Are blogs losing steam?

Have you visited lately the blog that you have been following for so long? If you ask me, the last time I took a peek on a favorite blog on quantum physics was like almost a year ago -- that despite the updates and snapshots that come regularly on my browser's RSS reader. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has gone cold to reading blogs lately. It's a trend, a global trend actually like a cold wave that has permeated the blogosphere since the advent of Facebook and Twitter.

Research is not very encouraging lately as to the popularity of blogs even in the US. More and more people have their eyes fixed on microblogging like Facebook and Twitter specially the younger generation. Two years ago, the New York Times published a research from the Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center that teens are more inclined to using Facebook or Twitter over traditional blogging. The report also noted that blog usage has also declined among 18 to 33 age bracket. Furthermore the report went on to say that "former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by the lack of readers."

While we don't have the numbers to say that blogs have also fizzled out in the Philippines, I would like to think that blogs have a lesser appeal to pinoy netizens from the view of usage and patronage. Looking at the stats released by Sysomos, Inc., in 2010, the country's blogger contribution to the blogosphere is only less than one percent. Which means, we are not so much of a blogger as a country compared to the US or UK or when compared to our neighbors like Malaysia, Japan or India. This I would like to attribute to the fact that blogging is such a pain for most pinoys. Not many can afford to build and maintain a full-featured blog site much less the time to spin great stories or articles to generate interest from readers.

Quality blogs are a rare find in the Philippines. And that’s the reason why many blogs never reach it to the screens of many Filipinos. It’s also a pity that many blogs were purposely built for the wrong reasons – flaunting than for the expression of their creative pursuits; bashing than to bring positive impact to the community. Others freely blog to “emo” about their boyfriend’s new love or badmouth the witch that his boyfriend is with.  These add up to the annoying nature of blogs in the country.

Most of all, many bloggers today blog in return for money or to gain favors from companies. And that what makes blogs lose its independence and credibility. They contribute to the huge “spam blogs” that litter in the blogosphere. Instead of providing independent and honest reviews, companies employ the services of bloggers to bury their sins or to cover the lies about their products or service. Blogs have been made as mouthpieces of companies as a means to hide their inadequacies in the public eye.    

There are not enough bloggers who are impassioned to become thought leaders in his or her field of expertise. And it’s sometimes hard to trust anymore a blog review coming from our own bloggers because many of them prefer to write about a product or service for consideration. A “mercenary blogger” for example gets paid to praise a product to the benefit of his benefactors, or to smack a competitor’s product still to the benefit of the same benefactor.

Adding to the mediocrity of our blogs is the amount of borrowed content that our blogs have. Many blogs are exact copycats of another blog or are spun or reworded to appear that the article they post is original. Plagiarism seems to be an ordinary thing that comes in a blog and leaders of the blogging community have not been successful so far to curb the problem.

The blogging community is seeking its own destruction. Much as I hate to see the demise of the blogging community, but if the practice stays on then we might as well see them go.

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