BlogShares Contest: Dead Blogs

This time not a post about sheep.
Flapser: What? Not about sheep?!

Nope. You see. Weblogs like these are in the virtual world. Some - foolish - people out there think I am virtual too. But I can promise you: I am a very much alive plush toy sheep!

So. I am alive. This weblog is quite alive.

One thing that is also alive and virtual is BlogShares. It is a virtual stock market for weblogs. You can trade in weblogs and weblog ideas and it is really fun. Besides that, if I wanted to trade in the real stock market, I'd have a problem. Toy sheep still can't open a bank account. We are not taken seriously. Nevertheless I enjoy myself at BlogShares. Out there, I am a billionaire!

And now at BlogShares there is a contest. To categorise all the thousands of blogs listed, there are industries and sub-industries. Industries like Religion, Web Technology, Animals and Pets and Portuguese. With this contest you have to propose a new industry. And write about it in your blog. And that's what I am doing right now!

Flapser: But Youssouf, do they already have an industry called sheep?
No, they don't. But - unfortunately - there are not that many sheepish weblogs out there. And it must be an industry that is - like - really needed at the moment. How much I would love to have sheep added as an industry, I will not propose it :(

Flapser: What will you propose?
Dead Blogs. I will propose dead blogs. Below I will explain why.

Industry Proposed

I propose the new industry Dead Blogs as sub-industry of Weblogs.

Description

Dead Blogs are weblogs that have not been updated in three months. Nothing is happening on these weblogs. After a dead weblog is being updated frequently - say at least twice a week - for a month, they can be considered alive again.

History

People love to do things in their spare time. The activities they deploy can be called hobbies. The biggest hobby of them all is starting a new hobby. People tend to start new things "Hey, that's fun!", but give up after one or two months or even after the first attempt. Weblogs are such a hobby as well.

The majority of the weblogs being initiated are not updated anymore after a month or just very infrequent. People who continue with their weblog and find it to be a true hobby might end up with a very much alive and popular blog. The opposits of dead blogs are the most popular blogs around. They have what dead blogs do not have. They have daily posts, are interesting, each post is heavily commented by readers. People use those weblogs as their starting page, they can identify themselves with the weblog. Hundreds of sites and other weblogs make links to these blogs. They are so much talked-about, that posts on those blogs can sometimes even lead to citations in regular news papers. These blogs are growing, linked to often and of high value. They are interesting to invest your BlogShares dollars in.

Dead blogs don't have all of that. Nobody wants to link to them. If there happens to be a scarce post, nobody comments. The blog is not growing. Nothing happens actually. You probably do not want to invest your BlogShares money in them, because the investment will not benefit you. If a blog is in this industry, you might reconsider buying shares.

Sometimes though, dead blogs can become alive again. Suddenly the blog owner gets the spirit and starts blogging. If the blog has proven to be alive, with regular posts for over a month, you can vote against the dead blog industry.

It is interesting to realize that most blogs ever created are within the industry of Dead Blogs. It might be one of the most voted blog industries, though the average blog value will very low.

Modern Non-Blog Resource

I think there is no big need to refer to a lot of non-blog resources. The industry exists, is quite apparent. Just have a look at the discussions by doing a Google search.

Blog Examples

• 
  sawthefuture.blog @BlogShares, direct: Jacobs Quebecois Adventure



• 
  do i really want to touch that with my hand? @BlogShares, direct: do i really want to touch that with my hand?

Considerations

I started writing this proposal when there was little discussion about dead blogs and indexing at BlogShares. Currently the discussion is more alive with cleaning up the index to remove dead blogs.
Still, this industry is valid.

A blog is dead according to the industry definition if no posts have been made for three months. A dead blog should be removed from the index after six months.
This industry can help cleaning up the index. Reporting a dead blog as error report can be a hassle and costs more time than a vote. The advantage of voting a blog for the Dead Blogs industry can be benificial for both the voter and the index. The voter gets chips and karma for his vote, which would not be the case with reporting an error. The benefit for the index, is that potential six months dead blogs can be detected early, after three months, just by looking at the blogs in the Dead Blogs industry. The industry or global moderators can keep track of dead blogs easily and remove them when they are dead for over six months. This will limit the search by moderators and hoping for error reports.

When you buy stock from the Hot Stock tips, you buy stock because of the potential increase in value. An advantage for the BlogShares users is that they see right away that a blog is in the Dead Blogs industry, which might cause a reconsideration whether to buy stock or not.

Furthermore, most blogs in existing are dead, so this industry would be more than appropriate and valid.

I do hope Youssouf's Sheeplog will never be voted into the Dead Blogs industry...