In the very same week that the Today programme broadcast its speculative discussion on ‘Has blogging had its day?’, it is (at least moderately) interesting to note that The Observer published an article sharply at odds with this, and the virtual obituary that Wired magazine sought to write in its article Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.
In contrast, The Observer article by John Naughton – ‘Happy birthday, dear bloggers…’ – was celebratory and congratulatory, marking the tenth anniversary of blogging with a veritable eulogy. The article catalogues some of the blogosphere’s greatest moments, such as that which precipitated the premature (but long overdue) resignation and ignominious downfall in 2002 of the controversial US senator Trent Lott and, in 2005, another high-profile victim in the form of Dan Rather, the renowned US journalist and former news anchorman for the CBS Evening News, whose casual dismissal of (what proved to be correct) criticism from blogs resulted in the abrupt termination of a long and illustrious career.
What is (again, moderately) interesting to note is that in the very same week, while one powerful medium was speculating on the imminent demise of blogs, blogging and bloggers generally, another was virtually organising a birthday party in its honour – a birthday that blogging shares (approximately) with its now precocious and omnipotent sibling, Google.
Does this make Google and blogging twins separated at birth? Since they are clearly not identical twins in the (arguably) toothsome, all-American manner of the ubiquitous Olsen twins, then the implication is that they are conjoined twins, or perhaps even parasitic twins in the style of Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the popular 80s movie Twins – and no prize for guessing which of them is Arnie. However, it may be interesting (perhaps even more than just moderately) to see which of them (if either of them) actually survives adolescence and enters adulthood…
Posted by forwardface 
ForwardFacing Blog 