It's the End of Blogging as We Know It, Part II

The interesting coda to Jason Calcanis' "retirement" from blogging because he says blogging is dead.

In addition to his new email outlet, he continues to use Twitter.

I guess Twitter, or microblogging, is not dead -- yet.

Until something else supplants it.

Here's an additional point: it's taken a long time for print to get to its current stage: on-the-edge-of-doom. But it might not actually die, and go the way of buggy whips.

Radio continues to survive long after it was written off with the advent of TV.

But I'd bet that Twitter and other Web 2.0 sites vanish before print and radio do, if only because print and radio have a long tradition. Although they tend to be older, there are lots of people who like the feel of the ink smudging their fingers as they flip the pages of their morning paper.

I use Twitter, but Twitter is the latest trend. There's not much heritage to it yet, and while people who use it can seem to be obsessed with Twitter, the vast majority of people even in the tech sector are not using Twitter. Perhaps Twitter adoption is still in its infancy.

But if blogging is dead, how much longer can Twitter expect to live? Or, if it does survive, with its limit of 140-character messages, what does that say about our attention span?

(PS: I don't think blogging is quite dead yet.)

Do we have a case study deficit?

We've must be in the midst of a case study deficit. Or how else to explain two iPod mentions in one issue of Entrepreneur -- and I'm only half-way through the issue.

Don't get me wrong. I like my iPod, but is it really the only positive case study people cite? There's got to be something else.

And don't say the iPhone.

It's the End of Blogging as We Know It, According to Jason Calacanis

Blogger Jason Calacanis has retired from blogger, saying blogging is dead. He's now shifting to email. Read about why in TechCrunch's Jason Calacanis’ First New Email Post.

Here are Calacanis' main reasons for saying blogging is dead:

• "Folks are so desperate to be heard–and we all want to be heard that’s why we blog–that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual hearing."
• "Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves."
• Five years ago, to be a successful blogger, you had to “show up every day.” "Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from whatever you’ve said."
• "Excelling in blogging today is about link-baiting, the act of writing something inflammatory in order to get a link."

He also provides an explanation why he thinks communicating by email is more personal. TechCrunch says it expect Calacanis's objective in switching to email "will not achieve what he has set out for - and that is to have a conversation with the top slice of his readers." And I agree with TechCrunch.

Why? Here's what TechCrunch says: because "You will likely see his emails re-published, probably on a blog and probably with comments and everything else."

Just like I've done here.

Media coverage addressing "why monitor blogs" is always negative -- managing customer complaints

Blogs and microblogs are about conversations. Too many stories about why companies should monitor blogs focus on putting out fires of customer complaints. Latest example is from the Boston Globe: "Hurry up, the customer has a complaint; As blogs expand the reach of a single voice, firms monitor the Internet looking for the dissatisfied."

The reason coverage focuses on the negative may be because it can be a more dramatic story to tell.

But B2C companies should be thinking about a blogger campaign to get ahead of the problem, to be a participant in online communities before something happens.

The same is true for B2B companies, which may have more specific niches that could actually make it easier to implement.

The current mindset, however, seems to be putting out fires rather than working ahead to ensure there are no fires. Dell, which started out putting out fires, seems to have done well being proactive.

I hope to talk with Richard at Dell to get additional insight from him.

Death of Old Media Predicted

As a media junkie, I am concerned about the future of print media. And while I do think traditional media's future may be a death by a thousand cuts, I do think that predicting its near-term death may be like premature reporting in 1897 that Mark Twain had died -- to which he famously responded, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."

The latest example is Marc Andreessen at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference. According to the New York Times, "Sun Valley: The Old-Media Death-Watch Continues" by Andrew Ross Sorkin. According to Sorkin, Andreessen said, "If you have old media, you should sell."

People said the same thing about radio, but it's still around.

I do think traditional media has a dim future unless it finds a way -- a format, approach, business model, delivery mechanism, something -- to evolve. But I don't think print will totally disappear.

When I did a search, I found predictions of the death of old media going back a decade. Hasn't happened yet. What has happened is that the impact and influence of print may have diminished -- certainly advertisers seem to think so -- but that's not the same thing.

Media coverage trends & backlashes

With every media trend, you can count on a backlash to that trend.

The media is looking at all aspects of the impact of rising gas prices...on stay-at-home seniors, on rising online academic courses (instead of commuting), etc.

This is one trend that won't see a backlash, I'd bet.

Today's iPhone Release May Be Big News -- But the Continued Drop in Ad Sales Has Bigger Implications

According to major media, along with the social media world like Twitter, today's big news is the release of the latest iPhone 3G.

The iPhone has certainly had a significant impact on the cellphone handset business. But the latest version is an iteration, not a revolution. It will be replaced next year with more of the same -- no doubt cool stuff, but more of the same.

Bigger news, I think, was reported on page 5 of today's New York Times' business section: "In Deepening Ad Decline, Sales Fall 8% at Magazines: The decline is led by automotive and technology ads" by Richard Perez-Pena.

The current business model of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. is based on advertising. Without advertising, a U.S. magazine won't survive -- even if it maintains a high circulation base. In the past year, magazines with circulations of several hundred thousand have folded merely because advertisers had dried up.

That doesn't mean that readers had given up on the magazine. Just advertisers. In contrast, European magazines typically charge higher subscription fees, which are used to underwrite a greater proportion of a print outlet's costs. Presumably, in Europe, a magazine with a high circ. could survive an advertising downturn.

Not so in the U.S., where news and some business mags were hit by the continuing slump. BusinessWeek's ad pages dropped 14.8% and Forbes dropped 12.6 for the first half of 2008, according to the Publishers Information Bureau, which tracks this information.

Even some of the biggest circ. magazines were hit, including Reader's Digest, Cosmo, Ladies' Home Journal and Family Circle.

Things are so bad here that Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director at Conde Nast, told Perez-Pena, "The joke here is, 'Flat is the new up.'" (Translation: that just having flat advertising sales is great in this environment.)

The implications to the news is that there will be more layoffs at magazines and newspapers, which are having an even more difficult time. Many of those layoffs will come from editorial for two reasons:

1. You can't cut the advertising dept., because you people to sell space to advertisers.
2. The decline in ad pages by 14.8% brings with it a drop of at least 14.8% in editorial pages. That means magazines don't need as much content, which means they can cut reporters without much impact.
   

Over the past year, BusinessWeek and Fortune updated their formats. Expect more to follow suit. When they do, a letter from the editor or publisher will say that the new format is designed to better help readers, but don't be fooled. The new formats are designed to convey that the magazine continues to be relevant.

But after cutting reporters and editors and bringing more charts and graphics, that's probably not the case. Skimpier content is not more relevant. Meanwhile, in announcing format changes, a number of newspaper chains have said they will be adding more charts and graphs, as the Boston Globe's business section has done.

Unfortunately, these changes have not stemmed the exodus of readers or advertisers.

The iPhone is great. I would consider getting one if the carrier had better coverage in my area. But the news about the ad declines is unlikely to be cyclical, and means bad news for traditional media.
to attract advertisers .