Blogging's Future

Rick Garnett writes at Mirror of Justice that this week marks 15 years of his blogging there (and slightly less time blogging here). He closes the post as follows:

The flow (as well as the speed and, perhaps, the snarkiness) of the public conversation has changed over the last 15 years.  Twitter wasn't around.  Facebook, believe it or not, was launched on the same day as Mirror of Justice.  (Arguably, we've done better at our mission than they have at theirs!)  Legal practice, legal scholarship, and legal education have changed significantly, reflecting the ongoing Digitization of Everything.  A lot that used to be said, in paragraphs, on blogs is now said, with a few words (or emojis or gifs) on Twitter.

It's not clear to me what the future holds for this blog-venture, or for blogging generally.  I'd welcome others' thoughts! 

Paul has thought and written about this question in the past, so he is the best and most thoughtful person to answer. We had a brief exchange here about the migration of some blog writing to Facebook and, as Rick notes, to  Twitter in fewer words and emojis; there is some debate about how heavy that migration has been. As someone who is not on Facebook or Twitter and believes both have made discourse worse, I hope blogs do not go the way of the 8-track.

It may be that fewer blogs remain, but those that do will keep going strong, whether as a replacement for or complement to Facebook and Twitter. The Volokh Conspiracy announced that Irina Manta, Stephen Sachs, and Keith Whittington have joined as permanent authors. I am thrilled that Gerard has joined us, a move I expect will add new life to this site. And MoJ serves a particular and special message that is not easily replaced and so should continue.

In any event, congrats to Rick on 15 years.