I can’t believe a whole year has passed by with the Aniblog Tourney happening 1 year ago. If you are new to the Aniblogsphere, the Aniblog Tourney was a competition with 96 blogs being assigned to a specific division in pairs randomly. When the poll for each division opens, people look at both blogs and then vote for the better blog to go on to the next round. While the tournament is mostly a popularity contest towards the end, it allowed for constructive criticism, which was helpful for bloggers to improve their blogs.
The competition between my blog and Anime Princess was a very close one with a few percentages off from losing. Ever since the Aniblog Tourney, I have taken an initiative to improve my writing, the blog design and accessibility. Eventually, I brought a domain name and moved to paid hosting several months later to make a bigger presence in the blogosphere. (Image Source)
Just a few months ago, there has been some talk about the Aniblogosphere dying with the popularity of Twitter, tumblr and Facebook. RabbitPoets, RyanA and others have shared similar views on the state of the aniblogosphere. However, with the table of Aniblog Tourney’s participants showing the participant’s blog status was posted last week, it tells a different story.
Out of the 96 participants, only 13% (12 blogs) are considered dead and 2% (2 blogs) focused on different topics. 85% of the anime blogs are considered alive with 11% (11 blogs) updating on an infrequent basis and 74% (71 blogs) on a regular basis. While a sample of 96 blogs doesn’t necessarily take account for the whole Anime Blogosphere, a sizable amount of blogs is still alive and well. 1
I find the results very surprising since people have been saying that blogging has been on a huge decline. I always felt that Anime Blogging was exempt since it’s a niche that has a completely different trend. Anime Blogging requires more effort than regular blogging. Also, Anime Blogs still exists since it’s not possible to shove all your thoughts about an episode of an Anime you watched on a tweet or a Facebook update. The trend of Anime Blogs dying is mainly caused by blogging fatigue, mostly from the newer Anime bloggers. I admit that blogging is not an easy task and requires time to write down all your thoughts, proofread it and then publish. Because of this, I’m quite surprised on how many posts I made during the semester while I have piles of homework and exams to study for. Then again, it mostly depends on the person and the dedication he/she puts into it to make their blog successful.
So in short, there is no Anime Blogosphere Armageddon. It’s just evolving and facing its regular trends of the blogosphere. Lastly, the 2nd AniBlog Tourney will be interesting since most of the new anime blogs created in the last three years will be turning 2-4 years old.
- Note that the blogs in the AniBlog Tourney are 6 months to 5+ years. This caused a slight bias in the assumption. ↩
I’d question the results of that “status report” a bit. Seeing as I myself haven’t updated with any proper speed in weeks and is still listed as “updating regularly”. For someone whose extremely picky about what blogs I subscribe to (since I hate bashing and lacks time), which makes subscribed feeds very valuable, I’ve lemented at the loss of too many good bloggers this year =\
That being said, totally not a proponent of “aniblogosphere is dying” either, seeing as new bloggers pop with extreme frequency… it’s just that the average half-life of an aniblog is tad short, and the continuous transition isn’t good for people who keep seeing blogger comrades drop out of the game.
I think a blog wouldn’t be considered inactive/infrequently updated if it’s updated a few times a month… One month of not updating might not be a big difference, but anyways…
Its kind of sad to see the life of blogs going out after the two or even one year mark. There are many ways to explain it like lack of interest/time, family issues, blogging fatigue or financial problems (unable to afford hosting or domain name, but not really an issue since WordPress.com/Blogger is free). However, a long running blog stopping is a different situation since there are many readers who would be sad to see it go (e.g. The departure of Omni of Random Curiosity… but the site still lives on with other writers). Then again, the cause of why people give up after two years is still rather complicated to explain, but it’s definitely a problem in the blogosphere.
As for me, I have been able to update frequently since I have time in college to write up the posts and my courses are not too intensive (except Intermediate Accounting I and II). I will be able to continue this in one and a half years until I graduate. I still don’t know what the future lies because I’m still deciding to get my MBA while I work or not, but it will definitely have an impact on blogging… so its pretty much in the crystal ball.
Besides the general problem of saying something just because of a bunch of number (who is to say that the statistics reflected by the Aniblog Torney is good or bad? Does it support your statement? I don’t know.), the Torney sampled largely from old blogs, easily half of them have been around, active, for much more than a year (which is the status check period). My blog has been around for over 5 years, for example. That’s a pretty strong sampling bias.
Of course, maybe it’s just to point out the much more subtle issue about perception. I’m pretty sure people who said whatever was dying had such an impression for whatever the reason. However it is a totally different query as to how it reflects the reality of the situation.
I have noticed that with a disclaimer that “it doesn’t necessarily take account of the whole blogosphere.” The problem on basing the assumptions off the Aniblog Tourney is that most of the blogs that participated are more than one year old. This is one of the issues that the organizers should address in the 2nd wave of Aniblog Tourney in 2012. Perhaps they should take blogs that are more than 6 months old, which are popular and mix them with the older blogs so they balance and reduce bias. A larger sample size of Anime Blogs will also help.
I agree that this Anime Blogosphere Armageddon is more of a perception that could affect the morale of some of the new bloggers. Since older bloggers experience this many times, I don’t think it necessarily poisons their perceptions… Then again, it’s not really something that most people should worry about since there is always new blogs that could potentially get to the level of the blog that become inactive. This is why this whole Armageddon thing doesn’t really bother me because of this fact and it’s not going to change unless the blogosphere had an extremely big decline in activity.
I’m glad that so many blogs are still alive and updating. I also don’t sense any impending doom for the blogsphere – I agree that few people can say something significant in just a few words on Twitter or Facebook. And I don’t know much about Tumblr but it looks almost like a blog except more…plain. So why not just have a blog?
Anyway, blogging regularly is indeed a big commitment, so I’m glad so many fans are willing to keep it up =)
Tumblr is a simplified blogging platform where you can post a variety of stuff like images, videos, etc. WordPress can essentially do the same job with the addition of commenting, but the social aspect like reblogging and Ask me anything is missing.
Blogging of any type requires alot of commitment like I mentioned before. To me, it’s very special to share my passion for Anime and I will continue to do so in the future… and so will others.
Well, if they toss me in the ring again, I guess I’ll again know the fun of Psycho Stalker rigging the votes again. *_* Too bad there’s not a way to ban proxy servers in the voting.
This is probably one of the biggest flaws with Polldaddy and they don’t seem to have other preventive measures like logged in members can only vote. The only option I see is blocking votes with cookies and IP, but that can be circumvented easily. There are workarounds on self installed WordPress to show content only to logged in users, but with WordPress.com… you are pretty much restricted…
Whatever way they try to solve it, it’s no easy solution.
Yeah, that’s true. Well, if they do another one and I’m in, I’m just going to have to not worry about it and if I get rolled out because of a lone loser with nothing but time and hundreds of proxies at his disposal, so be it. ^_^;
I think there might be a reason a lot of people feel that anime blogs are on the decline. It happens when you don’t branch out and look for new blogs frequently enough. If you’re always reading the same few blogs, when some die (and some will definitely die over time), your perceived population will only go down.
I don’t believe the aniblogosphere is dying. New blogs pop up too often.
That is true… Lately, I haven’t subscribed to too many blogs since I have two busy college semesters, but I’m definitely keeping track of the blogosphere and wait to see an interesting blog to pop up. Nevertheless, the median lifespan of an Anime Blog is still very low. Most of the blogs barely reach the 2 year mark leaving only a strong few in the 3+ year mark. I think burnout is one of the major causes of this problem, which is not easy too resolve. This is why I don’t push myself too hard to write long synopsis and just write about my thoughts and examine the scenes I enjoyed.
Of course, editorials are a bit more open ended and let me to freely share my thoughts.
I’m just still bitter that I lost in the second round.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much… Just look forward for next year and you will have a chance to win the second time around.