There were a couple responses to my original post that made me think. They mentioned the quantity of the blogs supporting Etsy artists and the habit of communicating on Ravelry or Craftster, but still blogging. I think they missed the point of the original article. So I responded:
The arguments being made are not that there is a dramatic drop in the quantity of blogs that exist. That was not the point. New blogs spring up every day in scrapping, quilting, crafting, and knitting, everywhere!
It was rather that the number of blog posts on individual blogs have declined in number. Instead of writing 4-7 times a week, many only blog 2-3.
It was partly that the conversations do not travel from blog to blog anymore. After Cara's post Sunday, it used to be that half a dozen or more readers would take the discussion to their own blogs, writing posts responding to the original statement. Conversation. Community. As of this morning, KnitNuts post cited above and one other: Ravelry Killed the Knitting Blog Star by Expat Knitter are the only examples of the community carrying the conversation further.
It was strongly that the conversation and community that was built on these blogs (and I've seen it in knitting, quilting and crafting) has nearly disappeared. This is exhibited in declining cross-blog conversations and declining comments on blogs.
It was rather that some of the quality of the writing has declined. Instead of talking about the joys and challenges encountered while creating something, the posts tend to be drier: I finished this; it's for honey bear. I used supplies A, B, C. (BTW, if you don't explain in your side bar, or somewhere who "honey bear" is? I care less about the fact he/she/it is getting it, no matter how precious it is.)
It was rather that many "A" list bloggers have now gotten designing jobs and book deals and blog about "I'm working on project X which you will love when I can show it to you."
It was in part the monetization of the blog post:
"Here are 5 earrings I finished for my Etsy shop. Click here to buy them."
"This is my latest scrap lay-out, to download the specifics click on the paypal button at the end of the post. "
Again these are not posts that lead to community building or conversation. If they do, I'm not seeing it. Please feel free to point specific examples out to me so I can be enlightened.
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Now that you've read my entire spiel (sorry for verbiage. Well, no I'm not!), what do you think? Has there been a decline in blog quantity and quality? Has it merely shifted to newer bloggers I haven't found yet? Is simply that life changes create blog changes? Or is that social media sites (like ravelry, burda-style and Ning communities) have taken over some of the roles that the blogs used to fill?
also blog at: Weight for Deb and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.
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