I felt compelled to write a little bit this afternoon (attempting to blow off steam from life) on what I really think is the near death experience of the “blog”.

Early 2000 I began blogging at the then popular blogspot.com and at that time, internet blogs were really in the mainstream infancy stages.  If remember having 100’s of unique visitors a day, implementing confusing tracking tools, and watching my page count grow.  After about a year of blogging on blogspot, I then built out a website of my own using wordpress (which this site still runs on today) and began hosting out my shared space to friends as well.  The world of blogging had changed tremendously since then.

First, around 2002 Myspace hit it big.  It was the first social networking site that really gave you the ability in a limited capacity to build a friend base online and share thoughts and stories.  Yet, the integration with a real blog wasn’t there.  Searching for friends was cumbersome.  There was no way to tie your existing blog and thoughts into Myspace seamlessly, so I continued to blog with a simple link on myspace to my website (as did most people).  I updated my blog at least 2-3 times a week, sometimes more…. and so did all the rest of the bloggers that I followed.

Since the days of MySpace, social networking sites have exploded.  When facebook took hold of social networking market-share around 2004 it was a definite game changer… but the integration with my blog still wasn’t quite there.  I couldn’t import my blog to my facebook, so I kept blogging.  Searching for friends was improved, and communication was much easier over facebook for groups.  In one fell swoop I could let my *entire* friend-base know there was a party at such-n-such a place.  No longer was it a passive tool like a blog that required my friends to visit manually.  They logged into facebook and automatically knew everything.

And then there is Twitter which I started using less than a year ago.  I find it so easy from my mobile phone to send 140 characters to update the world on my status, even if no one cares.  Twitter has become primarily a mini-blog for bloggers and facebookers alike.  Maybe it’s that people don’t enjoy reading long drawn out blog posts anymore and would rather read a tweet.  Maybe when using the internet you are temporarily diagnosed with ADD.

Facebook and Twitter combined killed the blog as we know it.  Now even as I write this blog entry it’s going to be automatically imported into my facebook page notes within minutes.  When I hit the “publish” button here in Wordpress, instantly all my friends will actively see my post.  No more counting visitors.  No more cumbersome statistics tracking.  No more “hoping” my friends get my messages.  They’ll see it in their home page on facebook or on their tweetdeck.

I used to think blogs had their own space - but now when I can post all my YouTube videos and pictures right to my facebook profile… Why would anyone ever visit a personal blog anymore?  Nostalgia? 

It’s been nice Mr. Blog, but I think you’ve been diagnosed with a case of Internet 2.0 and you’re dying a slow painful death.  Unfortunately I don’t know how much longer you have to live.