Read A return to blogs (finally? sort of?) by Joanne McNeil (Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism 2020 )

One reason we might see a resurgence of blogs is the novelty. Tell someone you’re starting a new newsletter and they might complain about how many newsletters (or podcasts) they already subscribe to. But tell them you’re launching a blog and see how that goes: Huh. Really, a blog? In 2020? Wow.

I almost want to call her to task, but Joanne has got her own website that looks like it’s part of tilde.club including an under construction image at the bottom of the page! How cool is that?!

I do find myself wishing that she kept her own writing in a blog so I could subscribe to her longer form work there. She’s also got a fantastic sounding book on the history of the internet from the perspective of the user called Lurking that’s coming out in February!

Her piece doesn’t tacitly tie back to journalism as directly as many in this series generally do, but I feel like she’s suggesting that by getting back to the roots of the old (non-corporately owned and controlled) web, journalism has a better chance to recover. Much like her, I also think there is a beginning of a blogging renaissance that is brewing on the interwebz. It’s quite interesting to see people noticing and writing about it in contexts like the Nieman Lab’s annual predictions.

I’m not sure that I agree with her assertions about context collapse. Some of the most sophisticated information consumers are aware of it, but I don’t think that Harry or Mary Beercan are aware of the general concept.

Highlights and Annotations

But tell them you’re launching a blog and see how that goes: Huh. Really, a blog? In 2020? Wow. ❧

It’s been long enough now that people look back on blogging fondly, but the next generation of blogs will be shaped around the habits and conventions of today’s internet. Internet users are savvier about things like context collapse and control (or lack thereof) over who gets to view their shared content. Decentralization and privacy are other factors. At this moment, while so much communication takes place backstage, in group chats and on Slack, I’d expect new blogs to step in the same ambiguous territory as newsletters have — a venue for material where not everyone is looking, but privacy is neither airtight nor expected. ❧

She doesn’t have the technical terminology many use, but she’s describing the IndieWeb community pretty well here.