Celebrate Blogging?

Back in July 2006, I was wondering whether the world really needed yet another blog. It was a fair question then, and I have asked myself the same thing at pleasingly regular intervals ever since. And yet, I seem to enjoy blogging more than ever: writing small notes about research papers I come across, and tricking myself into reading them rather more carefully than I might do otherwise. 

Many of these posts began as modest exercises in thinking aloud, though some later escaped into articles, lectures, or teaching. Others became answers to questions that kept returning, often from high-school and university students, or from journalists with a curiosity about the Mozart effect, musical taste, catchy songs, our sense for rhythm, musical animals, and the possible origins of music (N.B It now serves as the database for Apie, MCG's Mascotte and AI Assistent, that tries to answer the questions that keep on coming in regularly).

Nature Editorial (2 June 2026)

Yet, blogging has been declared obsolete so often that it now seems to enjoy a surprisingly active afterlife [1,2,3]. First came social media, then podcasts, newsletters, Substack, Instagram reels, TikTok, and whatever is currently replacing whatever replaced the thing before that. So yes, this may now be a mildly archaeological and boomerisch corner of the internet. 

Nevertheless, next month this blog celebrates its twentiest birthday. And this emeritus will simply hack on, if you don't mind :-). 

Related blogs

    [1] Is blogging outdated? [June 2011] 

    [2] Wetenschap in de blogosfeer? [March 2012] 

    [3] Is blogging not completely outdated? [July 2012] 

References 
Scientists in the future will not read articles like this (2026). Nature, 654, 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01723-1

Batts, Shelley A., Anthis, Nicholas J., & Smith, Tara C. (2008). Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy. PLoS Biology, 6 (9), 240-245 doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240 

Saunders, M. E., Duffy, M., Heard, S., Kosmala, M., Leather, S., McGlynn, T., Ollerton, J., & Parachnowitsch, A. L. (2017). Bringing ecology blogging into the scientific fold: measuring reach and impact of science community blogs. Royal Society Open Science. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170957 

Rahate, V. V. (2023) Unveiling the Blogosphere: Exploring the Evolution, Impact, and Future of Blogging. International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology, 129–136. https://doi.org/10.48175/ijarsct-12021

Wetenschap in de blogosfeer? [Dutch]

Uit De bloggende wetenschap (Folia), over Music Matters | A blog on music cognition:

"Ik weet niet direct wat muziekcognitie is, maar dat is geen probleem. Dit is een prima blog, gemaakt door een vakidioot die zo te zien met liefde over het onderwerp schrijft. Hij blogt niet veel, niet eens een keer per week, maar wel uitgebreid en nauwkeurig. En voor hem is het voordeel dat hij nu gedwongen is te schrijven, het proces van zijn onderzoek met zijn volgers te delen en zijn gedachten te structureren en te verwoorden."

Is blogging not completely outdated?

Today (4th of July) I'm celebrating precisely six years of blogging on music cognition. While I was doubting whether this was a sensible idea at all in July 2006, and even more so last year, I'm currently really enjoying writing little snippits about research papers that I come across, forcing me to read these papers slightly better than I would do otherwise :-)

Thanks to all readers for their reactions and criticisms (today exactly 150!), and Psychology Today for supporting the publication of a selection of these blog entries for a more general audience.

I guess I should just keep going...

My home office :-)

Batts, Shelley A., Anthis, Nicholas J., & Smith, Tara C. (2008). Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy. PLoS Biology, 6 (9), 240-245 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240

Is blogging outdated?

Yesterday an article by Carola Houtekamer appeared in NRC Handelsblad reviewing the state of blogging. She wrote an enthusiastic article a few years ago and it was about time for a re-evaluation.

A round of telephone calls made her realize, though, that blogging is out of date and is replaced by recent activities like Twitter and Facebook. But except in the world of science! There, apparently, the 140 characters are too few, and is Facebook considered too shallow.

The most remarkable revitalization of blog-activity, mentioned in Houtekamer's article, is the new network setup by Bora Zivkovic of Scientific American. But also The Guardian, Wired and the scientific journal PLOS recently started new blog networks (see, e.g., researchblogging.org, blogs.discovermagazine.com, scientopia.org or occamstypewriter.org).

Personally, I like the scale of a blog. Over time it builds up as an archive of smaller and larger ideas, and turns out to be a reference to topics that appear with a certain regularity in my classes; it is not uncommon that some blog entries turn out to be useful as a staring point for a larger project.

Nevertheless, lets see how all this develops in the next five years. New technology will surely suggest novel ways of doing and disseminating the doubts, failures and insights of science.

Yet another blog?

Still wondering —on a Sunny afternoon at home— whether yet another blog is of any use.