<p>Back to the point: there’s something that you begin to notice if you
spend much time on the internet. Most blogs — used here as a catchall
term for all regularly updated, vaguely artistic, internet
endeavors — seem to last somewhere between three and six months. Some
make it longer, but five uninterrupted years is unquestionably a rarity.</p>
<p>There are two general signs that a blog is heading toward extinction.
The first is a declining frequency of posting, and the second is a
proportional rise in the number of posts about the blog itself. These
two don’t always go hand-in-hand; sometimes it’s just one or the other,
sometimes you don’t get either warning sign. But when either of the two
is spotted it’s reasonable to begin wondering how long that curious
internet publication will continue to be updated.</p>
<p>It always seems to be that journals — and blogs — begun with the
urgent intensity of someone confident that the simple act of putting
their thoughts on paper will clarify or improve them, you soon find
that a personal conversation is hard. And whether it’s because you find
yourself a poor conversationalist, a slow writer, or an incoherent
blabberer the realization generally comes that the results are a little
less than magical. The realization dawns that what you’re writing is
not really in need of urgent preservation.</p>
<p>So you walk away. You give up. You’ve expelled whatever it was that
caused you to create a blog or buy a journal. You’re done with the
superfluous recording of everything.</p>
<p>It’s a rather natural process, this sudden enthusiasm and slow
disillusionment. But it doesn’t make it any easier to accept all the
dead blogs on the internet.</p>
David Hayes
blog lonely journal internet web technology digital death
<p>Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/anniemole/" target="_blank">Annie Mole</a></p>
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2008-06-25T16:04:55-04:00
<p>There's no shortage of opinions on the Internet. One blogger, one of many fighting for viewers, reflects on the nature of blogs, why they succeed and fail, and how to tell whether they're about to die. It's up to you to decide how personal a story it is.</p>
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2008-06-25T16:05:07-04:00
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What Happens When Blogs Die
#<Image:0x2adde5f0d898>
2008-09-17T22:40:59-04:00
http://www.frozentoothpaste.com/2008/06/09/how-blogs-die/
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