IN the latest entry on her personal weblog, Lindsay Lohan, the hard-partying Hollywood actress, was in characteristically bubbly form. “Hey guys, I’m soooo sooo sorry I haven’t written in a while!!” she wrote.

She was heading off to New York for two days of photo-shoots, then to Toronto for a week of filming, then back to Los Angeles again. The entry ended: “I just wanted to check in, I’ll try and write more . . . xx LL.”

It has been a long wait for any Lohan fans who may be hoping for an update. That entry was posted on October 15, 2003. Lohan’s blog has since taken its place in the internet’s fastest growing graveyard — of an estimated 200m blogs that have been started then abandoned.

To the embarrassment of millions of internet users — from Hollywood celebrities such as Lohan, Melanie Griffith and Barbra Streisand to countless ordinary parents, workers and would-be poets — the evidence of failed diary-keeping cannot be easily erased from search engines that continue to provide links to blogs that have lain dormant for years.

Some internet analysts call them “ghost blogs”, lingering reminders of a cultish enthusiasm for self-expression that is rapidly wearing off. Others liken the abandonment of blogs to “the suicide of your virtual self”. At least one internet writer blames the blogging culture for helping to turn the internet into a “dictatorship of idiots”.

According to research by a firm of US technology analysts, the blogging phenomenon may have peaked last October, when 100,000 new blogs were being created every day. As well as personal diaries these included corporate, professional, celebrity and other specialist blogs.

Yet the Gartner research firm also concluded that the trend would level off in 2007, with perhaps 100m people still blogging worldwide. Other analysts predict that number will fall to 30m.

“A lot of people have been in and out of [blogging]”, said Daryl Plummer of Gartner. “Everyone thinks they have something to say until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.”

Santo Politi, a Boston engineer, appears typical. His blog, This and That, is subtitled “more useless information from yet another blogger”.

He posted sporadically in 2006 and then last December vowed to do better: “I started my blog with great enthusiasm and abandoned it as fast as I started it . . . this time I am determined.”

Politi said that he wanted to write “an interesting, engaging post, include links [to other websites], interesting facts, experiences . . . I shall post frequently from now on”.

He managed two more entries and has not been heard from for more than two months, the point at which most analysts consider a blog to be defunct.

At least Politi fared better than Griffith, the star of films such as Working Girl and Bonfire of the Vanities. The front page of Griffith’s official website features a series of “magic” doors, one of which leads to her personal blog, In 2 Me C (sic).

“Hello everyone! I have been remiss in not writing to you sooner!” begins the latest entry. She was even more remiss after that — this last entry is dated March 18, 2005.

At least Griffith bothered to write something. On Streisand’s official website, a front page link reads: “Click here to read Barbra’s blog.” The link leads to a blank page.

Other bloggers have had good reasons for discontinuing their work. The anonymous author of a popular technology blog called Dead 2.0 was renowned for his scathing critiques of the internet business. Then his identity was revealed and he had to stop for fear of losing his job.

An anonymous woman blogger known as Getupgrrl became widely read for her brutally honest writings about her struggle with infertility. Her blog, Chez Miscarriage — subtitled “Who says infertility can’t be funny?” — was widely praised by pregnancy and women’s health websites.

Then Getupgrrl became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy child. The last entry read: “Working on the next big bloggy idea.” That was in October 2005.

Research suggests that most ghost blogs are abandoned simply because their authors run out of things to say, have not got the time to write or have moved on to more exciting internet trends, such as posting home videos on YouTube or collecting new friends on MySpace.

Not all bloggers are disheartened by the apparent peaking of the trend; many argue that the best blogs will survive and the world will ultimately be a better place if it does not have to read entries like this from Lohan: “Hey everyoneeeeeeeeeeeee!! Watttup?

“I just wanna appologize for not writing in so long . . . I’ll try and write more, but GO SEE FREAKY FRIDAY WHEN IT COMES OUTTTT!!!! xoxoxox-oxox L.”

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