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Yes, according to various pundits, blogs are So 2005. Or even So Over. I say nay. I don’t think blogs are dead, but blogs are changing — just like everything else in the media. 

It used to be that a “web log” (for those who still don’t know that that’s where the word “blog” comes from; believe me, there are more of you than you think, and there’s no shame in not knowing!) was one person’s ramblings (at AOL, they began as “AOL Journals,” for example). It was a functional form, meant to allow a web user to capture their daily ramblings online. Early blogs — from those that quickly died natural deaths on to those that still exist today, like the hugely popular Dooce — were about one person’s voice and consciousness. 

The good ones (the aforementioned Dooce; wish she would write more and fiddle with her design less for example) work like neverending stories. Perhaps a better comparison would be to serialized novels in the Dickensian vein, or early radio soap operas. What will So-and-so do next? Did that really happen? What a great anecdote! Etc.

Group blogs came along circa 2006 (Weblogs Inc., with its popular Slashfood, was early in the game, although of course Gawker had been making progress in that vein already), and quickly became like fun little tabloids, filled with specialized departments, recurring features, and lots and lots of photos. IMHO, the Gawker Empire sites were much better in their older format, where some spots got more real estate than others. The diversity made my click-finger itchy. Now I just scroll past everything.

But a funny thing happened on the way to O’Reilly Conferences. People started to realize something that I’d realized in 2006, when I started the first Blogging Book Club: Blogs are a terrific way to form, shepherd, and grow community. Most devoted blog readers will now tell you that the Comments sections on popular sites like The Huffington Post and Jezebel are more entertaining and informative than the posts they follow. 

Of course, this was when the collective Internets got their collective knickers in a twist about Web 2.0. For those of you who have never heard that term (and why innocent civilians, as opposed to web programmers, should know it is not clear), “Web 2.0″ refers to community-generated content. In other words, the hoi polloi are storming the bastions of the press! 

Thank goodness. I’ve talked often about how everyone needs an editor, and I believe that (NB to my colleagues: Anyone want to edit me? Please?). But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to corral user-generated content so that it’s clear which sections of a site (or blog) are edited by “professionals” (read: Someone who has a stake in the advertising and promotion) and which are contributed to by “amateurs” (read: people who are often much smarter than the “professionals”). 

Tomorrow: What’s Next? Web 3.0?