Blogs and Twitter and all that

Huge crowds urge Jim Jepps to keep blogging

I'm sorry to see Jim Jepps is about to archive The Daily (Maybe), a very good left-wing green blog that's been running for a few years. Phil BC, meanwhile, hasn't blogged at A Very Public Sociologist for several weeks. Liam Macuaid gave up his blog a few months ago. Splintered Sunrise rarely blogs now.

In general there are two noticeable trends in the left-wing blogosphere of late. One is the increasing emphasis on group blogs, rather than individual blogs, and the other is the complete or partial relocation of a number of bloggers' online presence from the blogosphere to the Twittersphere.

The Third Estate, Left Economics Advisory Panel, Though Cowards Flinch and New Left Project (not really a blog, but I'll include it here) are all joint efforts by the radical left I'd warmly recommend.

These two trends - rise of group blogs, Twitter relocation - are relevant whether you look at the more radical elements of the blogging world or at the broader 'left', ie. including collective blogs like Liberal Conpiracy, Left Foot Forward and Left Futures, and someone like Tom Harris MP who used to blog but now only tweets.

Similar developments can also be found on the Right, for example Iain Dale giving up his personal blog. There's also - looking at the British political blogsphere and Twittersphere overall - a trend towards established names in the mainstream media having strong followings. Jon Snow, Johann Hari, Paul Mason and many others provide examples of this on Twitter.

Having said all that, I think there's a lot of life in the individual left-wing blog by humble activist-bloggers with no mainstream media platform. There are established bloggers still going strong, including Madam Miaow, Harpymarx, Dave Osler, Derek Wall and others.

Then there are blogs which I've only discovered in recent months, but have become regulars for me to peruse - Latte Labour, Owen Jones and Salma Yaqoob among them. See the blog roll in the right sidebar for links, and hopefully make a few discoveries.

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