There’s an interesting post at Read Write Web with a rather ‘misleading” title. It goes like – How Blogging Has Changed Over the Last 3 Years. The article was referencing a study made by PostRank about off-site engagement on blogs and other content publishing media.
Actually, what the article was saying is that reader engagement on blog has drastically changed, not so much blogging per se.
To put the findings of PostRank study in a simpler manner, it should be said that reader engagement on blogs which is used to be through blog comments has been reduced quite significantly the past couple of years. The culprit – the “like, comment, and sharing” features of social networking and microblogging sites such as Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.
In other words, readers are no longer commenting on blogs but are now reacting to blog posts via Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed.
What the study didn’t clearly state is whether reader engagement = blog visits. Meaning once a reader stumbled upon a link to a blog post whether on Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed, does the reader actually click on the link and read the blog posts? Or does the reader just leave a comment on the social networking site itself?
The study also mentioned something about the longer life span of blog posts now as compared to before when social engagement is not prevalent. This is pretty understandble since link sharing on social networking sites can circulate for several days or weeks perhaps. Unlike when reading a post on the blog’s site itself. After reading it, you may or may not leave a comment. You may share the link or forget all about it in an hour or so.
Bottomline? Blogging has not changed through the years, only the way readers are engaging on blogs has.
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