A few days ago I discovered that cablog.com.au had ceased blogging. It was run by Sydney cabbie Adrian Neyland and was such a great example of what a blog is all about (niche subject, good writing, informative, entertaining) that I even featured it in as one of the blogs in the BBC News Superpower season. If memory serves Adrian even recorded a lovely POV video for the BBC of him driving through nighttime Sydney all the time narrating the cablog ethos.

neyland

The thing is Adrian’s blog actually stopped nearly a year ago . . . and I never even noticed. What does this tell us about the state of blogging and people who read blogs? As Adrian writes above, putting up posts became a ‘chore’ and I suspect that since blogging’s golden age of around 2003/2004 the novelty for many writers has worn off. Sure some are still going strong, Charles at littlegreenfootballs.com (another BBC superpower feature) only has to sneeze to get over 100 comments and early blog pioneer Glenn Reynolds is keeping it regular despite being swallowed by a conservative publishing house. . . . but Egypt’s Sandmonkey (aka Mahmoud Salem), nominated for best Middle Eastern blog back in ’06 I think, is now down to about 3 posts a year, iraqthemodel.com and the mildly famous Riverbend shut down years ago with the latter flinging out one last last hurrah this year in a very poignant sort of dead cat bounce. . . however, I suspect the real reason I never noticed cablog’s demise was that I just don’t have the time to spend lazily leafing through the web and stopping by anything that takes my fancy . . . might have something to do with the fact that I now spend a lot of my time changing nappies!

 


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