what's wrong with blogging

Back in 2005 I asked my readers a question that surprised some for a blog like ProBlogger – I asked readers to talk about what was wrong with blogging.

I introduced the question by sharing a story of a debate between a Christian group and Pagan group where each group was asked to not argue FOR their own belief system but to share what they disliked about their own Faith perspective. The result of that debate was fascinating.

Instead of it ending in an angry fight where everyone just had their beliefs reinforced the debate was actually quite constructive with both groups coming away having learnt something about the other and more importantly themselves.

Similarly the responses to my question about blogging were insightful also (in fact I’ve asked this question twice previously – in 2005 and in 2006 and both times were fascinating).

There were a couple of things that came out of those discussions:

it was a place for some bloggers to get some stuff off their chest about their frustrations with the medium.
the answers actually gave a number of blog tool developers some great ideas. I know that at least two WordPress plugins were developed to solve issues that came up in the conversation.
It’s been 4 years since I asked the question last – so in the hope of a productive conversation I thought it worth asking again.

What’s Wrong with Blogging?
What are the limitations of blogging as a medium? What are its weaknesses? Where does the blogosphere and/or blogging tools need to improve? What are you main challenges as a blogger that you don’t think you’d have in other mediums?

Hopefully in answering this question and deconstructing the medium of blogging a little we can play a part in the improvement of blogging as a whole. By identifying what's wrong perhaps we can improve it.

Like last time the rules are simple – say anything you like about blogging as long as it's not positive (note: I'm not inviting you to critique individual bloggers – but the medium itself). You can do this in comments below or by writing a post on your own blog (just leave a link below so we can find it). There are no wrongs and rights and everyone's critique of the medium are valid and welcome.

So – what's wrong with blogging?