In July I wrote a post titled, "Are blogs relevant in today's social media world?" From that post, "while Facebook and Twitter offer a way to communicate to the customer, its questionable how they will be able to continue as competition and economics come into play. Your blog can be a 'home' that folks can come back to again, and again. You can 'own' your website and blog, you cannot 'own' your Facebook Page." It was a pleasant surprise to read author Warren Ellis and his post today, "The Social Web: End Of The First Cycle." In that post Warren say's, "This may be the end of the cycle that began with Friendster and Livejournal. Not the end of social media, by any means, obviously. But it feels like this is the point at where the current systems seize up for a bit. Perhaps not even in ways that most people will notice. But social media seems now to be clearly calcifying into Big Media".
Warren say's, "Google+, of course, is not, strictly speaking, a social network. Most people can’t see what other people are doing there. Google, of course, sees it all. But everyone knows that going in" Perhaps that explains the new found interest in Google+? It's also why I started a new community there, "The Future of Horticulture".
Warren finishes his post asking, "I wonder if anyone’s been thinking twice about giving up their personal websites". For me the answer is no, my "blog can be a 'home' that folks can come back to again, and again."