It's been a mixed bag recently in blogland — and I'm not talking about the WordPress bruhaha, although that likely hasn't helped.
In a week that saw Dave Winer celebrate 30 years of Scripting News, Venkatesh Rao announced that he is shuttering the Ribbonfarm blog after 17 years.
Yes, lots of people stop blogging, just as lots also start, but it's not the reason I wanted to remark upon it. Instead, it's his comments on the blogosphere that concern me:
I do think that the end really is here for the blogosphere though. This time it really is different. I’ve weathered many ups and downs in the blogosphere over my 17 years in it, but now it feels like the end of the blogging era. And what has emerged to take its place is not the blogosphere (and really shouldn’t try to be), even though parts of it have tried to claim the word.
Chronological feeds, and RSS-like protocols are part of our collective technological vocabulary. So at least in a technological sense, nothing is dying per se. But in a cultural sense, we are definitely witnessing the end of an era.
... when this blog officially retires on November 13, we’ll be in some sort of new era. An era blogs helped usher in, but won’t be a part of.
So, where does he see things going? A couple of primary directions:
- the cozyweb — more relaxed, often closed/limited environments where information is shared, discussed and built in small, select groups. It "favours a deeper, quieter sort of writerly ambition, with classier, more high-minded aspirations"
- Substack — or, more generally, the proliferation of blog-like newsletters.
Rao argues that rather than replace blogging it has gentrified it. That statement scares me.
I'd argue that we are already in a new era, one that (as Rao says) is indeed moving away from the public social media spaces but back towards blogging.
There are more blogging tools than ever, more people looking to reclaim their home on the web instead of building on large platforms. The blogging ecosystem, in my opinion, is stronger than ever thanks to those folks unhappy with the status quo building those tools so others might have easy ways to write for the web.
Substack (and, to a degree, Medium before it) has appealed to many due to "the mere prospect of making money reliably". Still, by his own admission, Rao doesn't think it will last calling it his "rental apartment".
Writing in these places is just like using social media, but in long form. You are still building on someone else's platform, one that might disappear or drop out of vogue. Unlike social networks, however, committing to a platform with long form content means you are more invested and have much more to lose.
Saying that the style of writing favoured by Substack and the cozyweb doesn't lend itself to blogs does them a disservice. A blog is anything you want it to be, holding anything you care to post to it. Some of the best writing on the web is on blogs and they are perfectly capable of fostering a "deeper, quieter sort of writerly ambition, with classier, more high-minded aspirations".
Blogs don't have to be all about performance and vitality. Although fully public, some recent blogging communities focus on having a more controlled experience. Whether you want to call it the indie web or the small web, whatever, the aim is to provide a more personal experience, a saner, quieter web where people feel able to write in the way they want. The community is there to support its "members" and encourage meaningful interaction.
Hmm, this sounds like the cozyweb but less restricted.
As Robert Birming observes, a perfect motto for blogging might be "always, regardless". The nature of blogs changes over time but their longevity speaks volumes.
