The Future of Blogging: Interview with a Blogger from 2018

Future of Blogging
Future of Blogging

Have you ever wanted to know the future of the blogosphere – say, what blogs will be like 10 years from now?

Thanks to The Blog Herald’s brand new Advanced Blogospheric Chrononavigational Discombobulus (ABCD) – basically a time machine fortuitously dropped at our doorstep last night by an unknown person – now you can.

Immediately after checking the outcomes of the next 5 U.S. presidential elections (Nader ’24! Who’da thunk?) and finding out exactly when World War III will start (thank heavens we can still prevent it), The Blog Herald excitedly sat down with a Ms. X, a professional blogger in the year 2018.

Here’s what X had to say about the future of blogs.

TBH: You’re from the future – 2018, is that correct?

X: Your future, yes.

TBH: That’s sweet.

X: You’d like it. The iPhone’s still ooh shiny to you, isn’t it?

TBH: Indeed. We’d love to know what newfangled gadgetry you’re hauling in your pocket.

X: Pockets went out of style in 2013 after Apple came out with the i.

TBH: Sorry, the i?

X: Yeah. It’s sort of a … well, basically you swallow this thing and it … becomes a part of you.

TBH: Wowsers.

X: Yeah, Google was pretty miffed about that one.

TBH: Creepy, yet we still want one of those. Anyway, what can you tell us about blogs in the year 2018?

X: Well, let’s see. There are a great many of them. Their increase in number and influence since 2008 has been extraordinary.

TBH: Can you give us some raw numbers?

X: How does 3,141,592,653 sound? That’s Technorati’s latest count as of 5 seconds ago.

TBH: That’s impossible.

X: What, the number of blogs?

TBH: No, the idea that Technorati will finally become so useful. :)

X: Tsk, tsk. Technorati has really blossomed ever since Google bought it in ’09. Google officially dubbed it Grati but for obvious reasons, the heathen name of Technorati is still dominant.

TBH: Are you for real? This is all so sudden.

X: Well, welcome to the future! Everything is more sudden now. For instance, I’m live-blogging your dumbfounded expression with my Apple i right now (via my own eyes). We’ve got over 38,000 people from our planet alone watching and Twittering this right now.

TBH: Um … “our planet alone?” … Let’s not go there right now. Feelin’ a bit overwhelmed over here.

X: I know you are. 74% of my current i viewers guessed your current emotional state based on video tracking of your face and sensors monitoring your body heat and brain waves.

TBH: Again, somewhat overwhelming. So we assume, then, that video blogging is going to be huge in 2018?

X: Absolutely. Text still has its place, but now that audio and video search technologies have caught up to the old-school text-based engines of your time, there’s hardly such thing anymore as a words-only blog.

TBH: So who are the big blog networks in 2018?

X: Hard to say. Most bloggers belong to several networks at any given time, and are constantly shifting their allegiances and affiliations. But WordPress is by far the biggest.

TBH: How many people are full-time professional bloggers ten years from now?

X: Again, hard to say. The thing is that blogging itself has become so enmeshed into people’s lives – just take the embedded cloud system in my body, for example – that pretty much no matter what your job is, you’re doing some kind of “blogging” as part of it. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, artists – just about everyone outside of North Korea.

TBH: Is it even called “blogging” in your time?

X: Yes. But what exactly do you mean by “it?”

TBH: Well, you know. Regularly published articles containing text, audio, images and/or video content, typically arranged in reverse chronological order, housed in a search engine-friendly content management system and piped around the Web through RSS. Blogging, right?

X: Okay … yes, I remember how it was back in ’08. I think you’re only now beginning to grasp the power and influence of the new media. It’s going to permeate everything you do, everything you take in. You won’t be able to go anywhere on earth without being connected – without being expected to broadcast something, to share some part of you with the cloud. It’s sad in a way.

TBH: Sad – how so?

X: Well, take the last time I went on vacation. The whole world knew exactly where I was going, how long I was gone, and what all my friends thought of my spending $27 a gallon to drive my old ’06 Sonata out to my grandma’s cabin in the mountains. It’s like there’s a dotted line around where you are – you’re almost blogging your life and thoughts even when you’re avoiding doing so.

TBH: Y’know, you look strangely familiar …

X: Let’s just say I knew you before we met.

TBH: Okay, last question for now. Who’s going to win, Obama or McCain?

X: I’m sorry, you’re breaking up.

TBH: Dag nabbit.

The Blog Herald would like to thank Ms. X ten years in advance for giving us these tidbits from blogging’s future. We apologize for the abrupt ending of this transcript and promise to fix our ABCD time machine as soon as possible.

Let us know if you’d like us to have X join us again sometime! Please leave your questions for her in the comments!

photo by Alexander Somma

Picture of Jim

Jim

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