In 2017 I noticed that a number of blogs listed in my blogroll had been closed down and that no entries had been made on several others for months and in some cases years. 2018 has begun with some blog writers announcing they will no longer publish any posts.
After years of being told that running a blog was a must for our business, it now seems that it might not be such a good idea (I explored some reasons for this in this post a couple of months ago).
So is blogging dead? And if colleagues no longer read blogs, where have they gone instead?
If you are a translator and/or interpreter, I would be grateful if you could complete this survey to help me answer these questions. I will keep this survey open until the end of February and publish the results on this blog.
Thank you for your input!
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels
Explore this blog by starting with the categories page, which includes a section on all the surveys I’ve run.
Tranix Translation & Editing Services 
Hi Nikki, you’re right, the blogging world has gone rather quiet. My blogs haven’t seen much action lately, either! I haven’t found the time to blog lately, but have a couple of posts in the pipeline. I’ll be interested in seeing the results of your survey, and hearing any thoughts you have on why blogging seems to have fallen out of favour!
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Before posting this survey today I went through my bogroll and deleted all the broken links and noticed that many blogs have not had any updates since 2016 or earlier. It will be interesting to find out why, but I suspect that the blogging world is saturated. We simply cannot keep up with so many.
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As I am creating my website, I also wanted to have my own blog but I have noticed the same, Nikki! Many of the blogs which I follow, they haven’t been active for a while… As well as for Twitter, I have noticed that many translators just share articles and even old blog posts or many jokes about languages…. But I haven’t found many interesting contents! I don’t know if you had the same feeling too… .
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Hi Caroline, I think many translators are active on Facebook and don’t have much time for Twitter. Twitter is a bit like marmite (as we say in the UK); you either love it or you hate it. I have seen a few interesting conversations on Twitter lately, but it is more difficult to have a discussion on Twitter than it is on LinkedIn or Facebook.
As for blogging, a lot of posts inevitably just rehash the same ideas over and over again. While this might be interesting for newcomers, it becomes quite boring for colleagues that have been around for a few years.
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Thank you for the structure of the survey, Nikki. I passed it along.
I opted not to create a blog when I put my new website together. There was no way I could keep a publishing schedule. And I knew that from experience: my professional schedule is somewhat erratic (translation and interpreting assignments don’t schedule their visits). I also had curated a blog, created and managed a few newsletters. Currently, I am responsible for one blog, and even with four authors on a rotating schedule for one piece a month, I had to cut publication of brand new material to twice a month. Writing is demanding!
My website has an “Articles/Artigos” section instead of a blog. I update it as I produce new material, which can be twice in one month, then six months later. It also allows me to republish old material as I find them on my explorations of the internet.
As a reader of professional [blogs created by practitioners] and industry [software developers and agencies] related blogs, I felt there was a lot of repeat, coinciding views of the same subject, resulting in a lot of “echo” in the blog world.
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I know some bloggers do commit to a schedule for their posts, but I have always avoided that so as not to place more stress upon myself because, as you say, writing is demanding and I don’t always have the time to polish something.
Inevitably there is a lot of echo, and that is coming across in the survey responses. People want to read something new, interesting and well-written.
Thanks for completing the survey and sharing!
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Hi Nikki,
Thanks for this interesting topic! I’ve completed the survey. I look forward to know what other translators think about it 🙂
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I think everyone’s too busy commenting in Facebook groups to write blogs these days!
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Perhaps, but it’s far easier to get information from blogs than Facebook. I find threads quite messy, with several replies all over the place. And some groups are for members only, so only a few know what is being said. Blogs are there for everyone to access. And so far the survey respondents still prefer to read blogs for information.
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No doubt, blogs are better for finding information. But I don’t think we are seeing less blog posts because people don’t like reading them anymore. I suspect the translators who’d otherwise be writing those posts are now saying what they have to say on Facebook. Your message might fade from view quickly on FB, but it takes less effort to write something there. You also get a more immediate reaction from a comment-happy audience.
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Dear Nikki,
As a blogger myself, I really appreciate your initiative of conducting the survey. I’ve just answered it and look forward to the results.
I agree to the points made by everybody who commented above. People really seem to prefer spending time posting jokes and commenting (or ranting) on Facebook groups, but then I don’t know if these same people are the ones who would blog anyway. Running a blog is demanding and requires dedication and a keen eye to what may be interesting to write about. I, myself, prefer having an editorial calendar, rather than waiting for having the time, because we never have the time and may end up never writing.
I believe blogging is worthwhile in a way or another, so I don’t plan on giving up on mine so soon. Therefore, this survey will be of great help to me and my readers. Thank you so much, Nikki! 🙂
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Glad you have no plans to stop blogging at the moment!
You’re right, it’s very demanding running a blog. I certainly had no idea when I started out that my blog would end up where it is today or everything that writing one would entail.
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Hi there Nikki! Here in Spain 2010-2011 were the years when all translators, seasoned and newly arrived, were opening blogs. Even students who were not still professionally translating. Since then, most personal blogs have been gradually shutting down, with a few exceptions (Scheherezade Surià, Merche García Lledó, Pablo Muñoz, Noemí Risco, Leon Hunter -although he is not writing posts himself-). Thanks for your initiative! I just completed the survey. 🙂
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Thanks very much for your comments and for completing the survey. Do you have any idea why so many people have shut down their blogs?
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I guess this was a huge hype. Students were told on the Internet and during events that they MUST have a digital presence. Being so easy to open (and naming it; so many of them had terrible names, haha), there were loads of people doing so. I guess many soon found out they were talking about the same stuff or rapidly run out of new ideas. Or got too busy translating (rates in Spain are lower than in many other Western countries).
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I think you’re right. Thanks for your interesting insights. I don’t believe MA courses should be telling students to open blogs any more, especially not when they first start their careers.
And I translate from ES to EN, so I know all about the low rates offered in Spain.
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