Anyone for tennis?

There's been some murmuring recently among some of my work colleagues that blogging is on the way out. One possible reason to believe this is that there's simply so many blogs by nobodys that anything worthwhile is lost; besides, wouldn't anyone who had anything worthwhile to write prefer to get published?

I've already suggested myself that one reason to keep a blog is to avoid the editorial pressures applied to any article to be printed commercially. Besides, another reason occurs to me: it's all very well trumpeting the intellectual superiority/social healthiness of messageboards as opposed to lone blogging; but in order to carry on a 'conversation' you need to find posters who want to talk about the same thing, or at least willing to ask provocative questions. Just the other night I was on one of those messageboards - a moderatly busy one (Good Music Guide) - and kicked some threads back into action (started, I should say, by other posters), some of which had only the initial post with no responses for several weeks. With a blog, if you have something to say, you can say it and develop your own ideas without the need of anyone else to help elaborate them.

That said, there are some drearily self-important or simply indulgent bloggers even among those well regarded in the community. But I do think messageboards and blogs are posing a strong challenge to printed magazines and periodicals, and the pressure is on for editors to ensure that they are printing quality product - factually reliable and satisfying for their readers. Not a lot to ask, one may think, but enough of a challenge for some editors to judge from the hopelessly muddle-headed attempts to 'catch up with younger readers' displayed by certain titles (e.g. Gramophone, or 'The Gramophone' as it for a brief while tried to retitle itself).