Blogging is still the shit

David Pensato

In 2013, everyone with regular access to the internet is a blogger.

What is blogging? Let's go back in time for a moment.

Anatomy of a blog, circa 1998, yo.

Anatomy of a blog, circa 1998, yo.

Frequent, often daily entries

Displayed in reverse chronological order

Links, often with commentary

Anatomy of a blog, circa 1998, yo.

Pictures, personal and not

Thoughts, ideas, personal re!ections —often on what other bloggers have also re!ected on

Reactions to current events

Anatomy of a blog, circa 1998, yo.

Real power of blogs is their networked nature:

Links aren’t presented in isolation but placed into new context, which is often explained with commentary.

Social media platforms are company controlled blogging platforms.

So Why Does Everyone Use These Platforms Instead of a Real Blog?

They offer a few things that WordPress doesn't.

1. Ease of use, ease of access

2. Ease of connections, ease of feedback

3. Combination of feed and publishing

4. Perception of "privacy"

The Perception Problem

Rants, Editorials and Essays (oh my)

Content Marketing Industry

In short, people think blogging is for “bloggers”

Who cares? Why not just blog on Facebook? STFU already.

Centralized,but not on you

Ownership & Control

Increasing Fragmentation

1 A way forward with WordPress (and true social interaction)

Blog !rst, tweet later

Pick one person.

A new plug-in. 2

For now, let’s give it a “social” name, with a bad open-source logo.

Here’s what it needs to do (at its most basic).

Get the dashboard out of my face.

Let me hide things from my mom.

Let some people post to my "wall."

When I'm logged in, show me my feed.

Make it easy for people to join my site (so I can assign them roles).

For now, distribute and collect from my other pro!les.

Social Media is only part of the evolution of blogging.

Blogging will continue to be the web’s paradigm. “Social” is just the next layer we need to add.