Scott Rosenberg wrote the book on blogging, literally. One of the founders of salon.com, Rosenberg recently finished a book called “Say Everything – How Blogging Began, What it is Becoming & Why it Matters.” Rosenberg spoke as part of the panel on “Why Keep Blogging? Real Answers for Smart Tweeple” at SXSWi.

Rosenberg has three main points about blogging:

1. Blogging started as an outlet of people’s passions. Most blogs started because someone was interested about something and wanted to talk about it with other people.

2. Blogging is real. This isn’t some weird hobby that is separate from reality.

3. Blogs have a natural life cycle. Rosenberg says all blogs go from initial excitement to eventual exhaustion. He said it happens to almost everyone and shouldn’t distract people from continuing with his or her blog.

The panelists also talked about the effect of Twitter on blogging. Rosenberg said Twitter will not kill blogging. Instead, he believes it is redefining blogging as the go-to spot for people who want to say something that requires more than 140 characters. Another panelist, Guy Gonzalez, said Twitter can kill a site like Huffington Post, but not personal blogs.