“Google Says Blogging is Dead” one headline screams. BusinessWeek asserts blogs are being “Twitterized” — that long, thoughtful posts are being replaced by more mundane, shallow bursts of information.

So what’s really happening? Should my clients reconsider my advice to blog?

Trends, Hype and Blogging

First, a blog isn’t a holy relic with supernatural powers (as some in the blogosphere might suggest). Nor is it the Ultimate Marketing Tool business has long pined for.

A blog is simply a powerful, easy-to-use electronic publishing platform. They’re exceptional tools for small and medium-sized businesses, even if only used as one-way conduits for pushing information to customers and prospects.

They’re affordable, they’re responsive, and it doesn’t require an advanced course in nuclear physics to get something posted on the company site. Once an article is posted, blogs automatically help disseminate the information, amplifying its reach via RSS, e-mail, tags, links, etc.

So why are they dying?

What Blogs Aren’t

The answer, of course, is that blogs aren’t dying in any meaningful sense. New blogs are created every second, but not as many as before. In a hype-driven media, slowing growth apparently now equals impending death.

And let’s be clear — growth is slowing among personal blogs, and nobody with a half a brain is surprised by that. Most human beings are not writers, yet approximately 15.5 million of them thought they’d give it a try, thinking writing was a pleasant pastime, without strain or worry.

Naturally, they were mostly wrong about that, and it’s hardly surprising that a large number of people are trading in their blogs for twitter-sized communications that are more stream of consciousness than moderated thought.

It’s a perfect fit in a culture that sometimes feels a little disposable, and any visit to the twitter site would tend to confirm it.

Wither the Business Blog?

I don’t believe Twitter’s going to offer much impact on small and medium-sized businesses. (Somebody will prove me wrong of course. It’s simply a matter of time.)

Lifestyle advertisers like Coca-Cola and Nike will likely find a way to utilize it — turning a largely free service used by teenagers into a multi-million dollar division of the marketing department — but my average client? I still don’t see much point.

Real, thoughtful content is still the lifeblood of the Internet, and “thoughtful” is hard to communicate in 140 characters.

Clearly, the use of blogs among businesses will continue to grow (and yes, quote me on that one). They will transform the way some businesses communicate, and have little impact on others.

They’re a useful, powerful, inexpensive tool.

Hype, of course, will continue to fly like crap in the monkey house, and it’s likely we’ll soon see other screaming headlines telling us blogging’s a dead horse, that it just laid down and died, when anyone with two eyes will know it just ran by and is getting stronger with every furlong.

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