Considering the prices for data packages in some countries on the continent, it’s not surprising that blogging is considered a hobby (an expensive one too). For the most part a blog is considered an online diary but its far more than that…
A broad definition of blogging would be: An updating of online status.
So whether you write a lengthy opinion piece and publish on a website or post a picture to your Instagram or a status update on Facebook or tweet on Twitter its all different kinds of blogging, microblogging/vlogging.
What does blogging mean to you and any reasons why people should or should not actively participate in it.
James Gikonyo
Blogging is a very big world in my world. I used to run a blog on blogspot at the beginning of my career. After interacting with a few pioneers in my field, I discovered blogging is not just writing on that website. Some people blog on Facebook while others do it on Quora.com Some people even blog on various WhatsApp groups while others express themselves in videos and that becomes a vlog. There is no limit in distribution channels when it comes to content. Thing is, content will always be consumed. Whether expensive or not. That is why we have so many chatrooms on various topics and many people build their careers on these chatrooms.
I think the question of whether someone should blog or not is a valid one. There is a lot of information out here. Some will tell you it is too much. What I can say is that there seems to be certain parameters that have no information about. AT ALL. If people can fill these gaps then I think blogging can even be one of the pillars of the next Academic corridors.
The world is changing and humanity needs fast solutions. That is why blogs will be popular for a long time because the consumption time is sometimes almost negligible while offering sustainable solutions to our daily problems.
Valerie Adhiambo
Blogging is power flowing out of a potent source, that is you, into a latent container, such as a book. What makes it powerful is the ability to transfer this power to as many people who interact with it without loosing its potential. Just like a candle’s light.
Beaton M
I really love this definition… and I just like candle loses known of its light by lighting another so does the power that pours out of
Tracy Akoth
Blogging was great in the early 2000s before the social media era. Although most social media platforms could be considered in some way a blogging platform, the quality, and depth of original blogs have been lost by shallow content shared from inexperienced people in a disorganized manner.
Take Twitter, for example, it is referred to as a micro-blogging platform which is true but the very essence of blogging is lost in the noise and it ends up looking like a news site with snippets of unconfirmed headlines from unknown sources.
This is either the new definition of blogging that includes a whole community of people all sharing AdHoc content or jusy another wave that will metamoph into something else like video blogs or audio blogs or live blogs.
Beaton M
Interesting response Tracy.
I agree that blogging has shifted from the model it was in the early 2000s when blogs were Web-Logs, maybe the term blog does not even fully encompass the neo wave of content creators who fusing all sorts of digital media platforms …
..more so now with lockdown, creatives are streaming concerts on their social media pages and poets creating digipoems … There is a community of online audiences who are not limited by boundaries each one equidistantly a click away… the blogging sphere is morphing into…. something. I don’t know what though all I know is we won’t get a notification that you are experiencing paradigm shift control of the narrative.
Tracy Akoth
There’s something else that your question brought to my mind: We may focus on how it has changed or look at what we have managed to achieve with it? Business, art, more writing… and so forth. Regardless of the changes, we have a powerful tool that may still change again but we had it and made the best use of it while it was there.