Random Nerdiness...

I don't know about y'all, but I started reading sports blogs back in the dark medieval internet days of late 2005. Back then, you still had your Deadspin, and probably some of the other big boys out there today, which was kind of your prototypical sports blog - covering the entire sports landscape. But as these interwebs have evolved, and more and more people have heard that you can allegedly make money by starting a blog, things have gotten pretty saturated. And by "pretty saturated," I mean it's become a cluster[eff].

You've got your splogs (spam + blogs), your blog networks (a few of whose bloggers I'm quite friendly with and whose writing I thoroughly enjoy), your smaller, independent blogs (most of which die a quiet death after a month or two), and more and more you're seeing the MSM getting in on the action.

So it's not surprising to hear some people proclaim that "blogs are dead."

But I'd like to add my opinion into the mix, if I may.

I understand the thought. Like I said above, nowadays there really are way too many blogs that are out there just to make money or ones that have a much more journalistic, and less "personal" tone. But I'm kind of struggling to see how that means that "blogs are dead?"

If you read the Wired piece, one of the things the editor mentions in making his point is that - "it's almost impossible [for a blog] to get noticed, except by hecklers." And maybe that is true, but I think that notion assumes that everyone who blogs is doing it just to get noticed. There is, of course, a degree of truth to this, in the sense that for many of us bloggers, this thing isn't a diary. We want interaction, which innately requires being noticed. But to assume that anyone who starts a blog just wants to "get noticed," runs counter to the spirit of a blog in the first place (in my opinion).

Blogs are one person's unbiased, unrestrained, and unedited (that part's key) thoughts on whatever it is that they choose to "cover." Sure, there are plenty of people out there who are blogging simply to "get noticed." But a lot of times, a blog like that isn't very good, because the person writing it isn't necessarily emotionally invested in what they're writing. Some may be, for sure. But to me, a blog is a conversation. It's me and you (that's the royal "you"...like, all five of you), talking about something we love, day in and day out - here at OFTOT, that's the Steelers. So what more incentive do I need to keep blogging?

One of the other thoughts put forward by the Wired piece, which followed the previously quoted portion was - "And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter."

So, this is a subjective judgment. For HIM, spending the time to build a "successful" blog isn't worth the payoff. But for some, it is. Case in point - I didn't have but more than one avid reader/commenter for the first six months of this blog's existence (Domski). Of course, it hasn't really grown THAT much since then. But the point is, many blogs come and go. The ones that endure, however, often prove to be the most interesting (except this one, of course).

It takes time to find your "voice" and "style" (and I don't mean reading other blogs and copying theirs). And it takes time and effort to find avenues for promotion, which is one thing that I've admittedly never really spent much time doing (perhaps to my own detriment). If you're not willing to commit that time, you surely won't ever have a "successful" blog. But if you do, you can really enjoy what you've created.

Make no mistake, this shit may look easy - just pounding on some keys all day - but it's not. Ask any blogger you can find and they'll tell you the same. You have off days, off weeks, sometimes off months, during which you can't for the life of you think of anything to write about. Not to mention the fact that most of us have real, full time, 40 hour-a-week, jobs to worry about, and any other family/friend/extracurricular obligations we may/may not have.

I guess what I'm really saying in all this is that, to me, the notion that "blogs are dead" is just as silly as saying "TV is dead." In general, the medium may have become diluted, but you can still find some gems among the morass of editorial fecal matter.

For all I'm concerned, as long as people are writing them and other people are reading them, they are not dead.

Of course, all of this is my own personal opinion, and y'all may or may not care. But it was on my mind. And as blogging goes, that's usually how posts come to fruition.

/end overly philosophical discussion on completely irrelevant and stupid topic

I owe y'all a few brain cells for this one...if you made it past the second paragraph, that is...