Is Blogging in “The Dip”? Are we Throwing the Blogging Baby and Bathwater out?

I’ve been thinking about corporate blogging, social networks, conversations, engaging with people, corporate communications and developments on the web. It all moves fast. DUH!!! I know.

To do my job it’s important to keep up with the rapid changes in tools and opportunities, while also ensuring we keep reaching out, conversing and learning. Rapid changes and opportunities in social networks, blogs and other new Web 2.0 applications add an intellectual and practical challenge everyday. When the ground is constantly shifting it’s tough to keep up with the “flavor du jour” and still improve and build relationships based upon last month’s flavor– but all that makes for a good job and hopefully great work.

On the Decline of Blogs
I have been a little taken aback by the veteran bloggers discussion of blogging’s death. It has been noted that good blogging takes a lot the time and energy (don’t I know that since I do not post here often enough); the “evangelizers” have said all they can; or because the future has arrived and been accomplished. Scoble announced he was taking a break and that recently his 30 minute discussion with an IBM lawyer was more interesting than the average blog (so much for the wisdom of crowds?).

Facebook is It
Scoble and others are declaring Facebook is it, period. Jeremiah Owyang and Brian Solis have written extremely thorough and detailed guides to Facebook as the next big thing in social media. And I have to admit, I personally experienced the deepening of a business relationship using Facebook the other day, something that likely would not have happened on the blogs. Facebook has some great features that further realize the benefits of Web 2.0 and conversations. But it is also a walled garden where you can only converse with select people and in some respects feels a bit like a television station where everyone is broadcasting messages, including me by the way.

Blogs are the Real Conversations
From where I sit, business blogging is just starting, so the future has not arrived. It is just emerging. As for those valuable “Naked Conversations” between businesses and people, I sense they are also just in their infancy. And those conversations are found in blogs – every day, hundreds of them, good, bad, fun and serious. Real people conversing among themselves, and sometimes with businesses. I am not seeing these real conversations at YouTube or using video. Nor do I see those connections at MySpace or FaceBook. Certainly not to the same and open extent I see them in blogs. Are we leaving the promise of blogging behind to pursue the next big thing, without ever realizing its potential?

I’m even wondering if blogging is in Seth Godin’s “The Dip” and is going to need that focus and attention to get it through the dip, to realize all it could be. From my travels around the web, blogging is still producing the most genuine conversations between a business and people who want to talk about that business. But maybe I just don’t get it all yet either?

As Shel Israel recently noted (and reminded me personally, for which I say "Thanks Shel!") “Naked Conversations was essentially about conversations replacing messages because of the internet. We called that part a revolution and we still do. We talked almost exclusively about blogs because they were the only power tool of the conversational revolution at the time. What has changed is that there are now a great many tools and anyone can use any combination of them.” In this vein, Hugh ,over at Gaping Void, made it clear that “Bogging isn’t for everybody, Web 2.0 is for everybody

I just think we need to be careful. Facebook has great features for sure. There are lots of sexy Web 2.0 applications, but let’s not throw baby blogging out with the bathwater. That is where I still see real conversations emerging.