I’ve heard a lot of people saying lately that blogging is dying or blogging is dead. And I disagreed with them because my own experience is one of growth right now – Untrained Housewife is up 82% this year over last year and I’ve authored two books this year (I know – it’s insane even for me) so everything is growing for me.
Fostering Someone’s Content
And then I got the second email in as many months – a blogger who has been doing this for about as long as I have wants to consolidate her online holdings. This is the second person who is bringing all her posts over the Untrained Housewife (assuming they pass copyscape searches) so she doesn’t have to bother maintaining a blog any longer.
Of course I’m happy to house her content. And from a hands-off perspective the move makes sense – she enjoys using my editor, my social media network, and doesn’t have to maintain or pay for the website at all. And she recoups 100% of the Adsense revenue from her own posts once her Adsense codes are inserted. Consider Untrained Housewife the fosterhome for her content – it’s still her’s but it’s living at my house now. It’s a win/win/win for her and for me.
The Ebb and Flow of Settling New Territory
But once is a fluke. Is twice a trend? I don’t know. Maybe what some people are saying is the death of blogging is really just the development of this new country. Blogging, for awhile, was a completely new territory. As in America’s time of huge expansion settlers braved out into new territory and became the first people to settle in that spot. You could even call the domain-purchase-website-creation boom a land-rush of sorts. And sometimes towns sprung up around these new settlements. But sometimes not.
Over time communities developed and people often moved and settled into a more comfortable place – not where they had originally landed most often, but rather closer to their community. Sometimes abandoning their old homesteads in the process.
Blogging’s Next Stage of Development
And that’s what I see happening in the blogging world. Overwhelmed newcomers or weary veterans alike are finding that they no longer want to live independently. Status quo and solo-preneurship are equally fatiguing, so bloggers are banding together to form stronger communities. Untrained Housewife is only one such community, it just happens to be the one I’m most familiar with.
What do you think? Is blogging really dying? Or are we seeing the inevitable banding together of strong communities that was bound to occur after such rapid and scattered expansion?
And hey – if you are closing your blog and want somewhere to stick your content let me know. 😉
No, I think it’s still growing…I ONLY startedd my blog in October last year and it has 2000+ followers..
That’s exciting isn’t it? I always love to see the enthusiasm of beginning bloggers. 🙂 I don’t think it is dying but I do think we will see some consolidation of communities as individuals pool their efforts together in very powerful ways.
The exciting things happening with untrained housewife are just one example of that. I built that website around the idea of finding people who were DOING and helping them share that with the world. Over 3k newsletter subscribers, nearly 5k Facebook fans, and 100k monthly readers later I am now bringing some of those same messages into the print and ebook industry as we launch the Untrained Housewife Guide series. It is a very exciting time to be an entrepreneur I think.
Yep! I saw an article about this a few months ago and this confirms the trend. “Group blogs” will become more popular. Power and numbers and all that. I think it’s great! One website with lots of great content is much more useful than lots of great content spread out over multiple blogs.
Yes from a reader perspective it can be helpful, and from a blogger perspective also. A friend just told me he spent another hour updating plugins and wordpress security patches, etc on a couple older sites he had quietly retired but even just to keep them going costs time and money each year.
The market is over saturated and joining forces with a brand your ideas align with makes more sense than to work against that brand you love. We will enter a time that the strongest brands will survive. Not everyone is suppose to be a brand some ppl do awesome behind the brand just fine. You find your strength and you make it work.
My blog is still growing, new opportunities for revenue are coming in and exciting opportunities are in the works. I think as with any new trend, some will thrive and others will fall off and find that it wasn’t for them. Dying? No. Evolving? Always. 🙂
That has been my experience as well. I have more opportunities than I can possibly tackle and am expanding my reach by sharing the message of intentional and self-sufficient living in more ways than ever before. I love the development trends!
Just wondering how you handle inserting the adsense code. It’s currently “built in” to my website, though I was wondering how you do it for their individual posts. It would simplify paying my contributors directly for whatever traffic/business they bring in.
I used an Author Advertising plugin and then I had some custom work done so it would render properly on my site. The benefit to doing it that way is you can take yourself out of the “middle man” position when it comes to the money earned. The downside is that I never have an exact picture of the site’s revenue potential should it come time to sell it and the initial step of helping a writer set up their adsense can be more hands-on if you are looking for something more “turn key”.
Blogging isn’t dying, it’s evolving. I’ve been doing this since 2000 and have seen many people come and go. Some people who were huge back in 2005 or 2006 have day jobs now,or only use guest bloggers for content. Heck, I sold my blog network several years ago in favor of the stability of a full time job (though still in the blogging/social media space).
I think blogging is like many other jobs. People try it and move on for a variety of reasons. It doesn’t mean blogging is dead, it simply means some people aren’t into blogging any more.
I totally agree. I’ve never agreed with the concept that blogging was dead. I think the barrier to entry is so low now that many people try it and, as with anything, give up or move on after awhile if they discover it isn’t for them.
I don’t think it’s dying but I do think it’s changing. I also see a lot of communities being built some very official such as Untrained Housewife and some more unofficial like blog hops and guest posting. I think it’s exciting, too.
I do love the community concept – always have – and I built Untrained Housewife specific to highlight other people’s voices. There are so many people with something exciting to share about what they are doing, but not all of them technically inclined or even skilled writers. That’s where a group site like Untrained Housewife with an in-house editor can really be inviting.
I would say evolving. As with anything, the strongest survive. If you can’t think ahead of the pack then you will smother amidst it. I enjoy watching for the new trends and deciding if it is for me or not. Joining community blogs and websites helps grow small blogs. So it’s a win win in most cases.
Joining with a community (like Untrained Housewife or Homestead Bloggers Network for example) is a fabulous way for a new blogger to extend their audience and tap into a group for support and encouragement. I think bloggers who do this will be more likely to stick with it.
It seems that having a blog was a big trend and a bandwagon many jumped on to have their voice in cyberspace. Some for business, but others just for a place to vent, share, inspire, challenge or whatever their purpose for writing. For many of those, the blog became a burden for they learned that staying fresh and current and keeping up with regular posts can be a challenge. Some (I can’t imagine) ran out of things to say while others realized they might have been writing to the wind for they had no audience to read what they viewed as their wisdom words. So…they moved on either to find an audience, or to find that the demands of staying current and posting regularly were more of an obligation than they really wanted. As with gardening or other things in life…a sort of natural culling happens to thin things out and what we find is that there are some great independents (I LOVE reading Ann Voscamp, and there are great communities as well for those who want to pool their talents. We are richer in having both.)
There will always be those who continue their solo-blogs and websites for any variety of reasons. But many of them, Anne Voskamp included, blog with communities of like-minded writers as well. I do think we will always have both, but I agree that once the glamour of publishing something for the sake of publishing it wears off, and the “work” aspect is realized, people have to choose if it’s a challenge they want to pursue or not.
I couldn’t imagine not having something to say either. Lol!
I agree that blogging is not dead but it is definitely evolving. Sometimes, as people grow and change so do their blogs. I changed from a site devoted to our family vineyard and updated, saving money and coupons to a real, traditional food blog with Family Fridays for vineyard/family updates because I had experienced amazing healing through the GAPS diet. I do like the aspect of community and being associated with like-minded bloggers – I think that is really important and helps you learn a lot!
What you’re saying makes total sense to me. As an individual it’s hard to compete and keep up with the trends. Working together makes more sense. I am thinking about closing one of my blogs or redistributing the content. Thanks for the insight.
Well content that is relevant to Untrained Housewife is always welcome there. Authors get 100% of the adsense and can tap into my social media channels for promotion as well as my editor for polishing. I think that’s the nice thing about something like UntrainedHousewife.com is that “barn raising” feel of community.