Discussion: Where Have the Readers Gone? (Is the Baseball Card Blogger Market Dying, for real this time?)
It's virtually a fact of life that everything was better back in the day. You know, things like:
"Back in the day, we only had two television channels and we felt lucky." or
"Back in the day, kids actually respected their elders." or
"Back in the day, I used to ride in the back of a pick-up truck and drink out of a hose and I turned out fine." or
Well, you get the idea.
It seems like everyone views their own history with a pair of rose colored glasses. And frankly, that's probably a good idea - in that way you can take the lessons you learned growing up but forget (at least some of) the pain that went with those lessons.
In fact, I'm reminded of this "song" that came out back in 1999 a particular part of the song has always stuck with me.
Where am I trying to go with all of this? Glad you asked.
You see, I can't help but wonder if we've reached the point where the baseball card bubble is about to burst (again). Or, perhaps more importantly, have we reached the point where the baseball blogging bubble is at a bursting point.
Anecdotally, it sure seems like baseball card blogging is on a downswing. For example, the number of new blogs popping up seems to pale in comparison to the number of established blogs going dark. I also seem to recall reading passing comments on a number of fellow bloggers' posts similar sentiments that blogging is on the way out. Finally, as a blogger who writes for a blog that has had the good fortune of being fairly popular within our little bubble (over 1.3 million visitors have visited my blog over the years which is totally insane), opportunities for most bloggers seem to have virtually vanished. To my memory, in the past couple of years Greg (aka Night Owl) parlayed his blog writing (and his newspaper career) into an awesome opportunity for writing for Beckett and a bunch of us bloggers got sent a free box of (virtually identical) cards from SportsCards.com. Other than that though, nothing.
It wasn't all that long ago that we had Upper Deck working with Junior Junkie on amazing opportunities, card companies reaching out to bloggers (not me though) for free products and reviews, and even things like Gint-a-Cuffs which was sponsored in part by Topps. To my knowledge, none of that seems to be happening like it was in the past which seems like it's a sign things are on a downswing (or at least the companies no longer treat blogging/bloggers as an important market segment or market driver).
Okay, so what's the big deal if us bloggers get ignored by companies. That's not why we do this anyhow which is definitely true. However, I do think it's perhaps the canary in the coal mine and if that canary stops singing then we should at least be wary about what's happening.
Moving on from anecdotes...let's look at the actual numbers.
Personally, I measure blogging to a certain extent by two different sets of numbers.
The first number (and the most important number to me) is blog trading.
Ultimately, my blog is an amazing way for me to connect with like (and not-so-like) minded collectors around the country/world and very often those connections lead to trading cards. Over the 7,056 posts that I've written on my blog to date, I've connected with countless people and virtually all of them have been amazing human beings. I've received far more goodies in the mail than I ever thought possible. I've accumulated more Barry Larkin cards than I even knew existed back in June of 2008 when I started this blog. I've sent mail to every US state, many Canadian territories, and a number of foreign countries - each package holding a mix of baseball cards, LEGO, or even things like t-shirts, bobbleheads, and books. Heck, I've even met someone through the blogs where I eventually joined in his fantasy baseball league and a few years after that he came to visit my wife and I and spent the night at our house. That sort of connection and friendship doesn't happen on sports message boards or Blowout Cards forums.
But as with all good things, vibrant trading and connections like that have seemingly been put on life support at some time in the past couple of years. Don't get me wrong, I still have a number of amazing bloggers out there that I trade with but the sheer volume of trades is way, way down (for comparison I did 166 trades in 2011 but only 82 trades in 2018 and thus far in 2019 combined). For the most part, I think the trades I get in the mail today are actually far superior to trades from a six or seven years ago but those awesome trades are now coming from a rather small subset of people. Good blogger friends to be sure but it's now a perfect case of quality over quantity.
Quality over quantity is perfect for me personally, but without actual growth atrophy is inevitable.
The second number that is important to me when judging the current status of baseball card blogging is much less debatable: readership numbers.
Here's a small sample from my blog's readership from a couple of years ago as compared to the entries I've posted in the past week or so:
A couple of comments here. First, the numbers in the red ovals are the reader numbers for each post. The comparison here isn't even close and I didn't try to cherry pick my best numbers ever. In fact, I simply clicked back a number of blog post screens until I got to 2016 where the numbers were much, much higher!
Before number purists get too upset here, yes, I know the comparison isn't 100% fair in that older entries have the advantage of time - people may stumble upon a blog post from 2016 in 2019 and that will up the count for that particular post today. And while that's undeniable true, I don't think it's particularly relevant - especially since it's unlikely that every post in the week long window will have had such a presence on current Google searches.
-----
So yes, the numbers seem to show that blogging is on a downswing - both in terms of active bloggers (such as traders and blog authors) as well as in terms of active blog readers. Now, this whole thing could simply be that people are growing tired of my particular blog but I get the impression that that isn't necessarily the case. I'm not likely to make many people's "Mount Rushmore" of bloggers but there is something to be said for longevity if nothing else. Actually, if anything I've gotten better response rates to my blogs now as opposed to the past (just look at the difference in the comments column to the left of the red ovals). Again, it's quality over quantity which is fine for me but not for the blogger market as a whole.
----
Alright, at this point if you are still with me then here's a question for you: What can/should card companies do to encourage blogging? Or, perhaps alternatively, should card companies care about blogging at all in today's climate? Are card companies better off simply marketing to the flavor-of-the-month Twitter crowd?
Cynically, I actually think Topps, Panini, and others are probably doing a good short term business decision by focusing on the ADD-fest that is Twitter. Appeal to a crowd, sell a bunch of product, and then let those folks move on. Rinse and repeat with a new set of folks who won't really have much of a clue how little effort you put into the new release since they never were involved with any previous releases.
Us bloggers, on the other hand, have steel trap memories...or at least years' and years' worth of blog archives to go back through to find any instance when a company reused the same photograph on two different cards or misspelled a name or any other countless number of "mistakes" a company might do. We, as bloggers, are quick to denounce, decry, and destroy anything new that we don't like (whether or not it's even meant for us). Again, back to the "in my day" rose-colored glasses. We might actually be the dinosaurs that we used to think our parents were.
And that whooshing sound you hear? That might the last comet we'll ever see in the blogging sky.
On the other hand, perhaps its not all doom-and-gloom. Perhaps we can evolve rather than go extinct. Perhaps we can provide value to the card companies (and in turn, they can provide us with value). Perhaps our friendships we've made over the years are worth more than the physical cards and trades. Perhaps having only twenty people read a blog post but having 15 of them be totally engaged, commenting, etc. is better than having 400+ people visit with nary a comment. Perhaps this is a downturn but not a disastrous drop-off in the blogging world. Perhaps opening a pack and immediately thinking "I need to set this aside for Kerry or Dennis or Matt or Greg or Jim or Rod or Fuji or..." is actually the pinnacle of blogging. Perhaps it's a case of those that still blog are the best of the best, the survivors, the dedicated few.
See that's the thing about warning signs. Is that sound that I hear in my own head the canary chirping happily in the coal mine or the comet coming to knock us all out once and for all?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's note: I recognize that this post is completely outside the normal realm of what I write about both in terms of content and style. I treated the entire exercise as more of a free flow of thoughts rather than as a final exam term paper. Choppy, disjointed, perhaps even contradictory but all of it very much real feelings and thoughts in the moment as I wrote this post. The one thing that I do know for sure is that I've been suffering from serious blogging motivations over the past month or so. I've done all that I can think of to fight through it (for example, my Top 10 lists were an example of me trying to force myself to write about something interesting for the blog when motivation was nearly non-existent). I don't know if my malaise about blogging in general is due to my own burnout or its truly a sign of a dying light. Either way, know that I'm super grateful for anyone that I've had the pleasure of interacting with through my blog here at Nachos Grande. Whether you simply read my blog once in a blue moon or comment almost daily, whether we've completed 10+ trades, no trades, or anything in between I truly appreciate this community of people and sometimes you simply need to tell people you appreciate them (a fact I know all too well as a teacher)! And with that, I'll leave this here for any discussions that may take place (or perhaps this will be a blog with 14 total views and quickly get lost to the ether). Like with all things, time will tell (and when it does, we'll almost assuredly say it was actually better back in the day).
"Back in the day, we only had two television channels and we felt lucky." or
"Back in the day, kids actually respected their elders." or
"Back in the day, I used to ride in the back of a pick-up truck and drink out of a hose and I turned out fine." or
Well, you get the idea.
It seems like everyone views their own history with a pair of rose colored glasses. And frankly, that's probably a good idea - in that way you can take the lessons you learned growing up but forget (at least some of) the pain that went with those lessons.
In fact, I'm reminded of this "song" that came out back in 1999 a particular part of the song has always stuck with me.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but
be patient with those who supply it
Advice is a form of nostalgia
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off
painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth
Where am I trying to go with all of this? Glad you asked.
You see, I can't help but wonder if we've reached the point where the baseball card bubble is about to burst (again). Or, perhaps more importantly, have we reached the point where the baseball blogging bubble is at a bursting point.
Anecdotally, it sure seems like baseball card blogging is on a downswing. For example, the number of new blogs popping up seems to pale in comparison to the number of established blogs going dark. I also seem to recall reading passing comments on a number of fellow bloggers' posts similar sentiments that blogging is on the way out. Finally, as a blogger who writes for a blog that has had the good fortune of being fairly popular within our little bubble (over 1.3 million visitors have visited my blog over the years which is totally insane), opportunities for most bloggers seem to have virtually vanished. To my memory, in the past couple of years Greg (aka Night Owl) parlayed his blog writing (and his newspaper career) into an awesome opportunity for writing for Beckett and a bunch of us bloggers got sent a free box of (virtually identical) cards from SportsCards.com. Other than that though, nothing.
It wasn't all that long ago that we had Upper Deck working with Junior Junkie on amazing opportunities, card companies reaching out to bloggers (not me though) for free products and reviews, and even things like Gint-a-Cuffs which was sponsored in part by Topps. To my knowledge, none of that seems to be happening like it was in the past which seems like it's a sign things are on a downswing (or at least the companies no longer treat blogging/bloggers as an important market segment or market driver).
Okay, so what's the big deal if us bloggers get ignored by companies. That's not why we do this anyhow which is definitely true. However, I do think it's perhaps the canary in the coal mine and if that canary stops singing then we should at least be wary about what's happening.
Moving on from anecdotes...let's look at the actual numbers.
Personally, I measure blogging to a certain extent by two different sets of numbers.
The first number (and the most important number to me) is blog trading.
Ultimately, my blog is an amazing way for me to connect with like (and not-so-like) minded collectors around the country/world and very often those connections lead to trading cards. Over the 7,056 posts that I've written on my blog to date, I've connected with countless people and virtually all of them have been amazing human beings. I've received far more goodies in the mail than I ever thought possible. I've accumulated more Barry Larkin cards than I even knew existed back in June of 2008 when I started this blog. I've sent mail to every US state, many Canadian territories, and a number of foreign countries - each package holding a mix of baseball cards, LEGO, or even things like t-shirts, bobbleheads, and books. Heck, I've even met someone through the blogs where I eventually joined in his fantasy baseball league and a few years after that he came to visit my wife and I and spent the night at our house. That sort of connection and friendship doesn't happen on sports message boards or Blowout Cards forums.
But as with all good things, vibrant trading and connections like that have seemingly been put on life support at some time in the past couple of years. Don't get me wrong, I still have a number of amazing bloggers out there that I trade with but the sheer volume of trades is way, way down (for comparison I did 166 trades in 2011 but only 82 trades in 2018 and thus far in 2019 combined). For the most part, I think the trades I get in the mail today are actually far superior to trades from a six or seven years ago but those awesome trades are now coming from a rather small subset of people. Good blogger friends to be sure but it's now a perfect case of quality over quantity.
Quality over quantity is perfect for me personally, but without actual growth atrophy is inevitable.
The second number that is important to me when judging the current status of baseball card blogging is much less debatable: readership numbers.
Here's a small sample from my blog's readership from a couple of years ago as compared to the entries I've posted in the past week or so:
A couple of comments here. First, the numbers in the red ovals are the reader numbers for each post. The comparison here isn't even close and I didn't try to cherry pick my best numbers ever. In fact, I simply clicked back a number of blog post screens until I got to 2016 where the numbers were much, much higher!
Before number purists get too upset here, yes, I know the comparison isn't 100% fair in that older entries have the advantage of time - people may stumble upon a blog post from 2016 in 2019 and that will up the count for that particular post today. And while that's undeniable true, I don't think it's particularly relevant - especially since it's unlikely that every post in the week long window will have had such a presence on current Google searches.
-----
So yes, the numbers seem to show that blogging is on a downswing - both in terms of active bloggers (such as traders and blog authors) as well as in terms of active blog readers. Now, this whole thing could simply be that people are growing tired of my particular blog but I get the impression that that isn't necessarily the case. I'm not likely to make many people's "Mount Rushmore" of bloggers but there is something to be said for longevity if nothing else. Actually, if anything I've gotten better response rates to my blogs now as opposed to the past (just look at the difference in the comments column to the left of the red ovals). Again, it's quality over quantity which is fine for me but not for the blogger market as a whole.
----
Alright, at this point if you are still with me then here's a question for you: What can/should card companies do to encourage blogging? Or, perhaps alternatively, should card companies care about blogging at all in today's climate? Are card companies better off simply marketing to the flavor-of-the-month Twitter crowd?
Cynically, I actually think Topps, Panini, and others are probably doing a good short term business decision by focusing on the ADD-fest that is Twitter. Appeal to a crowd, sell a bunch of product, and then let those folks move on. Rinse and repeat with a new set of folks who won't really have much of a clue how little effort you put into the new release since they never were involved with any previous releases.
Us bloggers, on the other hand, have steel trap memories...or at least years' and years' worth of blog archives to go back through to find any instance when a company reused the same photograph on two different cards or misspelled a name or any other countless number of "mistakes" a company might do. We, as bloggers, are quick to denounce, decry, and destroy anything new that we don't like (whether or not it's even meant for us). Again, back to the "in my day" rose-colored glasses. We might actually be the dinosaurs that we used to think our parents were.
And that whooshing sound you hear? That might the last comet we'll ever see in the blogging sky.
On the other hand, perhaps its not all doom-and-gloom. Perhaps we can evolve rather than go extinct. Perhaps we can provide value to the card companies (and in turn, they can provide us with value). Perhaps our friendships we've made over the years are worth more than the physical cards and trades. Perhaps having only twenty people read a blog post but having 15 of them be totally engaged, commenting, etc. is better than having 400+ people visit with nary a comment. Perhaps this is a downturn but not a disastrous drop-off in the blogging world. Perhaps opening a pack and immediately thinking "I need to set this aside for Kerry or Dennis or Matt or Greg or Jim or Rod or Fuji or..." is actually the pinnacle of blogging. Perhaps it's a case of those that still blog are the best of the best, the survivors, the dedicated few.
See that's the thing about warning signs. Is that sound that I hear in my own head the canary chirping happily in the coal mine or the comet coming to knock us all out once and for all?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's note: I recognize that this post is completely outside the normal realm of what I write about both in terms of content and style. I treated the entire exercise as more of a free flow of thoughts rather than as a final exam term paper. Choppy, disjointed, perhaps even contradictory but all of it very much real feelings and thoughts in the moment as I wrote this post. The one thing that I do know for sure is that I've been suffering from serious blogging motivations over the past month or so. I've done all that I can think of to fight through it (for example, my Top 10 lists were an example of me trying to force myself to write about something interesting for the blog when motivation was nearly non-existent). I don't know if my malaise about blogging in general is due to my own burnout or its truly a sign of a dying light. Either way, know that I'm super grateful for anyone that I've had the pleasure of interacting with through my blog here at Nachos Grande. Whether you simply read my blog once in a blue moon or comment almost daily, whether we've completed 10+ trades, no trades, or anything in between I truly appreciate this community of people and sometimes you simply need to tell people you appreciate them (a fact I know all too well as a teacher)! And with that, I'll leave this here for any discussions that may take place (or perhaps this will be a blog with 14 total views and quickly get lost to the ether). Like with all things, time will tell (and when it does, we'll almost assuredly say it was actually better back in the day).
I periodically pass through the zone of wondering why I do this. I started Padrographs back in 2008 when there seemed to be a lot more people blogging. It seems to me now that baseball card collecting is trying to enter another phase, where the card companies bypass the middleman and sell directly to the consumer. However I think they are not building the future of the hobby, because so much of the product is upper echelon, high $$ stuff. I make a comfortable salary, but I can't afford many of the products. Also since I collect a small market team they often is not a good distribution of teams. I can't count how many times I have bought a blaster and opened it and not gotten a single Padres cards. It is simpler for me to go to eBay and find the particular card I want. I think MLB could do a better job of reaching out to fans of their teams who don't live with in certain geographical boundaries. Also treat all the teams equitably, I get catalogs of MLB stuff where the small markets are even available. I have written this in freeform also, please forgive the lack of coherency. Thank you for speaking what is on your mind. I hope you got the PWE I sent you.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and topic. I haven't been blogging as long as many, but it has been a few years, and enough to see the ebb and flow in views similar to what you are talking about. Honestly, I don't put much worry to it though because, selfishly, I began blogging more for myself and being able to document card collecting - the highs and lows - so I could always go back more easily to remember. What I didn't expect, but has been the best result of it, is what you touch on last - how connecting to like-minded collectors has been fun not only from adding to my collection in a way I never would have been able to without the blog, but be able to connect with others and provide them with cards and do the same for them.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely the quality of the connections that count - I'd trade 1,000 views for a handful of views which result in some trading partners/friends as I find it is the people that help make the collecting that much more fun.
It's gotta be partly seasonal. I know the monthly card shows this time of year always slow way down.
ReplyDeleteI've had the same slack attitude about posting too. I kept up M-W-F for months, but now it's all fallen apart, even though I still have several state tour shopping posts, a ton of trade bait posts from a big pile of monster boxes I got, and a couple regular series that I've let sit for a long time.
My readership numbers look like yours. I feel a bit vindicated that I'm not as far behind the "big guys" as I thought. I don't ever see the social media part, so I can't say if people are moving or staying there instead of on blogs.
Would have been nice to get a free box of something to review, but I'm never lucky enough to show up in time for things like that.
DeleteDiscount some high viewer counts because of those bots that latch on to posts with "cardboard" in the title.
As a newer blogger, I don't have much data to go on, but for this discussion I did go back and look at my page views from September 2017 and compared them to this September's numbers. In September 2017, my page views ranged from 53-164 and I had an average of 82 views per post. (I excluded one post that for some random reason has over 300 move views than the next highest and would have completely messed up my average.) Excluding my most recent post, this month my page views have ranged from 28-60 for an average of 45 views per post. It's been a dual edged sword for me. Yes, I have less total readers, but as I've established myself with other bloggers/collectors, I feel I'm getting more regular readers who not only check out my posts frequently but also comment more. I feel blogging is the internet equivalent of vinyl records - antiquated, but adored, and never really goes out of style! You keep posting, I'll keep reading!
ReplyDeleteA few things:
ReplyDelete1. Don't compare any current reader numbers with the fall of 2016. That was the period of Inexplicable Clicks in which view numbers soared during period of the presidential election and bots were blamed. That is an outlier period.
2. However, view numbers are down in the last couple of months when compared to that period a year ago. It traditionally is a "down period" for blog views (another one is coming up in November) but it's noticeably down this year.
3. No complaints about comments. I wrote a post in January that comments were better than ever and that's still true (some bloggers refuse to comment tho and that I will never understand).
4. Trading card companies HAVE moved on to Twitter/instagram and whatever the latest, greatest thing is, that's what businesses must do. I don't get into what companies should do, but do think it's smart though to stay connected to blogs as those are your most dedicated collectors. I know that Sooz, when she was at Topps, read blogs and thought it was important as an employee there. Hopefully she's passed that concept along to whoever has replaced her.
5. Whenever I feel like generating a post such as yours I try to reflect on the first months of blogging and how I wrote with hardly a care about views or comments. Both were negligible but there I was posting twice a day. That's the most important thing.
I still read them. :)
DeleteI sometimes think of bloggers as that strange guy / gal in the corner of the card show or swap meet in the middle of nowhere with boxes of loose junk wax cards he wants to sell for like a dollar a piece - no one cares anymore about any particular topic you think is so blog worthy to make a post about it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in 2008, blogging was more of a mainstream thing for collectors, like it was the first thing you'd go to - in 2019 however, I've noticed collectors have more options to join others in other online communities that seem to thrive in their own unique ways.
YouTube
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook groups
Forums
Maybe being a blogger and having a blog is at the bottom of those lists.
What if Blogger/WordPress didn't bother telling you how many views a post got? Then it's a non-issue and we're smack dab in a golden age, rolling down that happytime river right now. Maybe the cardsphere community's getting smaller, but more tight-knit. Blogging might not be (relatively) "cool" at the moment, but things like that tend to be cyclical. Helping out fellow collectors from all walks of life, old and not-so-old, that's what it's about. Sharing thoughts on cards, researching interesting topics, and the thrill of "the chase". If you enjoy reading and writing about cards, keep on doing it, and don't worry about the rest.. that's what I tell myself.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I agree with everything you wrote but I also recognize that in the past year I've maybe traded with like two new people and everyone else is someone that I have a long trade history with. That'd be fine except well over half the people I've traded with during the lifetime of my blog are no longer active at all. Put a different way, I'm losing more trading partners each year than I seem to be gaining and to me that's a problem! Maybe I should be doing more on Twitter or something but that's not really my style.
DeleteI like Blogger because those are my kind of people. They value the cards, not the almighty dollar.
ReplyDeleteThe card companies will always chase the $ and I think that's why we've seen a shift away from blogging. People are in it for the quick flip and prospecting. The "new crowd" doesn't see a Barry Larkin card that will easily fit in a PWE and fill a hole in your collection. They see a Hall of Fame card that they can make a potential profit on if the conditions are right.
I love reading cardboard posts like your vintage A&G posts and Dimebox's FrankenSet posts. You know, posts from actual collectors, not tweets from investors. I'm here to stay.
I think it is the concept of newness/uniqueness . When blogs started to emerge in I would say 2008, ever blog post was new fresh, you were reading about someone's first take on a 1987 Topps card or a 1962 Topps card. Over the years many blogs and blog post provided their take on a 1987 or 1962 Topps card. As time passes by more and more is written about 1987 and 1962 Topps and that nothing eventually really new has emerged from those sets to read about.
ReplyDeleteNot quite an analogy but, I give you my experience with College football, growing up in the 1970s there was only 1 or 2 college football games on TV a week. It was something unique to watch, must see TV for me every weekend. Today there at literally 25 college football games on a week, and I don't watch any (as it is overwhelming). It is no longer rare to be valued.
That's certainly an interesting way of looking at things and you could definitely be on to something. Collecting (in general, not just baseball cards) is almost always an extension of "what's cool in the moment." I always think of Beanie Babies as a perfect example of collecting gone horribly awry for people (and that is a big reason why I collect cards for fun, not for money)!
DeleteGreat post. I usually try not to concern myself with # of views... but I've definitely noticed a dip in 2019. Especially the past few weeks. I'd still write even if blogging died... but my style would change for sure. When I started my blog, the original goal was to document my collecting history. However I'd be lying if I said that I don't cater to my audience these days.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's weird in that we all like to say we blog for ourselves but I think everyone is lying if they don't also do it at least partially for everyone else (otherwise we'd all just write in our own little private notebooks, right)?
DeleteFirst off, I don't blog for myself, I do it for the interactions with other collectors. Even after doing it for four years now, I still don't enjoy the actual act of putting posts together, but I love the comradery, so I'll probably be blogging for as long as that's still there.
ReplyDeleteComments are definitely more important than views, as view counts are too easily skewed by bots, which don't seem to be going anywhere. Just the other day I was looking for an old post of mine to link to, and came across the blogger Secret Santa wrap-up post that I did back in January, and the only reason I noticed it was because of the 3,300+ views... that's a lot of views! But in no way do I believe that that number is representative of how many people actually read that post. It's likely that only around 50-100 real human people clicked on that, and the rest were bots. So, like everyone else has already said, don't pay too much attention to that view count.
Blogging is sort of outdated, and probably isn't as sexy as Twitter, but it's still got a hell of a lot more soul than Twitter, and that'll never change. Blogging is for collectors, folks that truly interested in cards or whatever else it is that they blog about, this is evident by them spending so much time to blog (we all know how time consuming it can be) -- Twitter on the other hand (for the most part), caters to the flavor of the moment type of collectors, the "sick hitz" crowd, the sort who won't be sticking around for the long run. Those types don't read blogs because they don't share, and certainly can't relate, to the kind of passion that bloggers emit. And if that's the sort that Panini and Topps want to cater to, well, awesome, I just hope these companies realize that those kind of "collectors" are going to be the first ones to bounce when the prices start going south on their hitz.
This was a solid post, you certainly raised some valid points, and it was good to see so many folks respond to said points.
Oh, and on a semi-related note, I am now following the blog, my apologies for not doing so much sooner, seems like you've been sort of flying under my radar.
I have been thinking of this subject myself. I try not to focus on views but I have to. What's the point of writing for myself if nobody reads it? And comments, well, I get them rarely as it is. So how do I know if anyone is reading what I write. And so far this year has had big drops in comments. I can write about anything and I still can't get a comment. It's a little disappointing. I want the feedback and conversations when I share things. As for views, those, especially this month have dipped so low I haven't seen numbers like that since I started. That's how bad things have been this year for my blogging.
ReplyDeleteI don't use any other social media site other than TWitter and that's for trading purposes since there isn't a lot of collectors in the blogosphere who really have football to trade or non sport stuff which is what I mainly collect. It's made up of a lot of baseball collectors which is nothing wrong with that.
As for Twitter as a place for true collectors, that's not the case. Jon nailed that as a place for flippers and sick hits guys. I dont' do a lot of interaction on there for collecting or show much on there. I do my links though as that's my biggest traffic area.
Blogging is a unique place where true collectors collect. Not flip. Some do custom cards for fun, some send PWE base cards in trades and we all love it. This is a great community but sometimes I fear it's slowing down and going away as you pointed out and as my numbers have shown.
Though to me, I would rather have to spend 10 minutes reading a longer blog post and seeing pictures than watching a half hour YouTube video or listening to a three hour podcast that doesn't feel as personal as blogging.