Blogging's dead; long live blogging

Last year's top bloggers are being replaced by mainstream publishers

Late last year I wrote a blog post suggesting that individual bloggers like me were being replaced by traditional media as the leading voices in the blog world. It caused a bit of a stir and I followed it up the next day by saying that "social media requires real people." My point in both posts is that I really like to read blogs owned by and written by a person as opposed to a team of people being paid to blog. I made my point and moved on.

Today, I read a post on The Standard that suggests the same thing. Ian Lamont writes the following about the Techmeme leaderboard:

The old-school A-listers aren't being displaced by the many talented B-to-Z listers out there. Rather, the Leaderboard is increasingly populated by mainstream publishers, tech blog networks, and corporate blogs and PR sites.

And in addition, Nick Carr is taking the summer off from blogging, Scoble's moved the hub of his energy from his blog to FriendFeed, and Calacanis has quit blogging entirely.

As Jason said in his first email (he's moved from blogging to broadcasting):

In the early days of blogging Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to win at blogging: "show up every day."

I agree completely. In good times and bad, I blog every day. That's how it is for me. And I don't plan to change that. I get so much value out of blogging that I can't imagine doing what I do without a little time every day writing down my thoughts.

But change is afoot. Today, we get the news that Alley Insider "raised a pot of money at a mind boggling valuation". That's a joke from Henry Blodget, founder of Alley Insider. But  the fact remains that  Alley Insider raised about a million dollars to build out the Alley Insider blog. I like Alley Insider and they re-run some of my posts there from time to time.

And last week Rafat Ali sold Paid Content for $30mm to The Guardian. When that was announced, a friend of mine suggested to me that I could sell AVC for $5-10mm. First, I am not sure that's true, but second I could never do that.

This blog is me and I am this blog. It's mine and will always be mine. I understand why many of the individuals who made blogging what it is are either moving on or turning their blogs into businesses. That's the way it is. But I am fortunate that this blog is totally integrated into my business and provides great value to me and my partners. So it's sustainable from an emotional and economic perspective and I plan to keep showing up every day.

To see more from Fred, go to his blog.