The demise of the blog is a common call but they are still around. In a recent version Paul Boutin, in an article entitled Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 in Wired Magazine writes:
Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.
His argument is interesting but based on the premise that individual bloggers cannot effectively compete with the top blogs in the world today. Therefore since you cannot beat the top blogs in the number of visitors it’s not worth writing.
This is wrong in so many ways.
His arguments are based on the assumption that all bloggers want to compete in that manner. That they want to have the most visitors. If they do not desire this then they should not be there. This is like telling a person that he or she should not bother jogging since he or she will never win the New York marathon. There are other values involved.
In addition to this the belief that only established media will ever be the biggest fails to take into account the rise of all successful new media products from reality tv to fashion blogs – these were not predicted and still they manage to overturn the typical view of what content should be.