There’s nothing sadder than a blog that ran out of steam. It starts with a fury, the blogger drunk on the power of new media, posting once, perhaps twice a day. Comments abound, as the newly-minted media mini-mogul keeps friends and loved ones up to date on all new posts.
Months pass. The blog is lucky to get a visit from its owner once a week. Spell-check is skipped, photos are deemed too time consuming to dig up and post, and the thing starts to sag.
A few more months pass, and the blog starts looking like a crackhouse in downtown Buffalo–somebody once lived here, somebody had their friends over and filled the space with laughter and compelling thought, and now it’s just shelter for some crackhead with a pipe in her skivvies.
With that admittedly lurid image in mind, I challenge everyone on the Trainjotting blogroll–that list of blogs in the right margin–to update their blogs, or be dropped from the hallowed halls of Trainjotting entirely.
For those backed by major media companies, such as City Room from the Times, that won’t be a problem. For adept and ethusiastic bloggers, such as SecondAvenuesAGas, MetsBlog and Exurbitude, no worries.
But for the rest of y’all–my anonymous Laurel & Hardy pals with the Bukowski fetish at SalesRants, the newly Cambridge-based old pal at Dan Caputi’s Blog (a new episode of Lost from May? C’mon, Dan!), and my crazy cousin Tim (last post: St. Patrick’s Day. Did he ever wake up?)–it’s simple:
Publish or perish.