Like the provocative headline? I’ll break every rule and tell you right off that I don’t answer the question in this post. I can’t. And neither can you, or your favorite A-list blogger.

There’s chatter in the “big think” part of the tech blogosphere about social networking. It’s not just about how bloggers have discovered (as I have) Twitter, Facebook et. al. The buzz is all about how blog traffic is down, and social network traffic is up. Coincidence? Those who have been commenting on the trends don’t think so.

I don’t feel qualified to speculate on the relationship between those trends, but I will point out that the observations and come from the tech blogging world, where social networks are not just tools, or alternatives to blogs: they’re tech companies and interface innovators, run by people the tech blogerati hangs out with while they’re in line for their iPhones.

I’m not sure, for example, whether business bloggers, knitting bloggers, empowerment bloggers, music bloggers, cat bloggers or sports bloggers (to pick some categories at random) are observing the same traffic pattersn, nor whether their readers have defected to social networks. It sounds, especially in areas like music, where MySpace has a demonstrated pre-eimant position, like an interesing hypothesis, but I think it’s too big a generalization, too, and perhaps one that could stand some time (maybe six months or so) in the oven allowing it to become fully baked.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with some observations on the questions: “Are social networks replacing email?”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 7:01 am and is filed under Blog Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.