Jason Kottke declares that the blog is dead:
Sometime in the past few years, the blog died. In 2014, people will finally notice. Sure, blogs still exist, many of them are excellent, and they will go on existing and being excellent for many years to come. But the function of the blog, the nebulous informational task we all agreed the blog was fulfilling for the past decade, is increasingly being handled by a growing number of disparate media forms that are blog-like but also decidedly not blogs.
Instead of blogging, people are posting to Tumblr, tweeting, pinning things to their board, posting to Reddit, Snapchatting, updating Facebook statuses, Instagramming, and publishing on Medium. In 1997, wired teens created online diaries, and in 2004 the blog was king. Today, teens are about as likely to start a blog (over Instagramming or Snapchatting) as they are to buy a music CD. Blogs are for 40-somethings with kids.
Hey, remember when blogs were online diaries? Wow.
Of course, I just start blogging in 2013. That’s why I don’t invest in anything that’s already bubbly; I’m sure to be late to the party, and one of the last fools just arriving when everybody is already starting to bounce to other venues.
I’m sure this is right.
When blogs came out they seemed like a dumbed-down sort of thing for people with mini attention spans, but nowadays they are too intellectual: dull, slow, ponderous, nerdy.
In a world of micro attention spans, who has the patience for blogging?
Blogs could only last until something worse came along…