It seems like everywhere you navigate on the Internet you land on someone's blog. They have become so trendy that even some celebrities have jumped into the blogosphere like Kanye West and Taylor Swift to name a few.
Some blogs, especially those written by journalists like Jeff Jarvis' Buzz Machine have become important sources of news. Twitter was the first to break news on the earthquake in China and Facebook broke the Virginia Tech shooting, all before any of the news organization. Blogger, Robert Scoble of Scobleizer recalls finding out about the earthquake in China, forty-five minutes before CNN broke the story.
Scoble blogs about his life and the news around him. Blogging and Vlogging allow Scoble to interact with people across the world. He describes it as a sort of naked conversation because "blogs change the way people talk."
"It (blogging and vlogging) lets me communicate my life in a much deeper way," said Scoble.
Yet some of the conversations are a lot less deep than Scoble's. They just add to the pile of useless information on the net, reading more like a live journal, divulging secrets at every scroll. There's a Blogger named Damien Wang, a librarian who actually admits to having a blog about useless information.
There are many different types of blogs, just as vast as the types of websites. Some are written by journalists, some are not. But to Jeff Jarvis, it's not just about blogging that makes it so trendy and interesting but, "it's about a new way to communicate with the public."
Emi Kolawole, staff writer at Factcheck.org said she tries to read as many blogs as she can daily. Kolawole finds them to be a useful tool to target audiences because of their interactivity. " (Blogs) tend to be very good aggregators," said Kolawole.
"Everyone should be blogging," said Jarvis. "Any one can perform an act of journalism. Absolutely everyone should blog, everyone should do everything."
Mayhill Fowler, of the political blog Off The Bus, featured on Huffington Post, blogs everyday but she's not a journalist. Fowler is a citizen journalist.
What really drives Fowler to blog is, "going to small towns across America and experiencing for a day, classic American election events, what I call real Americana," said Fowler.
Blogging requires the audience's participation in order for it to be affective. "Citizen journalism is actually part of that feeling a lot of Americans have, to be more connected, to what I call the public square," she said.
But blogging doesn't feed everyone's appetite.
Retha Hill, professor and director of the News Media Innovation Lab at Arizona State University doesn't see the point. She admits to hating them less than she did five years ago but still said," most of them are just bad columns." Reluctantly, Hill said, "I may one day blog myself. I just don't want to add to the noise, to blog for blog sake."
Although some may disagree with Hill, she raises a valid point; blogs about blogs do exist.
Blog Slideshow
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
How to Pimp Your Blog
One of Jess3.com's designs. A Web site that combines blogging and widgets for content.
Jesse Thomas of Jess3.com runs a creative, interactive agency that helps with web development, design and PR. In a session at ONA's conference, Thomas discusses how to get PR for your blog through social networking and tools, that won't cost you thing.
Delicious - Delicious is a Web site owned by Yahoo, that allows you to archive your notes, tag them and add comments. Anyone who joins this free site can track their blog and see what people are saying. Thomas said, " It's a social PR strategy," first you see how many people have bookmarked your page and then you get to read their comments. When adding notes and tags to your page, you can search for others with similar tags and then send them a link through their delicious inbox to publicize your blog.
Twitter - With Twitter you can target an audience in a quick and easy way. Set up your blogs' profile and make it interesting so people want to read it. Then add 2000 people in one sitting and within two weeks you get a 25 per cent return. Once people know that you're out there and start sending you messages: REPLY. " This is where the social media PR kicks in," said Thomas, because now you are communicating with your audience.
Facebook - Facebook provides many different ways to publicize your blog from posting links to creating a fan page. Groups, links and fan pages let you post and publicize free information that can reach across the Facebook Universe. Even though Facebook is a free application, there are options to advertise, using social ads that allow you to set your own budget and target the right audience.
All these tools are a great jumping off point. Thomas said, credibility on those networks, allow you to target an even larger audience by sending out e-mails. Another way to reach a vast audience, Thomas said is to, " comment on a blog, to make an impression." The bottom line, Thomas said, "If you're making an interesting website, people are going to find you."
--Amanda Brody