The other day I got to thinking about blogging and if there is ever a time when a blogger should just call it quits. Specifically, I started something of an internal dialogue about what would happen if there comes a time when everything has been said already and any future publications would just be redundant.
I’ll take a hypothetical situation here and expand a little on it. Let’s suppose that Jane decided to start a blog about cats. She publishes a few articles a week and covers topics such as feeding, health issues, behavior problems, etc. Eventually she notices that all her knowledge and experience on this subject has been published on her blog, any related news stories have been covered, and she has nothing new to add. What now?
Some may say to maybe revisit older posts and touch on them again. But even if you do this, how long would you want to continue in the pattern of repeating information that is already on your site?
With the exception of perhaps tech blogs, I am leaning towards the opinion that any topical blog really does have what could be termed as a lifespan. You may have an incredible blog that is a virtual encyclopedia of information, but eventually your blog will become an exhaustive authority on the subject where nothing new of value can be added. It would be a bittersweet moment if and when a dedicated blogger reaches this point.
What do you think? Do you think that a blog can continue to provide new and relevant topical content indefinitely, or do you think that eventually they can become “complete” and maybe should be shelved?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I see where you’re going with this, and in theory it kind of works…. What you aren’t taking into consideration is that this world is moving forward at incredible speed. What is applicable today may not be tomorrow and certainly will have changed by next week.
I blog for work at home mums. Marketing, business growth, time management and the like. In theory, there’s a finite amount of information on all that. But how about seeing how different people use different techniques? Changing technology and how that will change their business habits, marketing and sales?
So I don’t think the majority of blogs will become reduntant. As our world changes and technology moves on so will the blogosphere.
Re the cats – there’s always new food, new toys, insurance plans, boarding issues etc. And there’s always new people coming in looking for the old tried and true information.
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I think another point to consider is that our capacity to learn is infinite.
We can, conceivably, exhaust the limit of our knowledge today but that doesn’t prevent us from learning something new tomorrow. If you feel you’ve exhausted your niche then you’re not getting out into the world enough. It’s time to research, to stretch into the unknown and begin to consider new ideas.
Even a blog of cats can’t completely run out of ideas because there are new breeds of cat still being created. Today’s cats are doing things the cats of yesteryear never did. New products are being invented to please our feline pets. etc. Whole franchises are built on the simple household pet. Just ask ICanHasCheezburger if there will ever be a point where human kind have run out of photographs of their cats to share!
For those of us who don’t have cat-related blogs, the same holds true. Ideas are infinite. You might feel a sense of exhaustion, depletion, or lack of inspiration, but that doesn’t mean you’ve created an apex of theorem. It just means it is time to start learning again.
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