Matthew Cornell, who I know from his blog on personal productivity, asked a question on LinkedIn, which showed up in my mailbox. I first saw the question on my mobile phone, which left me pondering the topic for the last hour or so. The question: "Are blogs dead? Should they be replaced by Twitter, Flickr, & Facebook?" His question comes from the recent Wired article by Paul Boutin, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.
My reaction is the title of this post. There is no one tool that solves all problems. Blogs are great for long-form posts, for opinions, for all the things that people love about blogs. Twitter and its cousins are great for up to the second snapshots of what's going on. Facebook (and LinkedIn and Bebo and Orkut) is great for building on your network, for fund and/or profit. And don't forget about Flickr, Second Life, and a thousand other websites where you can build a presence and connect to people.
Rather than positing that blogs are dead, Matthew's question is "where do I expend my effort for my business development?" And for that, I say that it depends on what you are trying to do and how much time you have to do it. From my perspective, nothing beats a blog (or some form of website-I-own) to build thought leadership and maintain long-term credibility.
That said, blogs aren't consuming as much of my time, and my loyal readers know that I don't post as frequently as I have in the past. That doesn't mean I'm giving up the media.
* Yes, I know the original quote is something else, but this one applies better.