Is Blogging a Dying Art?

Christianity Today, 29 September 2007 gives us the tiding

The Death of Blogs
Well, some of them, anyway.
by Ted Olsen posted 9/25/2007 08:57AM

Tech researcher Gartner Inc. reported earlier this year that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are active.

"A lot of people have been in and out of this thing," Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer told reporters. "Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it." Given the average lifespan of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, Gartner says blogging has probably peaked.

Which isn't to say that blogging is dead. Quite the opposite. Blog aggregator Technorati estimates that 3 million new blogs are launched every month. The site's tongue-in-cheek slogan: "Zillions of photos, videos, blogs, and more. Some of them have to be good."...

But some of us can't help ourselves. Nearly as common as the abandoned blog is the "final comments before I reclaim my life" post. Followed by "an update to something I said in my final comments." And, "Well, I couldn't let this story go by." And on it goes.

One of the best resignation letters came from Alan Jacobs in Books & Culture. "Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought," he wrote in "Goodbye, Blog" (May/June 2006). A year later, in addition to writing a regular column for Books & Culture, the Wheaton College literature professor blogs thoughtfully at two different sites.

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