Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?

Today is fairly unusual day for me. For the first time in ~390 days, I have something I'd like to say -- something I'd like to share with the world. 390 days ago I published a post to the web on my latest personal blog, which like all previous blogs I've attempted to maintain has died of boredom and lack of attention.

The home run scenario for blogging is incredibly alluring -- thousands of ravenous fans fawning over your next thought-provoking or comedic masterpiece -- but time and time again I fail to meet these expectations or manage them more appropriately. I enter the same cycle each time:

Blog Lifecycle

1) Euphoric moment of inspiration
2) Pseudo-maniacal and self-indulgent perusing of domains
3) Careful consideration of theme and design
4) The inaugural post - "Hello world!"
5) The 2-4 post honeymoon phase
6) Waning and changing interests
7) Feelings of desperation and apathy from low engagement
8) Inevitable abandonment :(

It turns out that this cycle may not be uncommon. Surveys have shown that 95% of blogs are abandoned within 120 days and 60-80% of them abandoned within the first month. I'm not 100% certain if these statistics are still valid today, but I have a hunch they are or perhaps even worse. Many of us simply don't have the time, energy, passion and stamina it takes to build an online audience. Worse still, we've entered an age of conspicuousness in which blogs gone unnoticed are blogs worth abandoning. Put those two together and you find yourself stuck with massive inertia.

Postary: An Experiment

I for one feel inadequate when I abandon blogs or any project I'm working on. So to combat feelings of inadequacy, my fellow blog abandoner Mitch and I built Postary - the simplest way to share posts with no strings attached, no obligations and no expectations. Postary reduces the Blog Lifecycle down to step four: if you are inspired to say something, then just post it and share it with the world. It's our philosophy that sometimes we may only have one thing to say and one time we want to say it.

Postary is a project built in the spirit of liberating us from expectations. The entire project took us 10 hours from concept to deployment (thanks, Heroku!) and we have no expectations for where it will go from here. No strings attached, no obligations. We had a moment of inspiration and are now sharing it with the world.

We'd love to hear your feedback! Join the discussion.