how long is a blog life?

Is it:

1 year?

2 years?

Or 3 years?

I've been pondering this recently. What makes someone choose to give up at a particular point? Not those who never really get off the ground. But the serious bloggers, the ones who post every day over a number of years? And will it happen to me?

Thoughts sparked by this Goodbye/Hello notice from Joshuink. Joshuaink had been my first port of call during the second half of 2006. I liked his wry sense of humour and witty observations, like the one about Swindon. Or How to impress a client.

And then he began to run out of steam as we progressed towards the end of the year. And now, eventually, after two and a half years, he's given up. Not exactly retired, because he's launching Cookery Blog, which isn't exactly a replacement, but might still offer some amusement.

Of course, we almost lost Russell not so long ago, when he had his crisis of confidence. But, thankfully, he very quickly realised that he had an eager audience that wasn't going to let him go quite that easily.

And another blog I came across a while ago over at Loulou's was Blue Soup. Nothing at all to do with design, but the commuting route she describes is one that I know extremely well. In fact, I've probably sat next to her on the train at some time or other. (As an aside, if you look at Loulou's site, you'll see the London Bloggers logo on the right-hand side. If you've got a bit of time to spare, take a look around - there's strange and interesting stuff buried in those links.) Blue Soup suddenly stopped, although she'd only been going for 5 months or so (although she now seems to be coming back to life again).

So, who's next to go?

Comments

[david george]

David a very thought provoking post, I thought I would quickly check your blog as usual and an hour and a half later I have just returned to it having been on a web-wide tour of some of the people whose blogs I regularly read. Your thoughts really questioned my motives in a good way.

I started a blog about two or three years ago that I discontinued because it became too navel gazing and rather sad/pathetic but I don't really think I gave it enough time and publicity. All of us who blog open ourselves to potential ridicule with a simple post we could make a mistake or be interpreted in a different way that it was meant, but worst of all not be seen at all!

It is strange I have run the website surf98 for almost ten years and through that time have updated it pretty much every day, (sometimes obviously it is not me that updates it) in all that time I/we have never thought of stopping, because it is reporting and yes it is good fun, and we have a good visitor base. We do get negative comment but it doesn't matter as we don't make the waves or the forecast we report on them!

With a blog it is often so personal therefore on occasion it hurts when some one disagrees especially when its is misunderstood, but it's real continued learning it can even get people like me to often open up to the ideas of others and even look things in a new informed way (like looking at flowers, even starting to grow them!).

It can be a hassle, time consuming even stressy but as a means of spreading thoughts, ideas and even making new contacts.
With the way we work today it is probably more worth keeping our blogs going, I just hope I will continue with dgthekneelo this time.

[blue soup]

Hi David, your post was interesting (and not just because it mentioned me :P ). It is something that I pondered on my replacement blog only a few weeks ago.

I stopped blue soup because I was concerned about my "anonymity" or rather my "psuedonymity" being breached. I had become quite careless about my post content and one day we were all called into the boardroom and given a talking to about how company resources were tight and they were aware that we felt under pressure and that we really ought to muck in and grin and bear it.

After that I was paranoid that my work grumbles had been discovered through my blog. I closed down (as you know), only explaining this on a protected post to those regular commenters whose email addresses I had. I unblocked my work IP address and monitored the hits for a few weeks and blogged elsewhere in the interim.

It does appear that my concerns were unfounded as nobody from the office has been on the blog, and some more happenings have occurred that lead me to believe that perhaps the comments were aimed at someone else rather than at me. That is a relief - and I will be much more careful from now on, but expect normal service to resume over the next few days/weeks.

And if you do see me on the train, give me a nod or something :) And maybe one day (when I forget I said this) I will blog about the weird man on the train who kept looking and nodding at me... :)