2007 Prediction: Blogs will be replaced

Yes, that’s right, my ProBlogger prediction for the new year is:

Blogs will be Replaced in 2007

No, it’s not ubsurd, unless of course something changes the facts are already here:

• Dave Winer will stop blogging in April of 2007
• Bloggers can’t beat the awards in 2006
• Google is ditching blogging
  • For Video
  • and Wikis
• Everyone will have access to an RSS reader

Now wait a minute….what do all these things mean?

It may be difficult to read through the lines, but I have done the work for you!

If Dave (the father of blogging) Winer stops blogging, it’s sort of like the time has come for blogging (Dave’s Child) to go out on it’s own. Yes that’s right, Dave cared for this child through school, and now decided to let it live at home through college. Now he is going to push his precious little baby out on it’s own to survive without Daddy. Now there are a few good friends to help; but, I think blogging will make up it’s own mind without it’s father’s influence….and the mainstream marketers will do what they are good at and transform the young blogging mind into another daily annoyance on the net.

The good news is we entered the top before we stopped. With Time’s award, we have enough momentum to make it through to late next year. A few more events and important thing can happen before the end…..but having already won the award of the year….there is no where else to go but down.

Google is the trend setter for the new web <insert revision number here>, Microsoft copies them, Yahoo copies them, and everyone wants to build an app to sell to them. But what have they done? They are moving to wikis, office applications, and video……It’s a sign of the changes

Microsoft is going to ruin RSS reading, the Vista RSS platform will be the reader everyone uses. There are no questions about it and you can’t deny it. Once every household has RSS reading built into their OS and viewable in the multitude of applications installed on their OS….well all of these start pages, installable programs, and plugins will become obsolete. They will still live on stolen copies of the XP, Linux, and all the other operating systems that are not used that often.

There may be people with other opinons out there, but before you give them to me……..

I suggest you think about what the people you desire to connect with really want. Of course they want to get independant news delivered to them over a simple syndication…..but everyone is doing that now…..When Blogs were the new cool kid on the block, they were run by unique passionate individuals who would do anything to help you make them work, now they are run by community managers, consultants, and marketers who could care less about you or what you think. They read sites like ProBlogger to get tips on how to write a blog so it sounds more personal…..

This is all strong evidence that the essence of the blog is dead!

As an independant journalist, social leader, industry influencer, or Plain Old Geek on the net, I recomend you start playing with some of the new ways to connect to people. Create a new way to make things happen, innovate with existing technologies, or find what your social circle really wants to get from you and make that happen…..