I think the argument here between ephemerality and apparent immortality of blogs is missing an important point. Yes those things will always remain ‘alive’ long after they have ‘died’ but they may or may not remain relevant. I could have published a page or blog post about literally anything, it has the potential to always exist, but if no one reads it or searches for it its just taking up space and is functionally useless. So the networked space of blogs can help stave off obsolescence but it is still a reality that most will become obsolete just like many academic books if not just a little bit slower.
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13 September 2016 at 9.32 am
I think the argument here between ephemerality and apparent immortality of blogs is missing an important point. Yes those things will always remain ‘alive’ long after they have ‘died’ but they may or may not remain relevant. I could have published a page or blog post about literally anything, it has the potential to always exist, but if no one reads it or searches for it its just taking up space and is functionally useless. So the networked space of blogs can help stave off obsolescence but it is still a reality that most will become obsolete just like many academic books if not just a little bit slower.
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