news-record.com

You know the talk about how newspapers and broadcast television are mature industries, without much future growth potential?

Looks like blogging is fast becoming a mature industry, too. According to a new Pew survey, the percentage of 18-29 year-old bloggers has dropped 9 percent in the past two years.

A new study has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits have become increasingly brief, and mobile. Tech experts say it doesn't mean blogging is going away. Rather, it's gone the way of the telephone and e-mail -- still useful, just not sexy.

Instead, they’re using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

With social networking has come the ability to do a quick status update and that has ''kind of sucked the life out of long-form blogging,'' says Amanda Lenhart, a Pew senior researcher and lead author of the latest study.

We’re not shelving our blogs any more than we’d shelve the paper. But you can’t stand still. You go to where the people are.

I’ve found that I tend to devote more attention to Twitter than the blogs. I use them differently. In the case of the social networks, the conversation is more diverse and robust. The idea exchange is vibrant, and linking is plentiful.

Join us on on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  And read the paper, too.