I was reading in Warren Ellis's newsletter just now that Bruce Sterling was quoted at the South By SouthWest (SXSW) conference as saying that blogging is transient and will likely be gone in a decade.
While I can't imagine that being true for myself (it's been six years now, and I still don't think I've gotten everything I want from writing weblogs), I have a feeling that his words may be an indicator that blogging will be reaching a saturation point, if it hasn't already. I think the thing is this, and it ties back to Malcolm Gladwell's concept of "connectors": the people who are supposed to be blogging are doing so. They may not all be doing it in quite the latest way - videos on YouTube or podcasting or whatever - but I think that's largely a matter of style. Visual people will make vlogs, and writers will churn out text blogs.
The basic fact is this: if somebody's already saying it, why would somebody else say it too? I think that's just basic human nature. When the connector/influencer is broadcasting, and people can hear it, what's left to do? Post your own results of a particular quiz I suppose?
Everyone is not going to blog, it's as simple as that. Plenty of people are more than happy to just lurk or comment versus posting their own stuff. As far as content goes, there are more consumers than producers, and it has always been that way. Anyone who has a vision of everyone broadcasting everything all the time is probably just a little bit off his or her rocker. We're already starting to run into technical limitations in terms of bandwidth; as in the amount of data being sent back and forth is greater than the current storage capacity on the planet, and that's going to be the next big problem to solve (or at least it will be when lost data starts causing people pain), so that concept may not even be possible for a very, very long time.
And on a more personal note... there are some people who will always want to be in the goldfish bowl. Maybe they're attention seekers, maybe they're entertainers, maybe they just like to share too much. At any rate, I think I'm one of those people, and if I'm not using some strictly defined concept like a "blog" to do that, I'll use some other vehicle to broadcast with (and those of you who've known me a while know I used to do it in newsgroups before blogs were born). I know there will be people listening/watching/reading/grokking, so I'll keep doing whatever it is I do as long as I can do it.
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