Ryan MacMillan

So, some guy named Robert Scoble (now, where have I heard that name before?) has caused something of an alarum with his observation that “A number of my blogging friends have seen their traffic go down lately. They assume that their readers are off in social networks. I think they are absolutely right.”

This lead hugh macleod (the ee cummings de nos jours) to celebrate the “end of the A-list”, contending that as membership of social networks such as >>ed: insert whatever’s hip today here<< rises, so the need for A-list bloggers to form the epicentres of online communities will decline: "Suddenly, social networks start being successfully created without the "A-Listers" having to act like "Hubs" [or "Human Social Objects", if you want to get REALLY technical]. Suddenly, the need for A-listers to arbitrate "Who the Cool Kids are" [and who they aren't] is rapidly and thankfully diminished"

Which in turn prompted Tony Hung, editor of BlogHerald to ask: “Is this the twilight of blogging?”

(sidebar: why didn’t he say “Twilight of the Blogs”? Surely better? OMG, is it BLOGGERDAMMERUNG?)

Hung, with commendable vim, defends blogging from the amassed hordes of Twits, asserting that blogging will now become a medium for serious people doing serious things: “In a sentence, the signal-to-noise ratio will start *rising*. There will be more blogs that will appear to be worth reading, watching, or listening to if, for no other reason, than all the other “try-me-out” blogs will start disappearing.”

So, whereas a year ago, people who wanted to give voice to themselves online had to start a blog, which they promptly got bored with after about a month, they can now have a Facebook account which is much less time-consuming and labour-intensive. Bloggers, serious bloggers, will continue writing detailed and passionate accounts of their interests.

But then, rather gloriously, in Hung’s comments, Scoble his very self turned up (which, I imagine, must be very much like Gore Vidal turning up to your book group) to say that he had been quoted out of context and that, whilst some of his friends were losing readers on their blogs, he - and other members of mcleod’s necrotic A-list - were actually seeing rises in their audience. Which either proves Hung’s point or not, depending on your stance on temporal prediction.
Anyway, I’m off to join my new social network. It’s called “The Pub”.