I realize that the postings have been few and far between lately, but I'm getting back into the habit now that the semester is over. While I've been laying low, there's been some news over the past weeks that has thrown some cold water on the prophets of life in the age of Web 2.0.
1.Cnet reports that the blogging phenomenon may have hit its plateau. What that means is either that people aren't starting new blogs or that those that have blogs don't keep them going or move to other web applications, like Twitter. To be honest, I'm not sure what this kind of reporting really means. Does that mean that blogs aren't influential? Not so fast. Does it mean that we'll look back 50 years from now and see the blog phenomenon as the equivalent to CB radio craze? Perhaps. Does it mean that once again that your friends here at wagmedia are the classic late adopters? It sure looks like it. I'll let you know when I start to invest in the stock market so you can sell before the market crashes.
2. Chalk one up for the passive viewer. Reuters reported that life in the world of Web 2.0 is "less participatory than many people assumed." According to a study of online surfing data (I wonder what that looks like), 0.16% of visitors to YouTube upload videos, while 0.02% of Flickr visitors put their own pictures up for view. What is significant is that the traffic to these kinds of sites has spiked significantly. In other words, people just like to sit back and watch -- even on the Internet. Then again, who would blame people for not bothering to post, when Youtube keeps taking down videos for weird reasons -- consider the case of CTV reporter David Akin.
3. An article in Computerworld magazine (via) offered this opinion on the state of e-books: "There is one unavoidable and fatal fact that will kill the nascent e-book market in its cradle: People love paper books." Take that e-readers!
Not all is rosy for fans of older media. The cost of pay phone calls in Canada is going way up.
2 comments:
Yeah, these are indicators of something. But re blogs: there is no good metric for determining how many there are so I don't trust statistical data about them. Most blogs are either created but never used or the work of spam artists. So who knows. It is, of course, quite possible that by now everyone who wants one has a blog. But that could mean not that the form is in decline, but that's it's reaching a point of maturity.
Mike,
It's not just the statistics that are problematic when it comes to blogs-- I'm not sure about how they determine the concept of "activity". If someone doesn't post for a week, or a month, does that make them "inactive"? I'll have to look into it when I get the chance.
Always great to hear from you!
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