I recently read in the current issue of WIRED (Wired 16.11) that the blog is dead. The word from Paul Boutin, a former Wired senior editor, is that the “blog age” is over. I have never been an earlier adaptor, but this is crushing news to this budding blogger. He titles his article: Kill Your Blog! I just launched my and before I could post anything meaningful. I discover I am too late.

“Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you already got one pull the plug.”

This is typical. My first job out of college was with a company who had outdated communications hardware. When I arrived the lifers told me, “You should have been here in the ‘70s.” Not what you want to hear when you start your career in sales.

I have been a fan of social networking sites like Facebook and I am now discovering the Twitter phenomenon. Boutin suggests that a blogger’s time would be better spent on these types of sites. What is the problem? What is wrong with the blogosphere? According to Boutin it is the volume of commercial blogs “tsunami of paid bilge” that are available in the blogosphere. The average blogger is not going to be able to keep up with a paid staff of writers doing nothing but maintaining the blog.

Boutin perfers Twitter and it levels the playing field. Twitter operates faster and twitter posts can be searched instantly and there is no delay waiting for the search engines to index them. I have a way to go before I am able to share my pithy 140 character posts on Twitter. I only have one person who is following me. The searchable feature is fun. I was monitoring the Twitter feed on http://search.twitter.com/ during the last presidential debate. It was quite entertaining, but I am unsure of the practical benefits.

Last week, I was at a rich media technology conference and I noticed that the lady sitting in front of me with her laptop open had 449 Twitter friends following her. WOW! Talk about your Twitter envy. I surmise that she is a devotee because she was making regular posts during the morning session. If you want to discover some practical uses for Twitter see this NY Times article.

I am not going to kill my blog. I really don’t plan to compete with the commercial blogs. Let’s toast to 2004.