The conversation, they say, is now distributed: from microcontent networks like Twitter and Friendfeed, to conversations happening on Facebook walls, to Tumblr’s freeform content sharing, to the distribution and aggregation of comments through services like Disqus and IntenseDebate.
What then, of blogs?
At Mashable, we happen to think blogs served a vital role in social media, news coverage and analysis in 2008. No, they didn’t break news the very second it occurred - like social media’s new love, Twitter - but blogs continued to provide deeper insights than those afforded by a 140 character text box; they provided more thought, more time to ponder, more depth, more breadth and substance.
Though seemingly at odds with the increasingly short attention spans of the web’s early adopters, blogs continue to serve a crucial role: to inform us, to entertain us and to let us communicate our view of the world....
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