As I have already said on Twenty’s blog, and I mean absolutely no disrespect to Una when I say this, who decides when blogging is ‘over’?

As you said Jim, for many it is about ‘peercasting’. Many people who read this blog, and I daresay Una’s when she blogged probably read Nailler’s, State and others. It is a group of online peers, people with a collective interest in music and an appetite for new sounds.

But that is to pigeon-hole everyone. I am fairly confident that a venn-diagram of blogs visited by those who read OTR has many circles. While there may be a solid common ground there are bound to be other interests served by blogs covering sports, the arts, politics, travel, fashion and any and all other interests.

Each and every one of those interests may foster a group of its own through ‘peercasting’ – people who consume, for example, football blogs and on occasion pop over to OTR to dip in to a bit of music.

I think it is a bit insular to suggest that blogging is ‘over’ because a few peers within a specific field have stopped/gone quiet of late.

More importantly – and this is something which seems to have been overlooked – their readers aren’t going anywhere else either.

This is a good point. When you add the blog visits, RSS subscribers, Twitter followers etc there’s been no slowdown from my point of view anyway.

And surely the fact that people are still reading and expecting content is the best indication of whether something is ‘over’ or not.

Twenty – yep, agree – as long as there are readers, nothing is “over” or “dead:”

Tormentor – The more interesting question is why the Irish media, by and large, fails to effectively use blogging and its offspring.

Uhm, this blog is on the Irish Times website in case you didn’t notice

Thanks for pointing that out, hombre. Didn’t feel the need to point out the blindingly obvious.

The Irish Times (despite its previous ambivalence towards the internet sphere) is the exception that proves the rule with Irish online media

JD @ 6 – exactly. It’s the news, views and opinions which matter most, no matter if they’re on a screen or a zine

MDR @ 8 – which is a little how newspapers are going as well – leave the breaking news to online and keep the commentary and analysis for print

i don’t really understand blogging… in fact, sometimes, i don’t really understand the internet…

…this is the only one i read… and only then occasionally…

just call me john waters…

Ronan – It’s funny that you mention reader comments and feedback because it’s trying to keep on top of these which is the busiest part of the OTR job! If anything, as blogging is supposed to be dying, the comments here have gone way, way up. While you’d expect it on certain posts, look at the amount of comments that rough and ready piece on irish comedy on RTE got. I think it shows that there just are not as many outlets as people think for the stuff that really interests readers.

It’s not dead, it just has branched out to gather feedback from an abundance of social media outlets. Outlets which actually increase traffic blogwards, rather than taking it away.

Yep, I agree. As I said in the post above, you just need to look on blogging as another tool in the kit when it comes to broadcasting news, views and opinions.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the last week and can thankfully disregard every doltish suggestion on the demise of Irish blogging. I don’t know the reasons that she came to such a ludicrous conclusion but thankfully it’s not true.

Rather than diluting the blog readership, these new communications platforms have simply served to disperse the feedback, as Ronan mentioned. There are still plenty of blog readers out there as this site and the post in question demonstrates. I guess it all depends on what the goal is, for bands they use the services for self-promotion and that’s exactly how Twitter is best defined, a popularity engine for chatterboxes. Its character limit means there’s just enough for a hint and link to the content at large and can be used to distribute information across a much wider network than a blog-only readership.

I don’t think Irish blogs have really got off the ground yet either. There’s still a lot more to come in time ahead by way of skilled writers who learn to stream huge amounts of traffic to a blog base by way of careful social networking, exceeding the limits of their home base. For example, expand your contacts’ base beyond people you personally know…there is no fun in making new friends/readers/followers/contacts otherwise. Seeing as Social Networking has gone from strength to strength in a matter of years, the full potential of its use is only just becoming clear, and if it can be used by extensive bloggers to direct a great deal more people to their posts by way of succinct one-liners, then surely blogs are not over but have in fact, only just begun.

Jim,
Another interesting perspective like Una’s original post. As someone who has just kick-started an Irish blog – NottheNuacht.com – of sorts this week, I hope this isn’t the end of Irish blogging in itself but perhaps the end of another cycle. Bloggers will stop blogging and new ones will start blogs because blogging can be time-consuming and because starting a blog is so straightforward.
I think there are and have been some great Irish blogs out there and some such as Maman Poulet and Slugger O’Toole do play a part in setting a news agenda.
Twitter has certainly changed the dynamic but, as you mentioned in reference to Una’s post, if posts are still getting over 1000 posts then rumours of the death of Irish blogging may just be exaggerated.
Cheers,
Adi

Some very salient points here.
The thing that seems to have been overlooked in all this debate about the decline in productivity of lots blogs is the impact the recession my have had on it all. From what I can see, most blogging and reading of blogs is done during office hours. People are under a lot more pressure in their jobs now and probably realise that it’s not a great idea for their bosses to perceive them as someone who spends half the day foostering around on the internet.
But it’s far from over, and I doubt it ever will be.

When you guys mentionned cycles, it put me in mind of this bit of business geekery. However, it could well be the most apt way of representing the phenomenom under discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

Welcome to the Trough of Disillusionment!

I’m unemployed right now and it seems to leave me with less to say, for some reason. When you’re working you’re engaging with the world on a greater level.

Or something. Either way, there’s only so many posts I could write about Gilmore Girls and Countdown.

^ Er, that makes me sound like I DO agree with Una’s blog post, which I don’t.

Obviously I need to ‘flex my writing muscles’ again.

Superb original post by Una. She got it in one with the horrendous backslapping. Irish bloggers are just Cairde Fianna Fail in drag. Cosy, smug pricks. With not a lot of intelligence or talent, it’s just connections.

Great post. Tell it like it is.

@Jim – 28 – Ah James, the point is it’s ‘your’ blog (or rather Madam Geraldine’s) I’ve used.

Irish bloggers are the new Official Ireland media (see Sarah Carey’s superb article in today’s IT on this) – whereby only some people are allowed criticise certain subjects, and never each other.

Occasionally, we see this cosy concensus breaking down and somebody breaks the masonic code – for example by saying the ‘wrong’ thing about Donal Og Cusack (I believe he is some kind of football player in the south of Ireland?), leaving the rest of the lodge to shift from one foot to another, mumble about agreeing to disagree, and quickly moving on (in a virtual sense).

And, frankly, trusting the bloggers own claims that traffic to their sites (eyeballs, whatever) is as strong as ever is about as wise as buying into government claims about economic ‘fundamentals’ being sound, estate agent research about house prices (still understated), and words of wisdom from economists in banks over the last few years. No credibility, wrong, and frankly they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Perhaps my only surprise is that cadre of blogging twats haven’t gravitated to a place where their insights and talent would have a natural home – as ‘columnists’ in the Sunday Independent.

But, James, please do keep up the good work and exposing these issues.

Now, I must rush off to my meeting with Eoghan Harris.

In fairness to Thor, he has a point. Irish blogging, for the most part, is an excellent example of group think.

Of course, there are some fine exceptions.

And, frankly, trusting the bloggers own claims that traffic to their sites (eyeballs, whatever) is as strong as ever is about as wise as buying into government claims about economic ‘fundamentals’ being sound, estate agent research about house prices (still understated), and words of wisdom from economists in banks over the last few years. No credibility, wrong, and frankly they would say that, wouldn’t they?

They would if they were trying to protect revenue streams, perhaps, but then lying about it on Jim’s blog is not going to make any difference in that regard.

Unless you’re highly precious and feel your reputation would be tainted by admitting you have less readers than before why would you bother?

It’s only blogging.

“Irish bloggers are just Cairde Fianna Fail in drag. Cosy, smug pricks. With not a lot of intelligence or talent, it’s just connections.”

I met Twenty once, y’know. I have grown exponentially in power and influence with every day that has since passed.

I keep a blog that can be loosely described as a ‘music’ blog – asleep on the compost heap, and from a personal point of view my repeat visitor stats have slowly risen (not to anything spectacular, mind you) over the entire time I’ve kept at it. So, I don’t think the consumers/audience for blogging are ‘dead’. However, I think that many of the original gang in Ireland who started blogging and gained a bit of a high profile through newspaper features, the blog awards, and all that malarky seem to have now run through a sort of cycle that ends in jadedness, falling out of love with the hobby (for that is all it is for most of us) and eventually quitting. Because of this, there is an illusion that Irish blogging is dead, an assertion that, as many pointed out here and on Una’s post, would only hold true if Irish blogging began and ended with that high-profile wave of bloggers in the first place.

I don’t extensively read blogs, and have never really slotted comfortably into the ‘blogging community’ so to speak, but from as far as I can see there remains a bunch of highly regarded, well-written blogs which are going from strength to strength. Maybe because their writers don’t play obsessive link-tag with each other, their readership might not be in the high figures, but there is a solid readership out there, a readership for whom Irish blogging is very far from dead. There are also plenty of new blogs emerging, and from reading them, I get the feeling that there is perhaps a tendency to slow down and focus on the quality of writing in many of these – a point again raised before by commenters here as perhaps being a by-product of the fact alternative mediums such as twitter and tumblr are more suited for video/link/picture type posts.

Irish blogging ain’t dead, it’s there waiting to be discovered by anyone prepared to turn over a few stones.

@Jim – 30.

James, James, James… “Christ on a Bike” as Eoghan Harris said to me about these ‘bloggards’…

Have the eyes gone? Come on, you’re a young man, hardly Smiley Bolger vintage. The mention of Official Ireland is in the second last paragraph of Ms Carey’s article. The principle, James, the principle….

And the chip on the shoulder stuff? I think we’ve all heard that wearisome, ineffective, and early-school leaver, Official Ireland riposte before somewhere haven’t we? Why, yes – from the “fundamentals are sound” brigade! Hhmmm

Blood pressure is actually quite low so the doctor tells me. Besides, venting the pent is in the Irish blood as Beckett alluded to.

At this rate I might have to nominate you for a blog award. Two very good subjects to date (the telly comedy one and this).

Now, excuse me while I meet Eamon Delaney for tea.

Thor – I thank you most sincerely for even thinking of nominating me. In fact, I’m blushing. Simply knowing that a gentleman of your calibre is reading this little blog is good enough for me, to be honest.

As regards the privacy/data protection issue you raise, I must admit this blog has had some fun in its early years by turning the tables on those who’ve used anonymous comments to attack others.

However, as the blog has, uhm, “matured” (feel free to snigger), we welcome the fact that people in the music and media industries in particular have used OTR to anonymously raise questions and add to stories already in the public domain. Some of my best music business stories in ‘09, for instance, have come about in that way.

Anyway, have a nice day in that downtown branch of Starbucks in Singapore that you are currently posting from……..