In Over Your Head

Protip: Your inactive blog makes you irrelevant

If you aren’t current, you may as well not exist.

This is my conclusion after reading Sylvain Carle recent post (in French, sorry) that tells me who inspires him in Montreal, the city I call my home. The gist is the following:

Carle lists 21 people that inspire him, and I like him a lot, so I want to find out more about the people I don’t know on his list. I open a bunch of tabs, as you probably would, to look at what these guys are up to. Here’s what I find:

  • A handful of active blogs (7 or so, good for you!)
  • About 5 Twitter accounts (maybe no blog?)
  • About 5 inactive blogs (no content in months)
  • One hacked website (yes, really)

The rest were company pages or landing pages with no content or easy entry point.

If you read this and you were on Sylvain’s list, which are you?

What excuse do you have for only having a Twitter account? Why has your content not been updated, in some cases, since 2009 or earlier**? The only thing this tells me is that you’re inactive and not current and that I don’t need to pay attention to you.

Each one of these people had a chance to reach a few more people by being cited as “having influenced” Carle. A few lived up to the promise. Many did not.

Which kind are you?

** Your “sorry I haven’t posted in a while” update doesn’t count, sorry!

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Joe Gannon

Comments

15 responses to “Protip: Your inactive blog makes you irrelevant”

  1. blork Avatar
    blork

    On the other hand, I have a nine-year-old blog with over 500,000 words of content and more than three years of constant Twittering, and I’m still irrelevant.

    I have consciously bowed out of relevance. Irrelevance is the new cupcake! 😉

    Reply
    1. Julien Avatar
      Julien

      hahaha awesome 🙂 — particularly since I read your blog more than most others.

      Reply
  2. Mars Dorian Avatar
    Mars Dorian

    Yep, a blog not updated is a cemetery, only visited by the dead. As long as you are alive, don’t let it happen to you 😉

    Reply
  3. Kyle Chowning Avatar
    Kyle Chowning

    So I get this. It makes sense. However, when does blogging become noise…just like the millions of other bloggers out there?

    Reply
  4. Todd Schnick Avatar
    Todd Schnick

    But just cuz you write regularly doesn’t make you relevant either. In fact, it is when you don’t care if you are relevant, that you may become so…

    Reply
  5. Judy Helfand Avatar
    Judy Helfand

    I am trying to understand why Carle would write about sites/blogs before first determining if the sites were still viable. Does it make you question his influence on you? Could it be he didn’t care enough about his readers to check the condition of the sites?

    I wrote about this today, Bystander Effect. I talked about Chris Brogan and you, among others.
    http://bit.ly/dcyEkx

    Reply
  6. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    But does it make you authentic?
    Do you really owe an apology for not posting?

    Reply
  7. John McLschlan Avatar
    John McLschlan

    I’m with Judy on this one. I’m surprised the sites weren’t checked.

    I guess to me, the only crime would be if one if the sites in question boasted about how relevant they were but didn’t post or tweet, or do both. If they themselves aren’t trying to be relevant, what is that anyone’s concern?

    Reply
    1. Julien Avatar
      Julien

      I agree people can do what they want John, I just think it’s a missed opportunity.

      Reply
  8. Ricardo Bueno Avatar
    Ricardo Bueno

    We live in a time of information overload and an overabundance of choice. We use filters to manage our time and the content we consume (targeting the quality content of course). If a site hasn’t been updated, I’m sorry, it’s just not gonna cut it.

    Reply
  9. Sylvain Carle Avatar
    Sylvain Carle

    I did check all the sites before linking. I think it might have been better just to link to a google search result for each.

    But what is the best link to define someone?

    Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook page, Wikipedia entry? Albert Einstein is relevant to Physic but I would not link to his blog…

    The real problem is that we haven’t solved the identity identifier problem yet.

    Maybe WebFinger will get us to a decentralized collection of identity facets. The plain truth is that in 2010, this is not a solved problem yet…

    So my list was provided with links to the “less worse” internet resource I could find (Mike site was not hacked when I published last week).

    The real missing part was noted by Julien, not really the hyperlink but the “why”. Why are these people inspiring? That’s the real value, you are right on that, Julien.

    (And don’t be sorry it’s in French, Google translate is sooooooo easy to use, no need to apologize)!

    Reply
  10. Judy Helfand Avatar
    Judy Helfand

    It was nice to hear from Mr. Carle. I like when he says: “I did check all the sites before linking.” I think we forget how “transient” the internet can be and often is. It would be wonderful if we solved the “identity identifier problem”, then we would only have to maintain one version of ourselves.

    Reply
  11. Polly Patterson Avatar
    Polly Patterson

    As a marketer, I hear you and agree: if you aren’t speaking, you aren’t engaging; you can’t be relevant if you don’t seek to engage.

    I suppose I’m one of the irrelevant in that I don’t yet blog or twitter. I’m listening though.

    At the core of my passivity is my struggle with how to be in the moment, how to strive to be relevant in the midst of so much…well, chatter. Present company excluded for sure as you have prompted me to reach out. A rarity to be sure! I spend an hour or more daily practicing yoga, meditation or stretching at the least, in a personal quest to quiet the chatter already in my mind.

    Even at a time when our own previously individual, unique identities are merging and their very ownership is fluid; how many voices – or “voiced incidents per day” if you will – can or should even very bright, highly competent people process?

    Reply
  12. Siddhartha Avatar
    Siddhartha

    Just had to say, I found this line hilarious:

    “What excuse do you have for only having a Twitter account?”

    Maybe it’s just me, but that’s rich.

    Reply
  13. Anne Wiltshire Avatar
    Anne Wiltshire

    Totally agree, but am wondering how often is the “right” frequency of posting? All I can handle right now is once a week and not for lack of subjects – is that less relevant?

    Reply

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