Social Networking: Same Fate as Blogs?

Chapter 2 of Blog Theory by Jodi Dean, focuses on the death of blogging in recent years. Dean blames blogging’s demise on many factors including overexposure, lack of creativity, corporate involvement, and ‘spamblogs.’ The introduction of video and picture blogging combined with a shortage of new ideas and new topics to discuss, lead readers to seek information elsewhere. The heavy corporate involvement posing as bloggers on top of spam blogs-consisting of simply advertising-further pushed people away. However, Dean draws on the biggest opponent of blogs, social networking sites. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter all have similarities to blogs, including rapid growth in a relatively short period of time. Social networking sites have not only captured readers, but the media as well. Business and advertisers have also become more intertwined with popular social networking sites. However, this makes me wonder if soon Facebook and Twitter will have the same fate as blogs, death. The intense corporate advertising presence was one of the elements that drove blogs to their demise-can social networking escape a possibly destined fate?

Dean discusses the “Critical Media Theory,” which basically states a social medium will inevitably fade away after its ‘newness’ has faded away and/or the next new technology takes its place. Dean refers to different technologies surpassing each other, such as radio and television. Technology further evolves and develops, and outlets of television and radio branch to untraditional forms of media (think Pandora, iTunes, both available online) Now technology is going one step further by introducing the MOG. This device is similar to a radio/MP3 player that is attached to your car and has access to over millions of songs. The music streaming device can also be accessed through television as well. This is another example of how both radio and television are evolving; some aspect of their traditional form is still present.

I think social networking sites, such as Facebook, may be the outlier of this theory because they too have the ability to evolve. Facebook’s features keep evolving, changing, and tweaking. Also, the content itself is constantly updated with recent status updates, new photos, events, wall posts, and the list goes on. Facebook always has new information to offer because most of the users are constantly uploading photos, updating their statuses, changing their profile pictures, and much more. However, if the advertisements continue to expand, I’m curious as to what the reaction will be.