The blogosphere was stirred up by gossip blogger Paul Boutin. In a successful attempt for some linkbait, the Valleywag correspondent announced the death of blogging on Wired.com:

The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers.

He criticizes the immpersonal character of blogging and supports that with…

Continue reading Self-obsessed gossip blogger: “blogging is dead to me”

All the bloggers immediately know what I’m talking about if I start complaining that readers don’t comment. A famous study by Jakob Nielsen in October 2006 showed that only one percent of a blog’s visitors contribute to the comments section on a regular basis:

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

So when you’ve faced this fact, there are a couple of things…

Continue reading Getting readers to comment by writing an unfinished blog post