End of Blogging!!!???

Wtf? I just started to blog and the Economists has declared that blogging is dead. The reason is that it is just becoming another mainstream media activity. Some of the early pioneers of blogging have stopped because as they have grown popular and well-read, the activity has lost the personal touch for them. Worse, some of the big companies like gawker which employs bloggers is even laying off bloggers!

Just a while back, I was arguing against Sir Vidia's thesis that books are dead due to internet and now this! Atleast, books have been around as a dominant medium for few centuries, but blogging is just about a decade old.

Well, I dont buy this. Blogging is not dead, atleast for me. Infact, I think it is only just beginning to grow. Thats because, I think, blogging has the potential to replace or augment social networking sites like orkut and facebook. Already, in the more highly literate and writing section of the web, communities of bloggers are growing who regularly read and comment each others' work. In this way, blogging can bring together people having similar interests but seperated by geography. 

Ofcourse, it might be that blogging might not be as commercializable as book publishing but if there is sufficient interest, some innovative idea can come to make money out of this as well.