For the past few days I’ve been busy wrapping up my presentation for the marathon 4-hour workshop I’ll give this Sunday at the AMA Symposium for Higher Education.
And, I can report that blogs aren’t dead or “so 2004” as Paul Boutin would love his readers to believe after scanning his Wired article published on October 20, 2008:
Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.
Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago.
[…]
And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.
As higher ed blogger, Kyle James, noticed in a comment posted on higher ed blogger Andrew Careaga’s post about this essay, there’s something really fishy in this (link-bait?) article:
they are declaring the death of blogging… on a blog… by a blogger…
Paul Boutin is indeed a correspondent for the blog Valleywag.com, a gossip blog per Wikipedia definition.
But, enough with this rhetoric.
I’m sure you want proof that all this “blogs-are-alive” chatter isn’t a conspiracy developed by bloggers for bloggers. So, I did some investigative research for my AMA “Blogging Boot Camp” workshop and thought I’ll share the results with you, dear readers (anybody out there?)
In his Wired piece, Boutin tries to defend the point that Twitter, among other social media applications, has killed blogs.
Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. You’ll find Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies from the golden age there. They claim it’s because Twitter operates even faster than the blogosphere. And Twitter posts can be searched instantly, without waiting for Google to index them.
You can also search the posts from this blog, collegewebeditor.com, instantly without waiting for Google to index them, but I’m not claiming yet that my blog’s internal search engine will bring more traffic than the big G.
Didn’t I say that I would stop with the rhetoric?
Sorry for that.
Now, let’s focus on hard cold facts:
How do Twitter and Blogs perform when it comes to Google rankings?
Just look at this story posted on Missouri S&T’s research blog, Visions, last month: Brain Powers for Power Grids.
The blog post was announced on Missouri S&T Twitter account almost immediately:
A bit more than a month after the posting on the blog and Twitter, check out what pops up for a Google search on the topic.
No Twitter post in sight.
Don’t get me wrong.
Twitter is a great tool, but in a world where everybody googles blogs are still bringing amazing value with a bit more context than any 140-character would ever be able to do.
What do you think?