This interesting blog entry was quoted in the I-Blog Discussion List:

Blogs will fade away within two years. What we know now as blogs will not be recognized by web users of tommorrow, not as blogs, but as websites. Website technologies and blogging technologies will converge into one. People take it for granted that webpages can be edited using their browser. People will also take it for granted that any webpages can be subscribed to with a single-click. Web browsers will be changed to support all this and more like highlighting of changes.

- Quote taken from Don Park's Weblog

Two things stick out for me here ...

1. I can see the term blog disappearing or becoming uncool (if it even is cool now). There has been and will continue to be blog-like sites. Business sites will borrow aspects from blogs. Content management systems already exist that use easy and fast browser-based content adding systems as used in most blog software. It is a matter of spreading the word to end-users about these systems and the increase in blog publishers will certainly help this education process. Business sites will increasingly feature space amongst the selection of documents on each site for frequently updated news or personal publishing by the staff of the company.



2. I think the comment about people subscribing with a single-click is on the money. I love this concept. The tools exist now to replace email newsletters as we know them. The amount of spam I receive increases exponentially. I attribute some of this in part to dodgy email list owners who pass on my email address. It makes sense to me that just as I don't give out my personal postal address to all and sundry the tendency will become stronger to be selective about who has access to my personal email address. Why give out my email address to someone when I can have News Aggregator software download the content automatically? This has advantages/disadvantages for both me as consumer of email newsletters or blogs and the publisher. I am going to think about that some more!