How Long Can This Last? – First Post

How long can this last and what’s next? That is the magic question on the mind of every marketer and business man and woman around the world. I am of course referring to social networking, blogging, and the online world in general. Everyone wants to get in on it while it’s hip and everyone wants to use it to his or her advantage. But how long will these things remain hip and cool and what will replace them when they lose their edge?

After attending a bully pulpit series at the College of Charleston, I started to wonder this question. I am a sophomore at CofC and pursuing a duel major in Business Administration with a Marketing Emphasis and Corporate Communications. I am in SIFE at CofC and was in DECA in high school. I am currently working for a couple of companies doing marketing work and this is the field I intend to work in when I graduate and possibility own my agency one day. But that aside, as I sat and listened to the forum, moderated by former NBC white house correspondent, John Palmer, I wondered how long the age of blogs will last.

The question came to me while listening to Julia Hood. Ms. Hood is the publishing director of PRWeek. She talked about her blog and how she thought it was “so cool” that people would respond to what she wrote so quickly and that she enjoyed reading the comments of her visitors. Everything about it was so new and novel to her and I felt like it one of my parents was talking about it. When blogs started out, it was a few young people looking for a new and cool way to share their thoughts and ideas. Blogging was cool because only a few people did it and each one was unique. But now that everyone has access to blogs and almost everyone is using them, I wonder how long they will stay cool and unique.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and there was a cool new rock song that I liked. I would sing it or play around my parents to show them how cool I was, but as soon as they said they liked it too, it wasn’t cool anymore. Can this happen with blogs? Once everyone starts using them, will the original bloggers move on? And where will they go? What is the next medium? And how long will it take for the business world to catch up?

I don’t have the answer to these questions but hope that those who read this may have some input. Am I alone in this thinking or do others have the same questions as me? And does anyone know what might be next? I am interested in this as a student who reads blogs for fun now and as marketer who may be using blogs for work in the near future. Share your comments with me and I will continue to update this as new information comes to me.

Check out my website: www.bsilverstein.info or my other blog: www.politicsofamillennial.blogspot.com.
Thank you.