“Is Facebook killing Blogger?”
During the last years, I've been worried about this
subject and decided now to explore it with your help. Let my give you an example, a kind of starting point: We have in Portugal a
webpage lodged in the Portuguese Orienteering Federation's site,
which is called OriOasis.
It's kind of a “mini-World of O” site, where 23 Portuguese Blogs and Sites are represented. More than a half of them are
completely dead and only six blogs have articles published in
2015. Five of them have 25 articles overall published along this
year. The other one, Orientovar –www.orientovar.blogspot.com
–, has 390 articles published so far. Orientovar is my personal
blog and I know what I'm talking about; but I also have to say
that I have now around 80 visitors each day, while that number,
three years ago, was higher than 400 visitors each day. At the
same time, I can see that the “dead
blogs” administrators, are still quite active on Facebook, which mean,
probably, they moved their attentions from Blogger to Facebook in
an almost definitive way.
So, I tried to listen some top bloggers about this subject, having their feedback about five questions (the same for everyone). Emily Benham, Catherine
Taylor, Mikhail Vinogradov, Lizzie Ingham, Hans Jörgen Kvale or
Jan Kocbach are some of the bloggers that, during the next days,
will leave here their opinions. Of course, you're also free to
participate, leaving your contribution on the Portuguese
Orienteering Blog's commentary corner. We'll certainly appreciate that!
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Looking for the Portuguese example above, do
you feel the same with your blog and blogs around you? Is this a
problem for you?
Lizzie Ingham (L. I.) - I don't
have a very big readership of my blog, and haven't really noticed a
change in numbers to be honest. But I can appreciate that less people
may be reading blogs now - it takes an investment of time to read,
compared to a quick appreciation of a nice photo and caption that is
possible with Facebook / Twitter / Instagram.
Do you have an Orienteering Facebook
page? Could you tell us about your experience in having both a
Facebook page and Blog?
L. I. - I don't have an athlete
Facebook page, but do have twitter; although I mainly use that for
making bad jokes and to share when I've written a blog post. So, I
can't personally compare.
Is it clear that Facebook is a quick
way to talk about Orienteering, but is it also the best way to
promote our sport? Is the Blogger condemned to be extinguished?
L. I. - I think that Blogs and
Facebook, etc., hold different purposes, and there's a use for both.
Facebook is a great platform for quickly reaching a large audience,
which is ideal for an athlete that has sponsors or a large personal
following. Blogs, on the other hand, allow fuller details and reports
- which is good for sharing race analysis or stories. Most blogs will
have much smaller audiences as they require more time to read, so
maybe they're only reaching those that are a bit more of an
orienteering geek ;-)
Have you ever felt like stopping
writing? Are you loosing the interest in writing and reading – and
sharing! - about Orienteering?
L. I. -
Of course! I go through periods where I don't want to write at
all, and other times when I'm far more motivated. For me though, my
blog started as a way of sharing with the global orienteering
community what orienteering life was like Down Under. Now it's a way
of sharing my European experiences with those that are back home. In
that context, it doesn't matter so much if I go through lulls in
writing, or if my posts are delayed from the events they talk about.
I like to take my time and carefully craft my posts before publishing
them, that way I can try and make them entertaining enough that the
reader will actually reach the end of the post! And I can fit more
puns in.
Have you any general ideas about
Communication in our sport that you would like to share?
L. I. - I think really my answer
for that question is much the same as for the third. There's a place
for both blogs and shorter format social-media in orienteering, and
it's awesome that there's people like you and Jan committed to
running sites like Portuguese Orienteering Blog and World of O. It
makes it far easier for people to find and access orienteering blogs
and information. Communication in Orienteering in general? There's
hurdles to be overcome regarding communication between federations
and their members. It's great that athletes and coaches can voice
their opinions and concerns via social media, and I believe it's
helping open up the communication lines. But, it's important to
remember that it's only a small minority that post publicly online,
and the opinions of those that don't also have to be taken into
account in any decision making process.
Joaquim Margarido
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