Blogging Peaked?

I’m glad that Glenn isn’t at death’s door, but I’m very interested in the article he linked to:

Tech researcher Gartner Inc. reported earlier this year that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are active.

“A lot of people have been in and out of this thing,” Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer told reporters. “Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.” Given the average lifespan of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, Gartner says blogging has probably peaked.

I’ve been in the IT business long enough to ignore anything Gartner says.  They get paid a lot of money to make pontifications to people who wouldn’t know a bowl of dog crap from pumpkin pie.  But there are some insights here in this article, despite what Gartner says:

“Good bloggers work like dogs,” says Michael Parsons, editor of the tech site CNet.co.uk. “You can’t expect readers to show up unless you show up. And the Internet never closes. … Every successful blogger I’ve come across is the same. Eat, sleep, and drink the work. No time out; no holidays.”

That’s not a recipe for healthy living, especially if you’re working a day job that’s not paying you to blog.

That’s quite the truth.  In fact, by the time this posts goes up, I’ll be working the day job that pays the bills so I can spend most of my early mornings, lunch hour, and evenings looking for material to blog about.

But that’s not to say it’s a burden.  I keep doing it because it’s fulfilling, and because I care a lot about this issue.  I’ve also felt like I’ve run out of challenges in my chosen career.  Not necessarily because I’ve done everything, but because I’m about as challenged as I’m going to get in what I’ve chosen to do for a living, and what people will pay me good money to keep doing (Well, at least without becoming a paper pushing manager.  I may have manager in my title, but I still get my hands dirty).

I suppose what drives me to do what I do here is that, for some reason you all choose to come here and listen to what I have to say, I feel obliged to play along.  I’ve always felt I would do well in a role where I get to do things like that.  I keep a list of things I would do if I were CEO of the company I work for, but my attempts in the past to influence the direction of the company were met with condescension and ego on the part of our decisions makers.  I’m not willing to do the paper pushing and ass kissing that’s required to get to the top in that kind of environment.

But for some reason, you all choose to listen to me, and I do appreciate that.   I’m with Glenn: I’m not dead yet, and don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon.