Status check on the blawgosphere

This post is an update to a couple of others I wrote earlier this year. First and foremost, I guess, it serves as a qualification to the post I published entitled ‘Yet More New Growth in the Blawgosphere’ back on 1st September. Of the 4 blogs I reviewed then, 2 have faltered entirely, and one can no longer be regarded as a ‘blawg’.

Dottie/Kim AKA ‘pink pop polka dot’ – while this blog is still updated, the content is given-over entirely to make-up tips, cosmetic product reviews and the like. Last time I checked, Kim doesn’t link to any blawgs either - which more or less cements the fate of her blog for me.  I’ve nothing against Dottie’s blog per se, only I have little interest reading about make-up tips. Oh well. 
Law Actually blog-roll status: Struck off.

Mad Law Student – it was always a tentative, ‘I’m-not-really-sure-about-this’ start but it finally looks like this blog has fallen by the wayside with only two or three posts to its name.  Still, a comeback isn’t impossible.
Law Actually blog-roll status: … Moved to Missing in Action/AWOL.

Legally Ginge – after being a long-time ‘commenter’ on the blawgs of others, Ginge finally stepped out and launched her own, much-heralded blog. All seemed to be going great and then… nothing.  Disappeared without trace.
Law Actually blog-roll status: … Moved to Missing in Action/AWOL.

In another post, ‘The Blawgsphere Lives On’ that I wrote in May this year, I introduced another bunch of blawgs. Sadly some of those have succumbed to the high attrition rate that seems to be cursing the blawgosphere of late.

Obiter – A high-profile and promising start, this blawg quickly petered out like a damp squib.
Law Actually blog-roll status: … Moved to Missing in Action/AWOL. Suggest strike-off, given long period of inactivity.

Lacunae – As Obiter, only more so.
Law Actually blog-roll status: … Moved to Missing in Action/AWOL. Suggest strike-off, given long period of inactivity.

Poor old Alan Plawtridge is such a new blog, it didn’t even make it on to one of my blawg reviews.  Like so many others, this blawg showed a promising start but he hasn’t posted since 18^th September. Is this it or is a pre-Christmas resurrection on the cards?
Law Actually blog-roll status: …Suggest move to Missing in Action/AWOL in the New Year.

But it gets worse before it gets better; there are a whole load of other blogs which should be put on the ‘sphere’s endangered list as their existence looks increasingly perilous to say the least.

Of those, the revered Law Minx is surely the most well-known. For those that haven’t discovered yet, Minxy seems to have recently made her blawg public again, though no new posts have yet emerged. Has the popular and much-loved Minxy returned to the ‘sphere? I truly hope so!

As for the rest who are on that list, well, no doubt I’ll blog about them in good time, too.

But enough doom and gloom; there is some good news couched within all this. I was reflecting the other day looking through my list of blawgs and blogs on Google Reader that for all of the negativity and high rate of drop-outs, there are still a bunch of high-quality blawgs out there being updated frequently. Many of these are the old-skoolers who have been the distance and then some, and include Charon QC, Andro, Barmaid, Head of Legal, Scot’s Law Student, Oliver Smith, Travis the Trout, ASP Bites, Will I Be Barred, Pooni and so on.   Perhaps I should be approaching this from a glass half full perspective rather than the alternative? 

Still, it’s interesting to note, though, that very few of these active members are student blogs – and no current LPC-ers at all.  Conversely, the US student blawging scene has never been healthier.