When I started blogging in 2008, there were a number of PR folks who blogged that I followed religiously. They were the voices of our industry on the web (for me, at least). They blogged regularly. And they inspired me to be better–both as a blogger and as a PR counselor. Among my regular reads were:

* David Mullen

* Dave Fleet

* Peter Shankman

* Shel Holtz

* Danny Brown

* Shonali Burke

* Jason Falls

* Jay Baer

* Journalistics (Jeremy Porter)

* PR Squared (Todd Defren)

* Adam Singer

Now a number of those blogs definitely still exist–and I still read them. But, a number of those blogs don’t. And a number of others have changed significantly.

What happened?

Work happened.

Life happened.

Kids happened.

Promotions happened.

The reality seemed pretty simple: Work picked up. Life got busy. Blogging took a back seat.

And that’s fine. But, I miss the really good PR blogs that featured just one opinionated voice.

What am I talking about?

Take a look at this recent list of the top 60 PR blogs from Inkybee (one of the more recent top PR blog lists I found). Of the top 10:

* 3 are run by organizations that serve the PR industry (vendors)

* 3 are run by agencies

* 1 I hadn’t heard of before

* Leaving just three that are written by individuals in the field.

Look at the next 10:

* 3 more written by agencies

* 1 written by a professional organization (PRSA)

* 1 written by an organization that serves the PR industry (Cision)

* My blog

* 2 group blogs (PR Breakfast Club and NYC PR Girls)

* Leaving just two more blogs that are written by individuals in the field.

So, by my math, that’s just 5 of the top 20 PR blogs (25%) that are written by individuals working in PR.

Now, you might wonder what’s wrong with vendor blogs?

Nothing. But, they’re essentially corporate blogs. They’re trying to sell you something and often talk about their own products/services. You know the drill (we all work in this area).

What about the agency blogs?

Again, nothing wrong with a good agency blog. But they too, are trying to sell you something–and it usually shows. Plus, they’re typically written by multiple people–which can be good (varying perspectives) or bad (too many “weak” voices just adding content for the sake of search/content).

What about group blogs? What could you possibly have against those?

Nothing, again. I’ve written for a few in my day (including the PRBC crew–shout out!). But, group blogs can become diluted. Many authors can translate into washed out content (not always, but as a rule, this is what I see).

And so we’re left with just a small number of individual PR bloggers who are still sharing their thoughts, ideas and insights on a regular basis.

People like Shel Holtz. Adam Singer. And Danny Brown. But, increasingly, they’re becoming tougher to find.

I guess I shouldn’t be so disappointed about this trend. It means many of the people I “grew up” reading became successful.

They had to stop blogging because they got a great job.

Or, they had to go the group blog model because they simply couldn’t keep up with all the other responsibilities. Whatever the case, it’s usually a good reason–and a great thing for these people!

But, I can’t help but wish some of those folks were still blogging–or, at least blogging more. The web was a better place with them sharing regular opinions. It was more diverse. More educational. And definitely more entertaining.

Do you agree? Have we really lost most of the good individual PR blogs?