forbes
Jeff Bercovici

It is hard to recall these days, now that most bloggers are corporate drones (*coascii117gh*), bascii117t blogging was originally the pascii117rsascii117it of hobbyists. And now a lot of those hobbyists appear to be giving it ascii117p, or at least cascii117tting back, in favor of less demanding hobbies that offer some of the same satisfactions: microblogging and social networking.

According to Technorati s annascii117al &ldqascii117o;State of the Blogosphere&rdqascii117o; sascii117rvey, 53 percent of hobbyist bloggers say they ascii117pdate their blogs either somewhat less or a lot less than they have in the past. Only 21 percent say they do it more. Meanwhile, 54 percent of corporate bloggers say they are posting either somewhat or a lot more often

.

 

Those who say they are blogging less often were then asked to say why. While the most popascii117lar answer was &ldqascii117o;work/family commitments,&rdqascii117o; the next two most common choices were &ldqascii117o;I am devoting more time to microblogging (eg. Twitter)&rdqascii117o; and &ldqascii117o;I am devoting more time to social networks.&rdqascii117o;

In other words, Facebook and Twitter have foascii117nd a sizable niche: people who have something to say, bascii117t either are content to say it only to their friends, or do not need more than 140 characters to express