Sunday, January 26, 2014

Is Liberal Democrat blogging dying, becoming more 'concentrated', or simply less fashionable?

I was idly browsing Lib Dem Blogs recently, as one does, when a thought crossed on mind. "Is it me, or does the site seem less busy of late?". And so, given my fascination with numbers, I thought that I should take a look...

I've taken today's date as a reference point, and here are the numbers of active blogs in each year since 2006;
  • 2006 - 55
  • 2007 - 107
  • 2008 - 222
  • 2009 - 186
  • 2010 - 231
  • 2011 - 235
  • 2012 - 230
  • 2013 - 177
  • 2014 - 126
Featured on Liberal Democrat VoiceWhat I find interesting is that the drop in the number of active blogs has come in the last two years, and not rather earlier. Yes, perhaps we've lost councillor blogs as we've lost councillors, and there's no doubt that blogging comes less easily if you feel that you have to defend a less than utterly popular administration. Alternatively, perhaps blogging is now passé, now that we have Twitter, Facebook and the like.

However, it is a pity, in that it is another way for us to reach people, offers an online archive of who we are and what we think, and is easier to maintain than a diary. And, I suspect, there are quite a few Liberal Democrat bloggers out there who haven't found out about the aggregator, or have but haven't chosen to sign up. Are you one of them?...

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