The Daily Telegraph reported recently that according to online tech publication Wired, the art of blogging is dead, whereas applications such as the much-talked about Twitter, Flickr and Facebook (really?) are the “new black” when it comes to creating online discourse.

Paul Boutin’s argument is that the blogosphere is now so over-populated by output from corporations, media channels and subliminal marketing campaigns that it has become impossible to distinguish the authentic voice of the individual from the “paid bilge” (his words, not mine!) breaking over the flood barriers.

As I sit here in my corporate ivory tower, writing my blog entry from the murky realms of technology pr, I feel compelled to offer a defence of what seems now as if it should be referred to as the traditional, old-fashioned blog.

Surely any form of communication that encourages people to offer comment, stimulate debate and counter criticism, still has a valuable role to play in our interactive, media-savvy world. Whether you choose to take 140 characters or 140 words to make your point, I can’t see that it really matters. At the end of the day, I would argue it’s actually not the medium that is the real message - it’s what you bother to say that counts.

Emma Sinclair