It’s 2010 and I’m Back

I was talking to my buddy Conner the other day about “blogging”. We both agreed that blogging has changed. It used to be, at least for us, about community AND about getting things off your chest. Then came Facebook and Twitter. Two sites that hold a dear place in my heart and I will be the first to tell people to jump on board, but they changed things.

Twitter and facebook seemed to have killed blogging for the guys like us. All the community is on those sites now. If you are a “big” blogger then you still have community on your blog, but for guys like us with only a few hundred followers and tiny lurkers (i don’t mean they are midgets) we don’t.

If you are not a lurker and are a blogger what are your thoughts on blogging these days? Has it changed for you?

So now what? Well first off I have always used my blog as a place to rattle off the great things God is doing in my life so I will try to get better at being as frequent as I used to be because I miss writing. Where else to go? I have no flippin clue. Ha ha..

All I can say is this blog has been up for almost 4 years and almost 300k visits and I still love it.

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13 responses to “It’s 2010 and I’m Back”

  1. Mud Puppy Avatar

    Facebook and Twitter definitely changed the game, but I slowed down my blogging because I was just another person saying the same thing as everybody else.

    I tried something new last year where I did monthly recaps which turned out to be a great thing for me. And most of my other posts are meaningful… to me. I no longer blog in hopes of creating a community (although I love the possibilities) but rather to time-stamp my life. I can’t tell you how great it is to look back through my archives and recall where I was at certain times.

    I did decide recently to make an extra effort to document more of my thoughts through my blog this year. Hopefully I’ll make good on that. 🙂
    .-= Mud Puppy´s last blog ..2009 Debrief =-.

  2. Jeremy Avatar

    I basically took the last three months of 2009 off from blogging, but started it back up here in the new year. I am still evaluating what I want my blog to be. I know it’s not going to be a “community” outlet anymore. I have wrestled with whether I want it to be, as mud puppy calls it, a time stamp of my life, or more focused on a time stamp of a specific area of my life. I am leaning towards a time stamp of my ministry journey specifically for several reasons.

    All in all, though, I do think personal blogging is going by the wayside. It will not disappear, but the attitude and focus of blogging on a personal level has changed and will probably re-emerge as something slightly different. People still want an outlet for things that go beyond 140 characters.

  3. Fred McKinnon Avatar

    Joel,
    Great blog, thanks for saying what we’ve all been feeling. I’m the same way. According to “feedburner” and “google analytics”, I have more people visiting my blog than ever before, but less community.

    Facebook trumps Twitter even. If I “tweet” something, I typically get way more responses from Facebook than @replies from Twitter.

    Nevertheless, my blog is about what I originally intended. A place to download what is in my heart and mind. I can’t do that in 140 chars. So for now, I continue to blog!
    .-= Fred McKinnon´s last blog ..From the Word: Ask, Seek, and Knock =-.

  4. Joel Klampert Avatar

    exactly…a time stamp.

    I always called it my altar – a place where I can note the greatness of God and remember at least till Al gore dis-invents the internet.

    Facebook does trump twitter, but I love how instant twitter has become and use both in tandem.

    When I first started blogging the reasons were simple. While the reasons still exist I feel the need to refocus.

  5. Adam Avatar

    I am not as intricate of a blogger as most of you..

    However I am trying to do something different with my site this year.. and that’s to write stuff 🙂 So often Im stumped to write something “different”.. but I need to keep it simple.. and most of all keep it real.. we’ll see how it goes 🙂

    and simply to agree.. Twitter and Facebook are a bad arse tag team.. in the likes of Chuck Norris and Mr. T
    .-= Adam´s last blog ..Whatever you make it.. =-.

  6. Mike Mahoney Avatar

    I’ve definitely slowed down this past couple of months. I used to post five or six times a week, like clockwork. Now it’s more like two or three.

    That’ll go up a little bit now, as my life is usually less busy at the beginning of a year, so I’ll have more time to read, listen to music, see movies, etc…

    I started my blog with the idea of writing for “me” and anyone who wanted to come along could. My traffic is up, but not high, and I rarely get comments anymore.

    The Twitter/Facebook combo works really well for community, especially when using a single interface to manage them, like I do with Tweetdeck. Some folks are on one, some on the other, some on both.
    .-= Mike Mahoney´s last blog ..20/20 =-.

  7. Aaron Phaneuf Avatar

    I just began blogging in late 2009. I wanted a digital outlet to amplify my Rhodia notebook and Lamy fountain pen. I wanted to add my voice to the collective hum that emanates from the blogoshphere. Right now I’m not sure how large a community I want, might attract or could hope for. At the moment its mostly just me capturing a few snippets of time, cataloging adventures and attempting art. And very much like you, Joel, I pray to observe and remark on the immense blessings of God. He is so great in my life and deserves all my praise. Onward…

  8. Alastair Avatar

    I think it has forced bloggers to post stuff that is more solid than we used to. We use Twitter and Facebook to expell all the fluff that we’d usually post about. You know, links to videos, web sites, stand-alone thoughts, etc.

    Now I only post when I have something stewing in my head. I need to bounce it off a few folk, so I use my blog. It’s kind of more like a journal for me. Although I’m hoping that it helps someone else out there too.

    I don’t think the ‘blog decline’ is a bad thing. I still like and will continue to blog for the foreseeable future. I’m not as concerned about stats as I once was.
    .-= Alastair´s last blog ..Recipe: Irish Potato Bread =-.

  9. Alastair Avatar

    Ok, the Irish Potato Bread recipe is not a good example.
    .-= Alastair´s last blog ..Recipe: Irish Potato Bread =-.

  10. Mud Puppy Avatar

    @Alastair LOL!
    .-= Mud Puppy´s last blog ..2009 Debrief =-.

  11. […] want to subscribe to the RSS feedor Email Notification for updates.Powered by WP Greet BoxMy buddy, Joel Klampert … well, he started this conversation.  It’s one that I’ve been having “in […]

  12. […] a great post by my friend Joel Klampert on his site concerning the future of blogging for “community purposes“.  However, I think that sites concerning special interests, and not strictly “my […]

  13. Jason Durham Avatar

    I took a little while off . . . twice last year! Yeah, double bad! LOL! I have restarted, as I have been in public ministry (worship leading) for a few years now. A couple of months ago, I stepped back to refocus on my relationship with God, and my relationship with my family. I have since started blogging, strictly as a means of getting my thoughts down in a place where I can go back and review it, and revisit it. More for me I think than other, but its cool when I get visitors! Oh, Alastair the Irish Potato Bread looks good, but down here in Louisiana, we fry our taters!
    Blessings!
    .-= Jason Durham´s last blog ..WE HAVE GOT TO DO BETTER! =-.

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