What is a blog? A few weeks ago we were told by someone who was not a journalist than a blog should not consist of opinion. Then Shane Richmond, communities editor for The Telegraph, tells us that actually yes, the best blogs are opinionated. I'm confused.com.
To me, a blog should be opinionated. Surely that is the point of them? We are being told that journalism needs to become conversational to survive and this is what is happening through blogs and the internet.
Now, please correct me if I'm wrong but surely a conversation is a discussion based upon varying opinions? The opinions don't even have to be varying, many conversations are based upon things people have in common. I realise that to be too opinionated causes argument, but that's not what I'm trying to get across. To start any kind of conversation, one needs to strike up an opinion on something that they can converse with others about.
A riveting conversation would not be me talking purely factually about the ins and outs of blogs, who uses them, which ones are popular and what they consist of. Data and numbers are all well in good in context, but not in any conversation I've ever enjoyed having.
I sometimes think that people are scared to be opinionated. In terms of blogging it might suggest that if someone disagrees with you, you lose your audience. Not necessarily. That's a neanderthal approach (see, opinion).
These guys have a point. Is this what people are worried about? A few choice comments that well, aren't the nicest? As journalists we aren't used to our work being commented on, but well, it doesn't make it wrong if someone disagress . . . that's just their opinion.
Of course to keep an audience, as long as your opinions don't become arrogant or self righteous, surely people are going to relate to you because they think great, that guy has blogged again, I really enjoy reading his blog, I wonder what I'll think of his argument today/this week etc. Opinions have always differed, even our own.
The beauty of a blog is you can blog several times on the same topic if events occur that change you opinion of it. Or it doesn't even have to be a new blog, just comment. This will lead to more comments, which will lead to a conversation, which will, hyperthetically give you a rather loyal audience.
Blogging by journalists is not journalism as we know it. Your not trying to get across a story that comes in the newspapers, you may be highlighting a point within that story in a way that gives people the opportunity to highlight something else that you may have missed, or which, in your opinion, wasn't as important as you thought.
As journalists, the new era we are entering makes blogging really important. We need to realise that its ok when someone disagrees with us, because no one agrees with everyone 100% of the time. In fact, to become a successful blogger, we need to depend on these people who will suggest other links to us, and in return, link people to our blogs, whether it's because they agree or not. As long as we are willing to join this discussion network I think blogging and opinion are the way forward.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Scary thought . . .
Google, Facebook, Myspace, we all use them. Maybe not all of them, but at least one or two. And of course I'm not just limiting usage to these three, but if I were to list all the social networking sites and search engines well that would be the word limit for this blog taken up just in unpaid promotion.
In fact to be a little more precise, there are 1.4billion people using the internet and at least one of these facilities on a regular basis. 400 million people are members of social networking sites. 300 and odd of those are my friends on Facebook. Have you ever searched for yourself on google? Thats not vain, just curiousness (I think I just made up an adjective), but guaranteed if your a member of Facebook or Myspace thats the first link that will appear. So anyone can find you, anywhere, anytime.
Google tracks 1 trillion webpages, thats an insane number. Or at least it was until we entered a rather bad economic depression and suddenly it was used quite frequently, and not in a good way. But, 8/10 searches conducted by those 1.4billion people go through Google. Its popularity and trustworthiness (another made up adjective) are unrivaled, but it is a little bit daunting when you think of all the things you can find on a free search engine.
I frequently use Facebook to see what other people are up to. The best part being that no one can tell you've looked at their profile. Of course, Mysapce comes with a profil visit counter, but still, no one knows who's looking because that would be against privacy laws. But what privacy laws apply to such a large search engine whose job it is to find out as much as it can about the subject of a search? My Facebook profile is private, because that is what people advise me I should do, but it still pops up on Google search, so as private as it is, people can still search and find me even if they can't view it.
So the point my friend makes below really made me think. We're being told to use these tools, not of course that anyone needs to be told to use Google, but at the same time how much do we really know about them? We've been told that it registers every single search and link to make it the best it can be. Now that kind of power is a little bit scary when you think of the scale of the searches that go through it. I'll leave the rest up to someone who can tell you WhatYouNeedToKnow:
Makes you think doesn't it. I realise I haven't really spoken much about the uses of Google and journalism, but I would have thought they were obvious given the track listing of Google, and the number of people who use it. Basically, anything you write can be found by someone who wants it. After all, the web was created to be social, so anything you do online can literally be distributed anywhere, whether it was meant to be or not.
In fact to be a little more precise, there are 1.4billion people using the internet and at least one of these facilities on a regular basis. 400 million people are members of social networking sites. 300 and odd of those are my friends on Facebook. Have you ever searched for yourself on google? Thats not vain, just curiousness (I think I just made up an adjective), but guaranteed if your a member of Facebook or Myspace thats the first link that will appear. So anyone can find you, anywhere, anytime.
Google tracks 1 trillion webpages, thats an insane number. Or at least it was until we entered a rather bad economic depression and suddenly it was used quite frequently, and not in a good way. But, 8/10 searches conducted by those 1.4billion people go through Google. Its popularity and trustworthiness (another made up adjective) are unrivaled, but it is a little bit daunting when you think of all the things you can find on a free search engine.
I frequently use Facebook to see what other people are up to. The best part being that no one can tell you've looked at their profile. Of course, Mysapce comes with a profil visit counter, but still, no one knows who's looking because that would be against privacy laws. But what privacy laws apply to such a large search engine whose job it is to find out as much as it can about the subject of a search? My Facebook profile is private, because that is what people advise me I should do, but it still pops up on Google search, so as private as it is, people can still search and find me even if they can't view it.
So the point my friend makes below really made me think. We're being told to use these tools, not of course that anyone needs to be told to use Google, but at the same time how much do we really know about them? We've been told that it registers every single search and link to make it the best it can be. Now that kind of power is a little bit scary when you think of the scale of the searches that go through it. I'll leave the rest up to someone who can tell you WhatYouNeedToKnow:
Makes you think doesn't it. I realise I haven't really spoken much about the uses of Google and journalism, but I would have thought they were obvious given the track listing of Google, and the number of people who use it. Basically, anything you write can be found by someone who wants it. After all, the web was created to be social, so anything you do online can literally be distributed anywhere, whether it was meant to be or not.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Enough? Or not quite . . .
So, a blog about blogging. Seems a bit silly really but here goes.
Blogs have always struck me as a kind of public diary. In them we talk about stuff we find interesting and invite people to talk back, without really reporting anything, more discussing it. They have brought the art of converstation to the profession of journalism.
However, with so many people blogging nowadays, when does so many become too many? There are so many blogs people can find regarding the specific niche they want, and when someone finds a person blogging they particularly agree with or, just generally like debating with, why would they turn to someone else, bar on a few minor occasions? Thus we find various blogs floating about somewhere in cyber space, with no one really reading them because well someone else is writing the same thing and doing it better.
Of course there's also a little known thing called "traffic". If one person interested in a particular topic tells friends about their favourite blog of course this becomes immensely popular with that group and the more people view it, the more popular it becomes in search engines. So the little guys writing about the same thing but who aren't quite as chatty don't really stand a chance do they? I realise some blogs are not going to appeal to all the people all the time, but given that the internet is so vast, surely with the sheer number of blogs being generated now some, if not most, are going to get lost somewhere in translation.
I refer you to Nicholas Carr: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/11/blogging-rip/
He argues that with so many blogs being created, is everyone becoming just a little bit fed up of them? I agree. A good blog can be brilliantly entertaining but when you've read one about a certain topic, with so many others, it soon becomes a case of follow the leader and everyone says the same thing. Its like a popularity contest, "lets see what so-and-so is writing about this, because theirs is so popular thats all we have to do to make ours just as popular." Very soon, one blends into another and voila, the art of blogging is no longer cool, it is a chore and even more of a chore for the reader to scrawl through 100 or so thoughts on the same thing written in exactly the same way.
I'm not against blogging at all, in fact I really enjoy it. I want people to know what I think, and I want people to comment, agree and particularly to disagree. Thats the fun part. But I see where Carr is coming from. When is enough enough?
Of course perhaps the best thing to do is not make a blog all about yourself, but link to other sources and even other blogs. Linking to videos and maps and even pictures can add humour or allow people to visually understand what your talking about if description isn't perhaps your strongest point. In the world of conversational journalism that blogs promote, one may even strike up a good rapour with someone writing a blog on a similar subject and suddenly you have double the audience. Simple really.
A simple recipe for a good blog, accompanied by a cracking rap song. Understanding and humour, curtesy of youtube. See, linking . . .:
Blogs have always struck me as a kind of public diary. In them we talk about stuff we find interesting and invite people to talk back, without really reporting anything, more discussing it. They have brought the art of converstation to the profession of journalism.
However, with so many people blogging nowadays, when does so many become too many? There are so many blogs people can find regarding the specific niche they want, and when someone finds a person blogging they particularly agree with or, just generally like debating with, why would they turn to someone else, bar on a few minor occasions? Thus we find various blogs floating about somewhere in cyber space, with no one really reading them because well someone else is writing the same thing and doing it better.
Of course there's also a little known thing called "traffic". If one person interested in a particular topic tells friends about their favourite blog of course this becomes immensely popular with that group and the more people view it, the more popular it becomes in search engines. So the little guys writing about the same thing but who aren't quite as chatty don't really stand a chance do they? I realise some blogs are not going to appeal to all the people all the time, but given that the internet is so vast, surely with the sheer number of blogs being generated now some, if not most, are going to get lost somewhere in translation.
I refer you to Nicholas Carr: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/11/blogging-rip/
He argues that with so many blogs being created, is everyone becoming just a little bit fed up of them? I agree. A good blog can be brilliantly entertaining but when you've read one about a certain topic, with so many others, it soon becomes a case of follow the leader and everyone says the same thing. Its like a popularity contest, "lets see what so-and-so is writing about this, because theirs is so popular thats all we have to do to make ours just as popular." Very soon, one blends into another and voila, the art of blogging is no longer cool, it is a chore and even more of a chore for the reader to scrawl through 100 or so thoughts on the same thing written in exactly the same way.
I'm not against blogging at all, in fact I really enjoy it. I want people to know what I think, and I want people to comment, agree and particularly to disagree. Thats the fun part. But I see where Carr is coming from. When is enough enough?
Of course perhaps the best thing to do is not make a blog all about yourself, but link to other sources and even other blogs. Linking to videos and maps and even pictures can add humour or allow people to visually understand what your talking about if description isn't perhaps your strongest point. In the world of conversational journalism that blogs promote, one may even strike up a good rapour with someone writing a blog on a similar subject and suddenly you have double the audience. Simple really.
A simple recipe for a good blog, accompanied by a cracking rap song. Understanding and humour, curtesy of youtube. See, linking . . .:
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