With the rise of facebook, and twitter people are more connected than ever before. Short of wearing a webcam and broadcasting our lives (no thanks Instagram n Snapchat) there's not many more ways of being constantly connected with each others' lives.
Blogging evolved and grew with people interested in connecting with others on a deeper level, on issues and on ideas. Search engines loved that content and businesses made it an integral part of their marketing. With money in the picture, many blogs sold out to content that could be monetized, or appealed to audiences that can be marketed to. The individual, issues and ideas were lost. Business, product and services related information thrived.
Enter social. Facebook not only connected individuals based on who they knew, but its groups, pages and especially likes allowed people to connect with each other based on what they cared about. Apps, quizzes, polls and other unique forms of interaction apart from the selfie phenomenon made it a killer application that everyone wanted to be on.
Brevity is the essence of wit, and with that in its arsenal, Twitter has emerged as a frequently used mode of sharing news, ideas, interests, opinions and issues (didn't we see bad customer service taken over the coals many times this year?). With genuine interactions being the key, marketing messages are usually ignored and only the best ones are celebrated. Time being of essence, long form communication is under pressure as this short form takes off. Besides, what else would fit on mobile screens ranging from older dumb phones to today's smartphones?
Tumblr and Instagram showed how pictures could replace a thousand words, and with smartphones having cameras better than digital ones of a few years ago, the lazy blogger has found the perfect vehicle for sharing their world.
All this has lead to a waning interest in non-business blogging and is slowly killing off the essay rich, long form personal communication and notes that personal blogging represented to many. Will information overload on social and micro blogging platforms lead to a slow retreat from that, or will it kill blogging...time, likes and tweets will tell!
Blogging evolved and grew with people interested in connecting with others on a deeper level, on issues and on ideas. Search engines loved that content and businesses made it an integral part of their marketing. With money in the picture, many blogs sold out to content that could be monetized, or appealed to audiences that can be marketed to. The individual, issues and ideas were lost. Business, product and services related information thrived.
Enter social. Facebook not only connected individuals based on who they knew, but its groups, pages and especially likes allowed people to connect with each other based on what they cared about. Apps, quizzes, polls and other unique forms of interaction apart from the selfie phenomenon made it a killer application that everyone wanted to be on.
Brevity is the essence of wit, and with that in its arsenal, Twitter has emerged as a frequently used mode of sharing news, ideas, interests, opinions and issues (didn't we see bad customer service taken over the coals many times this year?). With genuine interactions being the key, marketing messages are usually ignored and only the best ones are celebrated. Time being of essence, long form communication is under pressure as this short form takes off. Besides, what else would fit on mobile screens ranging from older dumb phones to today's smartphones?
Tumblr and Instagram showed how pictures could replace a thousand words, and with smartphones having cameras better than digital ones of a few years ago, the lazy blogger has found the perfect vehicle for sharing their world.
All this has lead to a waning interest in non-business blogging and is slowly killing off the essay rich, long form personal communication and notes that personal blogging represented to many. Will information overload on social and micro blogging platforms lead to a slow retreat from that, or will it kill blogging...time, likes and tweets will tell!
Very meaningful post, Vijay. Although, we're achieving a lot in this ever-changing and socially networked world, we're missing out on a lot. Facebook was a charm, but not anymore. People wish you on your timeline instead of calling you. They can do away with a 'like' instead of writing a comment. I don't know what is becoming of us. Such robots we are. And the saddest part is the slowly dying blogs. I just hope that people maintain their blogs and do not take to shortcuts that the social networks are providing. Thank God, I'm not on Twitter! :D
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