Recap: Spanko Brunch 2.0 for March 8

On my seventh blogaversary, the topic was what changes you have witnessed since you became interested in spanking blogs.

Dan: Congratulations on the anniversary! That's a big, big accomplishment given the shelf life of all too many blogs.

I have not been at this nearly as long as you, so I don't have as much historical perspective on how things have changed. And I'm not sure they have. One nice thing about blogs is they are flexible enough to allow for a lot of different forms of expression, which allows for a lot of individual styles.

Maybe one thing that has changed a little is concern for copyright rights has all but vanished. That has probably made it harder for some visual artists, including some spanking artists, to make money on that art, because electronic copies proliferate so easily. Yet, I don't think it can be credibly maintained that lack of effective copyright protection has reduced the volume of creative output. If anything, it has exploded.

Bonnie: Happy anniversary! What a great brunch question.

I've been blogging on and off for about 9.5 years. Here are ten changes that I've noticed.

1. More blogs, more readers, and more commenters overall

2. More segmentation, both in blogs and in the community itself, where the focus is upon narrower topics

3. Major blogs have less influence

4. Many more photo and video blogs, especially on Tumblr

5. More commercial and professional blogs

6. Less fear of losing anonymity, but more fear of censorship

7. Greater awareness of community

8. The act of blogging is easier and therefore open to a larger population

9. There is more competition from competing media such as Twitter

10. The breadth of viewpoints expressed is greater than ever before. This is part of the larger democratization and globalization of the internet.

Some of these changes are good, some are bad, but most are neutral.

As for the future of blogging, I wrote a post on this subject back in 2011. I hope to revisit it soon.

Blondie: Congratulations on 7 years. You are such a big part of my life in blogland. As one of the first blogs I ever read, you were quite an inspiration to me about my liking of spanking and for introducing me to other blogs. Great question.

When I started blogging, it seemed as if there were just a few blogs out there that had to do with spanking, especially for discipline.  Now there are so many blogs that it is hard to be able to follow all of them.

With more people in the community, there seems to be more personalities. And with that, more judgment.
We have lost some old bloggers who decided that they did not either have the time or did not feel like part of the community. Big loss.

I would guess that the little world of blog land that I feel part of will splinter off and become more exclusive. It's all good, just part of life.

ricky: Congratulations on your 7th year, Hermione!

I started blogging as a clumsy, but curious neophyte. I considered it as a world-wide instant message board, and still do: just the other day I sent an email to Europe and I received a response in less than three minutes!

What the future holds, who knows? But I welcome it. None of us are an island anymore, unless we choose to be.

Nina: Happy Anniversary, that’s awesome!

As for blogging, I have been doing that for almost 18 months by now and even I have seen that bloggers suddenly disappear. I found that frustrating if it happened without further notice. I have seen the number of blog entries on my blog go down rapidly, not because I don’t know what to write, but because I have learned blogging –reading and writing- takes a lot of time. But over time you get to know other bloggers, which is awesome, and even if I do not write much about dd at the moment, I think my awareness about dd related topics has grown from reading in other dd blogs.

I don’t know about future changes, but hope to go on blogging for many years.

Leigh: Happy Blogaversary. Hope you're around for at least seven more years, you're such an integral part of the community.

In the short time I've been here, bloggers have come and gone, some without notice, others going private. It's all part of life. I've made some great friends here and some I will never meet but it doesn't change the fact they are still friends.

arched one: I haven't been reading blogs that long. I've been spanked much longer and found them just by looking thru the internet trying to find out if I was alone in loving spanking. What I love about most blogs is being able to reply to what they wrote and most reply back to me. a few that I'd love to reply to want too much information before I can reply. Sad to say some do disappear and I'm sure having a blog and posting daily takes a lot of time. For me it has gotten me deeper into submission and my wife more dominant and I love it thank you.
Congrats on your 7 years.

Jan: Congratulations on your blogiversary. I have been here a couple of years now. I find it sad when people just disappear, worrying too sometimes. I think that the blogs tend to be grouped more now, with people gravitating to like minded bloggers. I find myself feeling braver with it all

Red: Hermione, congratulations on seven wonderful years.WELL DONE! And speaking of well done, that should be the description of your bottom for your seventh year birthday blog spanking! Enjoy, and bottoms up.

Ronnie: Congratulations. Happy belated anniversary.

I've been blogging now for 6 years (seem longer:)) and have noticed a few changes.

More author blogs.
More general blogs
Tumblr blogs seems more and more appearing every day.
More FLR blogs (which is good to see)

Difficult to say how blogging will change but I think it will.

Minelle: Congratulations! I still remember finding you as a lurker so many years ago!

I think that in some ways since there are so many blogs out there it is liberating. However those that disappear always make me wonder what happened and why they chose to leave. Maybe there are more cliques and some judgement. Not sure why.

Like Sunny though, I feel I have met and continue to make so many wonderful friends! I hope to meet them in RL some day!

Enzo: Congratulations on the anniversary Hermione! Thank you for all you do!

It seems like there are so many more blogs now then ever. So hard to keep up at times and I often confuse blogs (partially due to matching blog themes and multiple online names).

I feel like there are more personal blogs now vs commercial blogs as in early on.

Like others have mentioned, sadly there are so many blogs that seem temporary as in short-lived with sudden disappearances without explanation and leaves you to wonder why. Were they forced, revealed or just became bored by it all?

Dr. Ken: As someone who has been downloading spanking .jpgs, .bmps, and .gifs for many many years, my biggest complaint is when a file is constantly renamed. Every file on a Tumblr blog gets renamed, "tumblr-xxxxxetc". Someone downloads that and renames it for their purposes, "spanking_file_01". Someone else downloads it and calls it "kitchen_spanking_with_wisk", etc. It's the same damn photo, but you can wind up six copies of it in your files, all under different names. This especially irks me when it comes to Endart's drawings. He named every one of them. To see them now called, "tumblr-eqx4000bori48317xtttyxq+214" just ticks me off.

The other thing I hate is when blog hosts--again, Tumbler comes to mind--arbitrarily start deleting "adult" blogs for their farcical trumped-up reasons. I say, let the people blog!

 Hermione: One thing I have noticed is the proliferation of the pictures-only style of blog found on Tumblr. That puts the focus less on the personality of the blogger, expressed through writing, and more on the graphic nature of the blogs.

Another is the rise in interest in the DD lifestyle and the sharp increase in DD blogs. On the  whole, there has been an increase in spanking blogs of all types, as you can see from Bonnie's extensive blogrolls of nearly 700 spanking blogs.

We have also lost many excellent and prolific bloggers and commenters over the years, but have gained new ones in their stead.


Thank you all for your good wishes and your participation this week. I wonder what the future holds in store for our spanko blogging family.