The blogosphere may have reached its pinnacle some years ago, but some are doing their best to reignite their blogs. My friend Fredrik Wass last year decided to post every day for 100 days in a row in an effort to keep his blog more active. This year he is repeating the challenge, with one big difference. A lot of bloggers are accepting the challenge too, more than 500 Swedish bloggers have now decided to post 100 blog posts each for 100 days. In total, if all succeed, that would amount to 50,000 blog posts.
Fredrik explains the challenge with #blogg100.
“#Blogg100 is a blog challenge started by me, a Swedish tech and business journalist and blogger. It’s about finding your inner blogger voice again. By having to publish at least one post every day, 100 subsequent days in a row, hopefully you’ll end up with a number of great blog posts in the end. Facebook and Twitter have kept us busy posting short messages. This blog challenge is about getting back to that old familiar feeling of running your blog, interacting with your visitors and creating community. #Blogg100 was first arranged in 2012. This year there are about 520 Swedish blogs participating in the challenge. Blogging is time invested in your own platform, not someone else’s meeting space. There’s also an opportunity to reflect upon freedom of speech and the notion that we’re all able to speak our minds in a free and democratic society.”
I decided to ask Fredrik about the challenge.
Why did you decide to blog each day for a hundred days (last year)?
It was just a thing I came up with trying to find my old blog spirit again. Occupied with “short social media” like Twitter and Facebook, I’ve been blogging less the last couple of years. I knew putting myself up to the challenge of blogging everyday for 100 days in a row would be beneficial not only for traffic volume, comments and feeback, but also to inspire me and make me learn new stuff.
What did you learn about blogging the last time you blogged a hundred days in a row?
That it’s a mindset, and also that I really had missed the sense of community and engagement that blogging really is, especially when you’re not blogging for business or pr, just for your own pleasure. I got a lot more comments on my posts and also I felt more up to date with what was going on within my field of interest.
How many blogs are participating this year?
Last time I checked there were 521 blogs that are registered for the challenge.
Why do you think so many are willing to participate?
I think that many people have made the same conclusion that I did. They have been blogging for a while but are now realizing that they are publishing less content on their blogs but more shorter updates on Facebook and Twitter. In another interview I said that blogging is time invested in your own platform, not someone else’s meeting space, and I still think that it’s a valid thought. There’s also an opportunity to reflect upon freedom of speech and the notion that we’re all able to speak our minds in a free and democratic society.
Do you think this initiative will have any long term effects on the blogs that participate or on the Swedish blogosphere in general?
Well, if everyone finishes the challenge there will be 50 000 blog posts published at the end of it. So I guess that’s one big footprint that we would make. But I think the greatest effect from Blogg100 is the sense of community amongst fellow bloggers. I almost feel like I’m back in the good old days when there was about 300 blogs in Sweden in total and you could pretty much keep track on every blogger out there. Now there’s of course hundreds of thousands of blogs, in Sweden. I’ve started a Facebook group for all the bloggers in the challenge and the discussions are really active and intense. One can feel the engagement that a lot of us have for blog related questions and issues. It’s beautiful.
Any other interesting aspects of this project worth mentioning?
At the end of Blogg100 I’m planning to arrange some sort of meetup. I think it would be interesting to talk about blogging today compared to 6-7 years ago when it really hit big in Sweden. Blogging today is much more integrated in other services and platforms. For instance, a Facebook status update could be described as a blog post I guess. It would also be interesting to talk about the blog as a tool for change in societies, and how it could be used for activism.
I decided early on that I would not participate myself. I realized that I would most certainly fail after a few days due to lack of time, but I salute all the bloggers that dare to take on such a massive challenge. Good luck everyone.
Here’s a list of all participating bloggers (in Swedish): http://bisonblog.se/2013/01/vi-som-ar-med-i-blogg100/
Footnote: Blog is “blogg” in Swedish.
Photo: Johanna Hanno
