A Matter of Life and Death – Modelling Blog Mortality

This presentation, which took place on Friday November 24th, was to do with reasoning behind the death of blogs. Definitions for “death” in this context seem to varied but the term generally refers to a blog that has recieved its last entry and is now dormant, or has been removed by the provider. Initially, reasons behind starting a blog were examined:

• Creative Expression – Some people may start a blog to display their poetry, art or other such emotive creations.
• Journal – A personal record of someone’s experiences. This may be entirely private, which is an option given for each blog entry made.
• Communication Between Friends and Family – In this sense, a blog may be used as a private forum where family photos may be shared for example.
• Make Money – A blog may be used to display product information and act as a retail tool.
• Meet New People – Due to the way that blogs can be interconnected, via blogrolls for example, and the commenting systems therein, it is easy to meet new people and discuss certain topics with them. Looking around Warwick blogs, communities of people have clearly developed purely around this system.
• Income – Blogs can actually be used to generate income. For example through the use of banner ads.

The presenters mentioned LiveJournal as a source for blog data.
Within this paper, an expression is given for the number of active blogs, x, on any given day:

t is the number of active blogs the day before.
m is the chance of a blog not surviving the night.
d = 1-m is the chance of a blog surviving.
n is the number of new blogs created on the given day.
Therefore:
x = dt + n

It was noted by those presenting that the paper is based an a lot of generalisations and the accuracy of any conclusions is questionable.

The next topic presented was that of blog deaths and the reasons behind them. Examples were given to be:

• Lack of time to maintain – The blog owner has too much work to do (perhaps due to getting a new job) or family life takes over due to the birth of a new baby for example.

• Lack of results – No-one read the blog or comments on entries and so the owner does not see any point in carrying on (with the blog).

• Writer’s block – The blog owner runs out of things to write about and decides to give up.

• Rhythm break – If a writer has a certain rhythm to his post, perhaps because he always posts at a certain time of day, the readers of his blog will be accustomed to checking after this time to read any posts. If the posting rhythm is interrupted, the disruption to the readers may lead to less visitors. As a results of this, the owner may wish to stop.

• Thrill is gone – Some blogs are started for the novelty value and die once this wears off.

• Change of interest – Perhaps the owner becomes interested in another topic which does not relate to that of his blog. This change of interest may lead to the abandonment of the current blog.

• Unpleasant comments – As illustrated in the presentation, some bloggers get abused and spammed via their blogs and may wish to stop as a result.

• Other reasons – Priorities changing, people moving to other mediums, the loss of a username and password etc. This blog will probably die quite quickly after the presentations are over.

: 29 Nov 2006 19:07 |  Tags: Summary |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem