I was really happy when this thing called "blogging" — a derivation of "web log" — hit the web in the late 1990s.
I had had the idea of keeping a journal on my web site, but creating new static pages every time I had a new idea for an article or observation was — quite frankly — a massive pain the the ass!
Up until the advent of the blog, the primary "social" aspect of the web came from forums, messageboards and newsgroups. Blogs were so cool because they combined creative writing with immediate feedback through social engagement.
The first time I recall blogging being declared "dead" was not that long after the advent of MySpace and Facebook.
In retrospect, the slightly odd selling point of these was that you "no longer needed to write anything."
Which, I suppose, is how a large part of human nature functions, because we invent things we feel are pretty amazing, and then we immediately go to work on trying to find ways to not do those things... on some (typically unwritten) assumption that even though millions of people actually enjoy a particular activity, we should automate it.
Non-sequitur alert: Maybe I am just getting old but I would have zero interest in watching a Wimbledon tennis final played between two robots driven by AI.
Put a mental bookmark in that: Automation and abbreviating isn't always a positive development.
Non-sequitur alert no. 2: A friend in the movie industry is despairing about the future of feature films, noting the growing trend of younger viewers to immediately ask "How LONG is it?" before anything else about a new film, and if the film is long, stating that they'll "wait and watch the synopsis on YouTube, instead."
Again, how is this a positive development? Another mental bookmark, there.
But getting back to blogging, it has been declared "dead" on many occasions.
After MySpace and Facebook, it was declared "dead" once again when twitter gained serious traction.
Multiple iterations of "deadness" have followed... and there are even those here in our own Hive community who believe that we owe a significant part of Hive's "stagnancy" to the fact that "nobody reads blogs or long for content; blogging is DEAD!"
Of course, the "shortening" trend is not just isolated to blogging and writing feature length articles. As I alluded to, it is invading the film industry. Heck, it's even affecting video channels like YouTube, where we now have "shorts" everywhere, for those who can't handle sitting through an eight minute video.
Some people point to the fact that we are moving towards a world where "long form" ANYTHING will become obsolete, because we will have AI to get our information for us.
Whoa! Wait... WHAT?
Let's pause for a moment to consider where AI GETS its information.
AI gathers its "answers" from the vast body of information out there. If we actually want AI to be helpful to the world and to our lives... wouldn't we rather have those answers compiled from in depth coverage of wisdom, rather than memes and one-liners?
Think about it for a moment: You're on the operating table, with a robot "autodoc" about to perform brain surgery on you, driven by AI. Where would you like the necessary information to safely and effectively perform the procedure to come from? Detailed articles, or some "Dude, use a harp knife!" tweet?
Yeah, I know, now a chorus of AI fanboys and fangirls are going to climb out of the woodwork and declare "That's not how it works!"
Maybe it isn't... exactly, but at the same time I find the potential slippery slope towards the future reality depicted in the movie Idiocracy rather evident, should we continue to choose feeding our eternal dopamine addictions with meaningless "likes" in place of actually taking the time to not only share actual knowledge, as well as chronicling our existence.
Blogging is not dead! Long Live Blogging!
Till the next one... Feel free to leave a comment — this IS "social" media, after all!
