Someone emailed me the other day telling me that I should "give it up" and realize that no one reads my blog. In many ways it is true--I am more on facebook now these days and building up my Anina Dress Up facebook page to promote my iPhone game and website (which has over 1500 people signed up to the newsletter and 20k registered and active users without any promotion--yeah!), along with really posting a lot on my Sina Weibo (9000 followers) and RenRen (5500 followers). The primary reason for this is because Sina Weibo is not blocked in China (I have a Windows Phone 7 device and to my knowledge there's no way to set a proxy easily or at all) and I've recently become super active on facebook thanks to my new favorite browser, ROCKMELT (I love you Rockmelt! Please integrate Chinese social media!).
That doesn't mean that no one is listening to my blog when I do write--or that because my blog has been around for so long it has a high googl search engine ranking, or that the term "Model Blogger" doesnt call me up in the first position because I really was the first model blogger (Thanks to Marc Canter who is really brilliant--he explains everything to me in the tech world in fashion terms. I love it.) The person who criticized me said that no one is following my blog according to the alexa ranking--well that's just web views. Actually, all the traffic has switched to RSS followers, and then to all the mobile apps downloaded with my blog inside, and when I do blog something it posts on my facebook page (2500+ followers) and people comment--on the facebook post. The conversation has shifted, and that doesnt mean the blog is any less meaningful. It means that the replies and the views come from other places.
Additionally, I am happy to say short things on facebook, but when I want to really talk about something, I do it on my blog. Although sparingly now, when I do blog something, it's because it's super important to me and I want to take the time to write about it. Back in 205-2006 I rapidly saw the bloggosphere take shape, in 2007-2008 everyone else in the fashion industry finally caught on, and I already moved on and predicted that the blog would evolve into a publication. I remember telling Imran Amed exactly that--and indeed, his blog, THE BUSINESS OF FASHION (my idea and point of view to him!) has evolved off the blog and into a online newspaper. Voilla right again, just way ahead of the times.
Although I don't blog every day mainly because Typepad doesnt have a mobile client that works for Windows Phone 7 and I can't make a proxy work on the phone to get to their mobile site, I do feel that when I want to say something long, it should be here.
Recently, I've starting writing my book about women and entrepreneurship with the help of my friend and interviewing lots of super (role) models. You can be sure that I'm looking back on my past blogs when I first started to get the idea to write about modelling and grab those posts to put into the book. I knew then that I would be writing a book, so I blogged certain chapters so that I could recouperate them later--thank you for the blog.
I read blogs every day, and I have seen a shift from long blog posts to shorter tweet style posts to pinterist style posts to full on photoblogs. I am not sure how I feel about this shift. First, I think there's a real lack of credting going on of photos, and sources. Second, I feel that if other people didn't have the possibility to write blog posts, I would really have a lack of information. Recently I wanted to find out how to create irrigation for my houseplants--I found so much information online thanks to pinterist that lead me to blog posts with the HOW TO explanation on them.
Yes, is facebook easier to jot down a short note and post a photo? Yes, because I can do it from my ROCKMELT--is it a hassle to login to Typepad and click 4 buttons before I can create a blog post? For posting videos, yes. Do I maintain my blog by email to blog? Yes, great. Could Typepad help me out by creating a blogging tool for my phone--I wish. Could I get a proxy working on my phone--in my dreams.
Maintaining social media and social connections and social contact is very hard in todays world because we give so much time to work, work, working for our dreams. Thanks to these great tools though, I'm starting to do better and keep better in contact across all my social medias spanning the globe. Do I wish RockMelt would integrate sina weibo--yes you betcha. Am I excited to upgrade my MACBOOK PRO to the new IOS so it will work with Chinese social media--I cant wait till all the bugs are fixed and I can install it.
Is the Web dead? Not sure about that. Is this the Mobile Era--absolutely.
