Is blogging so over?

Trevor Butterworth argues in the Financial Times that, as a business model, blogs never were here.

Blogging will no doubt always have a place as an underground medium in closed societies; but for those in the west trying to blog their way into viable businesses, the economics are daunting.

The inherent problem with blogging is that your brand resides in individuals. If they are fabulous writers, someone is likely to lure them away to a better salary and the opportunity for more meaningful work; if the writer tires and burns out, the brand may go down in flames with them.

To deal with the punishing treadmill of endless posting, Gawker and Wonkette each now has two editors. But the economies of scale are such that a second writer is not going to change output to the point where readership or ad revenue will double. What a second writer will do is provide security for the brand - and the means to fact-check gossip that could otherwise turn into a blog-destroying lawsuit.

Kaus, Huffington, Hewitt, Cox, Sullivan, Sicha and Spiers are mentioned, along with the women behind gofugyourself.com.

Choire Sicha also argues that there is no sphere in the blogopshere: "As for blogs taking over big media in the next five years? Fine, sure. But where are the beginnings of that? Where is the reporting? Where is the reliability? The rah-rah blogosphere crowd are apparently ready to live in a world without war reporting, without investigative reporting, without nearly any of the things we depend on newspapers for. The world of blogs is like an entire newspaper composed of op-eds and letters and wire service feeds. And they’re all excited about the global reach of blogs? Right, tell it to China.” Slate has a piece today too saying blogs are no good as a business. Well maybe we'll just see about that, eh?

Via Romenesko