search engines, great.
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Naturally we have big blogs like GigaOm and I read that daily. I see no sign of that dying anytime soon. The traditional way of getting news - reading it on a newspaper site - is old because people want to be able to comment and to get news as it happens, not wait for the next day.

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