Earlier this summer, my co-worker Caitlin traveled from her home in West Virginia to our’s in New York so we could work together in person. Our goal was to spend a week planning the next year or so of content and projects for Design*Sponge, but we ended up spending most of our time talking about […]

Earlier this summer, my co-worker Caitlin traveled from her home in West Virginia to our’s in New York so we could work together in person. Our goal was to spend a week planning the next year or so of content and projects for Design*Sponge, but we ended up spending most of our time talking about how planning that far out now feels obsolete and irrelevant.
Never has it been more evident that the state of the blogging world has completely changed. In fact, discussing only blogs feels a little outdated on its own. While most of us working online used to agree that blogs were essential for brands, it’s become clear that what works right now is very different from what worked two years ago — and what will work two years (or even two months) from now. My last State of the Blog Union post was written three years ago, when all of the changes in our community were really coming to a head for me. Drastically shifting expectations from sponsors, dwindling comment sections, pressure to immediately adopt (and dominate) every new platform that comes along, and the need to diversify content and income sources was a lot to process after spending 10 years following ...