This post was prompted by a related analysis appearing on the Blue Skunk blog.
In his post, Doug Johnson notes that he doesn’t have the readership that he used to have. I guess my experience has been similar. My analysis of the downturn in readership would argue that the changes in what readers read involve an increase in the use of Facebook and Twitter and a decrease in the use of RSS readers. Facebook and Twitter are simply easier and those readers who read blog entries tend to encounter links from Twitter rather than from an RSS reader that they have taken the time to configure. In sum, reading blogs takes too much work.
One can look at this change from the position of the reader or the writer. I think writers who no longer write have lost a lot. I guess I regard this as more significant than any decline in reading that has occurred.