A few days ago, Jeremiah Owyang of Web Strategist posted “End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over“, highlighting several points of why tech blogs are dying and successful writers, like Robert Scoble find social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus seem to be more active then ever.
2011 has seen a dramatic change in how tech blogs are operated. ReadWriteWeb was bought out by media empire, SAY Media and Engadget editor in chief Josh Topolsky left the AOL blog to open The Verge, formally known as This is my Next. In addition, successful writers are either leaving or being fired from the big boy tech blogs, like Ben Parr, former Editor at Large at Mashable.
Reading about this last night didn’t change a goal of mine but did make me question it. I have always been interested in writing full time for a tech blog. The Next Web is at the top of the list because I’ve been a community member there for longer than the rest and I love how they present the news. I sometimes get ideas for my own posts from what they have featured on the site. As a tech savvy 17 year old entering young adulthood in the later fraction of 2012, I would not only be honoured to share my opinion with people slightly older than me, speaking for the younger generation about how technology is expanding and developing. It would also give whomever was to hire me as a writer an advantage over other tech blogs as they don’t cover opinions too much today, let alone cover what young people think, making them feel isolated and misunderstood.
Going back to Owyang’ post, I have 4 predictions of what the tech blog scene will look like in years to come;
- More will post separate posts to their social networking pages – Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus to gain that instant communication to their readers. These messages could then be embedded into posts. Commenting systems like Livefyre & Disqus aren’t that sophisticated yet to capture reviews on social networks.
- Smaller tech blogs will get sucked in or sucked under in order to keep running or they will just loose interest and die off. This will result in the chief editors cashing in and the writers going home with very little.
- Sole bloggers, namely Chris Pirillo and Jon Rettinger will be a big success building their own web series on YouTube, home to millions of users. Pirillo has control of over 200,000 subscribers whilst Rettinger as part of TechnoBuffalo has 270,000.
- Expanding on sole bloggers, some will follow Pirillo’ example and start offering free ebooks, offers and services to businesses.
All in all, tech blogs will be sucked into the media empire blanket whilst others will be bite the dust and sole bloggers will succeed on their own.
[Photo: ashleyrosex]
About Jonny Rowntree
Jonny Rowntree is an 17 year old blogger sharing the tricks of the blogging trade on JonnyRowntree.com and interviewing entrepreneurs who are going to change Startups & Silicon Valley. Follow me on Twitter →
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Jonny!
I agree with your predictions. It will be people like Chris and Jon who push the tech news market ahead. They’re the ones who were first to understand that people are interested in more than just blog posts. People want opinion, and they want personality. People like Chris and Jon have also understood that video mixed with news articles can be very powerful.
Thanks,
Colby
P.S: Joshua Topolsky was formerly the Editor in Chief of Engadget, not TechCrunch.
Thanks for the comment Colby! I agree with you that tech blogs are losing their personality with blank faces on editors faces, whether it be in videos or photos and that’s where Jon and Chris excel.
It is also exciting to see Jon and Chris on news channels such as CNBC and CNN (What’s Trending) respectively. They will make and break the news whilst not being employed by the news channel itself.
I’ll correct the mistake in the article you pointed out. Thanks!