I do feel like "the old man," Tommy Duncan says. He's not old in physical terms, just digital years. The 40-something blogger founded the most-often-cited independent Tampa Bay news blog, Sticks of Fire, in Feb. 2004, and the site, without much financial assistance from advertising, is still going strong today with a stable of more than a dozen regular contributors.
In 2005, Duncan was featured in a tbt* story about the young lions of the local Internet. Today, about half of them have fallen by the wayside or (in the case of famous sexy blogger Rachel Moran) moved to New Jersey. Duncan keeps on posting. The local digital scene has grown, but he's not sure it has improved in quality.
"There are so many new people getting into it each and every day that I am not as integrated with the complete blogosphere as I once was," Duncan admits. "I don't know if it's less compelling, or if it is just more spread out and hard to get around to all of it. It's hard to even pull all the compelling content from the one site that has it on there [tampablab.com]."
His love of history and politics and his desire to make Tampa Bay a better place still hold a fascination for Duncan, who counts among his many side jobs being the lead singer in the local bar-staple Johnny G. Lyon Band. But he has slowed down, estimating that the number of blog posts he puts up is down by 60 to 70 percent.
"I have to make a living, and [Sticks of Fire] doesn't pay," Duncan says. "The burnout thing, that's real, for me, and it seems to come in waves. There are times when there's just nothing. There are times when you can write and write and write."
