Is That Still A Thing?

Last year, when Facebook was mired in the political brouhaha that involved user privacy, many late night comedians joked that it was time to go back to MySpace.  While the internet’s first bona fide social platform is still pretty much DOA somewhere in cyberspace, there are two other forms of media that seemed to be on their way out but have sprung a newfound “cool” the last few years – blogs and podcasts.  This month and next we will look at these lasting technologies, starting with blogs.

Blogs were the hot internet destination in the early- to mid-2000s, then started to move aside with the rise of social media.  According to an article on the Web Designer Depot, there were over 50 million blogs in 2006.  Various statistics indicate blogging peeked around 2011 with close to 200 million before starting a down trend but, because of the way the software used for blogging lent itself to be used to create easy-to-update websites, developers continued to improve the software despite the dropping numbers.  WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform, is often used by non-profits, government agencies, and small businesses that may not be able to afford to hire a full-time webmaster or consultant to maintain their website.  The company’s website even markets to this use of the software and downplays the blog aspect of the design tool.

The earliest blogs were often produced by individuals who wanted to share their life experiences, opinions, and other self-focused information in their spare time, much like we do on social media sites today.  These blogs were numerous, basic in design, and tended to have one writer who likely posted on a less consistent schedule.  Today’s blogs tend to have a slightly different goal and are directed at shared experiences or interests with a regular schedule of posts and modern, professional designs.  While many are still run by individuals, a majority are run by companies, media outlets, or collectives that either create stand-alone blogs or a blog associated with an existing website with the intention of producing quality information that allows interaction with readers.  Websites such as Mashable, lifehacker, HuffingtonPost, and SB Nation are examples of sites that have taken the blog format and made it into a fully functional website to relay news and information from certain industries.  These sites stand on their own as a destination and rely on a full staff to produce content that is dynamic – it changes as the latest news breaks.  Some sites even blog live from events to give you the most up-to-date information.  Examples include live updates from the red carpet at the Oscars, breaking news stories, and play-by-play of important games on the sports sites.  Yet some other topical sites, like Food52, DiabetesMine, and PetaPixal, are crowd-sourced or associated with websites run by collectives and rely on users to add their stories, recipes, opinions, or tips to form a collection of information in one place as opposed to several stand-alone blogs.  The benefit to the reader with this change in focus from the individual blogger to a collective is the information has a greater chance of being fact-checked and corrected.  Of course, as with all online information, caution should still be used when reading a blog so as not to get caught up in false stories or “facts”. 

If you are interested in catching up on some of the top blogs, Google is really the best place to start.  Unlike social media sites, there really are no good ranking and traffic tracking sites that list just blogs, so the best bet to get an idea of what is popular is to do some searching by using terms such as best blogs and then a topic, like movies, sports, or finance.  Most likely a recognizable name, like Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, or Fortune, will have published an article on the top blogs to follow for their industry.  Even just searching for best blogs will get you a short list from Google.

If you want to get started writing your own blog, then you will want to check out the Blogging Basics 101 guide.  The guide is on a blog about blogging run by Jessica Knapp.  While the guide does promote WordPress as the best blogging platform, she does mention other platforms and does a good job of providing plenty of useful tips for getting started and drawing attention to your blog, such as making sure to share your posts on social media to drum up readers.

An alternative to a pure blog is Tumblr, which combines blogging and social media into one site.  When you sign up, you can follow other blogs much like you would follow other posters on twitter.  You also can create your own blog using the platform, with easy controls for dropping in text, links, pictures, and audiovisual content.

Of course, we think you are already reading the best blog on the internet.  Come back next month and find out more about following podcasts.

-          Laura N., Information Technology