Usually, I don’t blog on the weekends, but I thought I’d ask these few questions today before Jeremy Cushman provides us with his weekly, weekend posts.
– Does it seem to others that biblioblogs are dying?
– If so, why?
– What will replace them, if anything?
(You can either comment or vote using the poll at the bottom of this post.)
I ask because if it weren’t for my cobloggers I may have archived this blog by now. Instead, I’m working with them to ask what’s next for this blog in its evolution. Prior to our URL debacle a few weeks ago we were experiencing a small decline in traffic and a more apparent decline in interactions. I don’t have access to the statistics of other bibliobloggers, but by their comments sections when I visit it seems to me that this blog is not alone.
I think there are several reasons for this. First, more experts have begun to blog, so the Average Joe seems disinteresting now. Second, people may be tired of the snippets of biblical studies and theology that come from blogs aiming to return to books and older media (or, the opposite is true: our attention spans aren’t even long enough for blogs now). Third, some blogs are specialty blogs that leave no reason to surf around several blogs to find something interesting, e.g., Biblical Studies Online is a one-stop-shop for much of what the Internet has to offer as regards videos of biblical studies related lectures. Fourth, as Rodney Thomas pointed out to me, many biblioblogs weren’t about biblical studies most of the time, they were about politics, social mores, and other tabloid-like news. Fifth, people have wearied of the type of interaction offered by commenting on a blog (personally, I’d rather discuss a contentious topic with someone over a cup of coffee in person than in the anonymous, stealthy underworld of most blog comments sections). Sixth, another point made by Rodney, blogs have become acceptable, institutionalized, AAR/SBL friendly, which has eliminated their role as alternative, anti-institution, gatekeeper free entities. Seventh, I’ve seen people being drawn to more contained discussions. Maybe someone is into The Gospel Coalition, or Missio Alliance, or a Calvinist, Wesleyan, or Anabaptist confederacy of blogs. These blogs are hosting the discussions that interest particular communities and tie them together, so why visit a blog that one day is going to talk about the syntax of Romans 1:1-4 and the next day whether or not Christian Fundamentalist in the United States are hermeneutically irresponsible in their interpretation of the Apocalypse. Too many topics from which the Internet voyager must chose! (Similarly, I’ve seen Facebook groups where shared themes results in hundreds of comments back and forth. Few blogs have this sort of interaction.)
I know for some this is pointless, but for others of us biblioblogs were our first microphone to join a broader discussion, our first means of interacting with scholars to whom we didn’t have direct access, and a place to share what we’ve learned or to read what others have learned. Is this changing? It seems to me that it is.
the archives near Emmaus 
i wish they would. that way mine would be the only one left and people would get only the true facts instead of the rubbish that they find so many other places. when only one man votes and everyone else sits out an election, that one voice counts for millions.
Now I’m beginning to wonder if the current collapse of biblioblogdom was something you’ve been planning for years. You need to steal Joel Watt’s theme, “One blog to rule them all, One blog to find them, One blog to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
Related to point number 7, they are evolving where the blogosphere itself is maturing. Readership is starting to make choices, not all blogs (bloggers) are created equal, afteral, so readership is starting to exhibit preference.
This concentration of readership is following the broader trend that saw ‘few blogs explode into many’. Initially when there was few blogs, it was like having few daily news papers. Blog opinions and discussion worthy of attention ware easy to find being concentrated in the few. When everyone and their dog decided they could blog, the ‘marketplace of ideas’ became saturated. Accordingly, the substance of the discussion became watered down.
Broadly, blog readership is down (it appears), but in the few ‘specialist’ blogs, or in the blogs with critical mass of readership it is up as the fickle masses converge.
All that said Brian, your blog is amply competitive in the marketplace of ideas for a number of reasons:
1. You have your finger of the pulse of blogosphere; this blog often anticipates current trends
2. Your co-bloggers are a diverse lot, who themselves offer up interesting insights
3. Your blog is constantly producing new posts (new content means readers return)
4. You are graciously tolerant of readers you disagree with
5. Broad appeal
I don’t think biblical studies blogs are fewer or less ‘trafficked’ over all, though the term ‘biblioblog’ is not the identity claim it was in the late 2000s. As it happens, I’m about to try my hand at an innovation (of sorts) related to blogging and the humanities, hopefully in about a month. …Tweaking a few things before the big reveal.
@Andrew: I appreciate the kind words and optimism. We’ll see if the statistics agree over time. Our blog has been in serious decline this year, but that has more to do with the URL error than anything. Currently, this blog’s traffic numbers are lower than they’ve been since April-June, 2010, before this blog began to gain readership (January 2011 was the beginning of a long run of high traffic). In January and February we were averaging 681 and 668 hits a day before we lost nearemmaus.com and that was the lowest it has been since late 2010, so the decline was still happening, just much slower. This makes me wonder if this blog is really holding its own or if as people become more choosey if they’ve decided it doesn’t interest them.
@Joshua: I look forward to seeing what you present in a month or so! We need to see the next stage of the evolutionary process of biblical studies online. I wish I was more creative!
I’m sorry to hear of your despondency about low traffic. I am new to blogging, and my blog is not biblical studies per se but all ancient languages, religions, and cultures. But yours is one of the blogs I regularly enjoy.
Personally, traffic doesn’t matter so much to me. The discipline of writing is. Blogging forces me to write in a concise, punchy style far from the lengthy, formal fashion I use for term papers. Yet it also tends toward more depthy and lengthy thought than a typical tweet or facebook status. And even if family and friends comprise most of my readership, I have had some interesting conversations with them as they read my blog then “reply” to me in person or on the phone.
@jd: I appreciate it! Along with my cobloggers I know it matters to us that what we write benefits others. I wouldn’t say I’m despondent, per se, but that I am wondering if the medium has run its course. In other words, does it benefit anyone anymore?
I think you hit the nail on the head with your description of what blogging should be in juxtaposition to articles or term papers on one end and tweets and status updates on the other. That said, many people I know have decided that they can practice writing using Evernote or something more private either because they are tired of the type of interaction that occurs in the comments section or because they didn’t receive any interaction anyways, so why not just keep it private.
Blogging began as a mean of practicing writing for me. It continues to keep me in the frequent habit of doing so, but other things demand more of my writing attention so if I stopped blogging tomorrow I’d likely write almost as often without blogging. Now, blogging is a means to an extended community of people who like to discuss things that interest me. In San Antonio, TX, where I live, there aren’t many opportunities for that sort of community, so the ol’ Internet has made up for it. But if we’re all tiring of the medium and bored with commenting on each other’s blogs then it may be time to ask “What’s next?”
If that is the case, then I entered the biblioblogosphere at a very inopportune time! Sort of like people who start investing in the stock market after the bull market has ended. I began blogging just three months ago and didn’t really visit blogs before that, so I am not really as aware of the situation as you and other seasoned bibliobloggers are.
My blog began as an extension of a book project. Some former students who are in their graduate studies mentioned how helpful it would be for them to read about the processes involved in a book-length research (e.g., for comparison with their own thesis research). So I began the blog with a very limited subject–reception history of the parables and how the book project is developing–one that won’t appeal to a broad group of readers. I also only post twice a week or so, and that doesn’t generate a lot of page views either. The blog posts also help me refine my writing for the book and help me remember to try to make scholarship as understandable and reader-friendly as possible without dumbing it down (as best I can). So the main reason for my blog is to make the book as helpful as possible for students and professors.
My guess is that your blog continues to have a significant impact, one that is not measurable just through the number of visits. I have almost no comments written on my blog, but I do hear surprising stories from time to time about people who are reading it–I’m sure that it much, much more the case for your blog.
My initial idea was to blog only the process of writing this book on the parables, but I had started to consider–if there were interest after my book is out–to broaden the blog to reception history in general and to ask others to co-blog. I guess I’ll have to wait to see the status of the medium when that day arrives.
Thanks for your helpful post. Since I am in my blogging diapers, as it were, I was not aware of this issue. I can only say please keep up the great work until the next medium develops!
@David: Thank you for your comment! I have read your blog on many occasions and I enjoy it. I look forward to your book. I do think that your blog idea is a good one and I think that blogs that have a specific purpose can be really, really enjoyable to read. The strength and weakness of this blog is that it can be all over the place. We offer diverse content, but it is hard to know whether it is content that means anything to anyone at a given time if there are no comments.
I know over the years I’ve met people who read the blog who don’t comment, so I agree with your observation that sometimes the impact isn’t easily recognizable. We’ll continue to blog here as a team, and I’ll continue to blog, though I am interested to see what the next evolutionary step may be!
Brian, I can’t take the time now to analyze and explain just how it’s so, but I’ve found a positive uniqueness to your blog that often suits my set of interests. Although I’m theologically “left” of you on some points, I’ve found you particularly open and also diverse in what you’ll cover, and in what manner. It’s been your blog, along with several others, which has gotten me much more familiar with what is going on in various segments of churches and religious higher ed than I could ever have been before getting into the blogging world… and I much enjoy and benefit from it!
I do think blogging has very positively impacted interaction (overall, factoring in the contentious debating and such) among a broad range of Christians and between Xns and unbelievers. Also between scholars (and grad students like you who I’d include) and the general public. In my own blog, I try to contribute to both these dynamics also. FWIW, my small readership has remained pretty constant for over a year, on avg. And I’ve tried some variation and such to prompt commenting, but never gotten any real breakthrough there. But I do find building my “body of work” in a rather disciplined manner is a worthwhile thing, as I’m not an academic churning out articles or books (except a couple ebooks).
@Howard: I appreciate your words. That is the type of blog I want it to be. A place where our contributors do share their thoughts, freely, but respectfully as possible in dialogue with others.
I’d agree with you that blogging, overall, has been a good thing. There are times when it doesn’t feel this way, but the overall project has been worth it.
Brian: Yes, it was actually your blog series on why students shouldn’t blog. When I first began blogging I was worried about some of the concerns raised by bloggers such as Robert Holmstedt about student blogs. Reading your series helped me refine my purpose and method. (I am careful to ensure that my blogging won’t burn me — I don’t make any personal attacks or get into controversial issues outside my depth or focus.)
Also, I agree with David’s comment above. For example, last October you reviewed a book by Catherine Murphy on John the Baptist. The post got no comments, but I stumbled across it recently and showed it to her, as she is a professor I work closely with. She was pleased that someone was reviewing and liking her book! So you never know how your writing will impact people, even long after it’s written. I’ve found blog posts around the internet that are years old that I still plan to link to in future posts of my own.
If you feel that blogging as a medium may have run its course, then what do you propose it is being replaced by?
@jd: Both of those things are great to hear. I’m glad that the series on student blogging proved helpful and that my review of Murphy’s book got back to her. Very cool.
Now, as to what’s after blogging….well, I don’t know that it isn’t blogging. It may be blogging +. Or, blogging as a group in a way that isn’t quite like what we do here, but close. What I mean by this is I think a great group blog, an ideal one, may have several contributors who agree for a month at a time to discuss a particular subject. That means each post will relate to that subject in some way and each contributor will make sure to comment on the other person’s posts. Ideally, this means you’d have at least several people in continual dialogue with each other, so that other commenters can join a discussion in process without feeling like they have to break the ice. Also, readers would know what to expect if January was about John the Baptist, February about the Greek Fathers, March about a particular book, etc.
When I say blogging + I mean blogging plus podcast, plus occasional video, blogging where the contributors meet in a Google + chat once a month and invite their readers to join them. Something like this. Unfortunately, I am not as visionary as I’d like to be. I am more prone to adopt and adapt the ideas of others in this regard. But I think this may be what prevents a blog from being too static, too monological. As other have noted in response to this post: part of the reason for the decline of blogs has to do with people’s use of FB and Twitter. This means blogs need to integrate those mediums better so that it isn’t an either/or, either comment on the FB post or the blog itself. I know some blogs do this where comments on FB show as part of the comment thread and I think this is an example of moving in the right direction (*cough, cough* WordPress).
Brian, I think you raise many great points. I’m thinking especially of Patheos and how successful it has been at bringing together many different religious voices. Something like Patheos for biblical studies, perhaps? This is just a natural step in the evolution of bringing-together blog that gets done in blog carnivals.
Personally, I would like to see a site like Patheos focusing on learning ancient languages. It could bring together classics, biblical studies, linguists, Sanskritists studying Hinduism or Buddhism, medievalists, etc. Hmmm… there goes my summer…
@jd: Indeed, something like Patheos would be great. I inquired about joining Patheos a while back and never heard back from anyone. But I do like the idea. Here at NE we’ve tried to make sure our contributors represent a semi-broad spectrum. Makes the discussion more interesting.
I like your idea about an ancient languages version. If you try to put that together let me know and I’ll help spread the word!
Or could it be how the search engines are ranking? When I moved an article from ScribD — an article ranked number 3 on the first page of google search results, to my own website, it is now on the ninth page or so. I don’t think Google likes to rank independent blogs very high.
@charles: True, search engines could have a lot to do with it, but I don’t know much about how they work. If they do have something to do with it then it may mean that they’ve grown a distaste for ranking independent blogs over the last year or so, because the trend I’m noticing can be seen by the lack of activity across many biblioblogs and much of the decline in interaction seems to have occurred over the last year or so.
Brian,
My post today is a continuation of this issue. In my post I present some other reasons biblioblogs may be dying.
Here is the link:
http://claudemariottini.com/2014/03/17/are-biblioblogs-dying/
Thank you for beginning this important discussion.
Claude Mariottini
Thank you Dr. Mariottini. I’ll take a look!
What, I don’t blog as much and suddenly biblioblogdom is dying? 😉
Yes, the audience is maturing. But I also think the novelty is wearing off. Because more and more scholars are blogging (mostly to harness blogging’s marketing power for self-promotion and advocacy for causes – not that I know anything about this…), biblioblogging is becoming like that band you saw when they were first starting out, and is now huge, or like that beer you first discovered that now everyone else is drinking. Biblioblogging has left the realm of the innovative, rambunctious, dissident voice and has entered the world of the polished marketing machine. No one is making the innovative original; everyone is making a sequel. Biblioblogging is experiencing a “success failure” – a loss of potency and freshness as a result of its increasing ubiquity.
This is the nature of all markets and social systems – the early adopters who provided quality made tremendous gains, and those who join in later must do so with more polished, industrial versions of the original. Lost in a sea of competing voices, many will blog on the trivial, the sensational, simply to drive numbers. And as the hyperbolic voices begin to drone together into noise, readers begin looking anew for fresh, innovative content. And in the end, those that provide true value via well-researched content, timely reaction to current events, and clever memes – an increasingly powerful visual counterpart to the 140-character tweet – will continue to shape the field.
Biblioblogging isn’t dying, it’s evolving. It’s growing up. The bar is being raised and the childish, which once was granted center stage, is now being forgotten, while the truly innovative (as well as the best socially networked and marketed) sites are standing out.
The fact that there are so few truly innovative, truly substantive biblioblogs is what we perceive as ‘death’, but in time we’ll see that it was actually a tremendous rebirth.
Hi, Brian. I’ve read your blog from time to time, but I believe this is my first time commenting. I agree with much of what Bob has to say. Perhaps the universal access which makes blogs so unique can also lessen the overall quality of the blogging world. So, the next step for blogging is a kind of natural evolution which separates the sheep blogs from the goat blogs, so to speak. Nothing like old fashioned social Darwinism to move us forward.
@Dr. Cargill: I like your analogies! They are quite fitting. I do think you are right that this may be a period of evolutions. Blogs that change and go to the next stage—whatever that may be—those blogs will survive and thrive while other blogs will die off either because of content or lack of integration with other Web 2.0 tools.
@David C.: Thanks for chiming in! I agree, we will see changes in what makes blogs interesting and appealing to audiences and this will be a survival of the freshest!
Here are a few more thoughts on blogs in general:
– Google has changed its ranking algorithm considerably over the years. The amount of comments of a given article no longer hold as much value in Google’s ranking anymore. Also it monitors links more closely. If a link is made from a higher ranked site such as nbc.com, that gives an article and the website a higher value. Cross linking between sites with equal ranking in the blogsphere appears to not generate the same results.
– The way I see it, Google is beginning to see blogs as a volunteer public community tv channel.
– Wired Magazine has announced the death of the internet. By this they mean it is no longer wide open anymore. It is now controlled by gatekeepers such as web apps (Facebook, Twitter, Mobile browser apps etc.) which usually have an agenda to drive audiences to a certain brand. It means that writing a good article is no longer sufficient, marketing it throughout the channels is equally important.
– The web has shifted from an information highway to an entertainment highway. A few years ago I went to the Google Zeitgeist and looked at the trends in technical subjects such as chemistry. In the earlier days of the net, subjects such as chemistry were popular and entertainment was lower. Today that trend is totally reversed. I think this the same phenomenon is happening in the realm of religious studies.
Brian, I mentioned above my idea for an ancient languages blog circle. In the meantime, I am trying to build interest in an ancient languages blog carnival. I’d love it if you could submit:
http://jdhomie.com/2014/03/22/ancient-languages-blog-carnival-call-for-contributers/
@Charles: That is very interesting. It would seem that these factors will conspire together to hurt blogs seeking traffic. It is unfortunate, but it seems like all things of the people at the end it has become dominated by special interest.
@jd: Thanks for the heads up!