Mar 11, 2010 0
Digital directions and social media life expectancy
Making sense of it all
I’ve begun 2010 thinking a little about social media shelf life and the longevity of digital publications. Just how long will someone last on a particular social media site before they abandon it? How long could/should/might a blog trundle on?
These, I think, are interesting questions. We’re always told how to set things up on the Internet, but we’re very rarely told when to finish something. When is it time to stop?
When it comes to blogs, it seems, far too many are launched with the assured expectation that they are going to roll gloriously onwards into infinity. Therefore they usually evolve to the same familiar rhythm – which often means beginning in an explosion of energy before generally trailing off into obscurity.
I’ve already blogged here about the enjoyable experience of completing the Camervroom blog. It was a happy experience for a number of reasons: that I was experimenting with new technologies, that I was working from unfamiliar surroundings, and (importantly) that I knew that it was a temporary thing.
Camervroom had a very simple narrative arc. It started with the preparations of the car, continued with launch and the journey and concluded at the finish. There was one wrapping up post from my home in Islington and then that was it. Finished.
To end a blog off in that manner was satisfying. A little like finishing a book and slipping it back into the bookshelf, or sending a completed publication away the printers.
You’re left with a sense of achievement and the knowledge that you can take whatever it is that you’ve learnt on to the next project. The nagging blogger’s noose – the one that tends to appear after you’ve exhausted your first creative spurt – is gone, and because your blog is based over a shorter period of time you can ensure that it conforms to that most important of blogging essentials: that it stays niche.
Ok, jumping from one project to another means that you’ll forgo the benefits of pouring all your efforts (and Googlejuice) into a single domain, but as long as you keep your Twitter feed reasonably well updated then it will be easy to signpost new work and take your readership around the web with you.
This, I suppose, is why I think that Twitter will endure. It is the nerve that runs through all of our online projects, knitting them together and giving them context.
It’s understandable that many established (and very good) bloggers are, through page rank, brand recognition and emotional loyalty, wedded to their domains – it doesn’t mean for those that are just starting out that it is the only way.
Moving from one carefully crafted web project to another is an underused alternative approach to digital publishing that might well suit those who are looking for a dalliance, and wanting to avoid a millstone.
Something to think about, at least.
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Image Credit: PhotoGraham





