Every once in a while, some pundit will declare that blogging is dead. And even if there is some truth to their claims, some slight drop in the level of blogging on the ‘net, it isn’t long before blogging is back again. There are good reasons why blogging is so popular, and is such an important part of the social media landscape. Just take a look around and you will find a vast range of interesting and diverse blogs on every subject under the sun.

Perhaps people confuse social media with social networking, and assume that blogging doesn’t belong in the same group that includes Facebook and Twitter. But what makes social media different from traditional media is simply this: social media is user-generated and create spaces for conversation. Blogs fall squarely into that definition. In fact, blogs were amongst the earliest challengers to traditional media – people taking over the role of writers and journalists, to create their own online spaces where they could (surprisingly) write and journal about whatever subject matter they liked.

While it is easy to lose yourself in the shouted conversations that make up Twitter, or the stream of status updates that characterize Facebook, a blog is a something that you own, something that you have almost absolute control over, in terms of content and form and subject matter. Your blog can be as personal or as professional as you like, or a mixture whose composition is entirely under your control. Blogs lack the spontaneity or immediacy of Facebook updates, but make up for it with greater longevity and persistence. In the Web 2.0 media space, blogs are the long form, the space where arguments can be presented, books reviewed, restaurants criticised, ideas criticised: much more than could be done in 140 character bursts.

Bloggers cover the entire range, from knitting enthusiasts showing off their latest creations, to tech commentators taking on current developments (John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog is a good example of the latter) and everything in between. Blogging can actually be sophisticated enough to take the place of traditional media – take a blog like The Huffington Post, for example, which is highly regarded for the social and political insights of its multiple authors, and compare it to the network of blogs that form the Gawker Media network (including Gawker, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, io9 and Kotaku).

With so many blogging platforms out there, including some excellent free ones (Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, Vox, Typepad), anyone who is interested could start up their own blog. A blog can be your own online space, and isn’t limited to writing – these days, blogs can be multimedia affairs, full of photos and videos and just about any digital format imaginable.

Blogging is a first step to being a part of the global conversation called the Internet. Blogging is social media for anyone, without the constraints or privacy concerns of some of the social networks. Despite the fact that blogging is not the flavour of the month anymore, blogs and blogging still make up the backbone of Web 2.0.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.