The Power of Bloggers

It's hard to see just how strong blogging can be. There's a vast blogging community. It's infiltrated the mainstream media. But what is its actual power?

A good case study to look at is that of Trent Lott, the US Senator, brought down by blogging.



Trent Lott, at the 100th birthday of Senator Strom Thurmonds, made a racist comment, and although there was a great deal of mainstream media coverage it blew over within 48 hours.

However, a number of bloggers condemned the remarks made and stuck with it. One blogger, Josh Marshall, even found an interview Lott had given to Southern Partisan, a magazine widely accused of having racist views.

Eventually, and as a direct result of the bloggers, the mainstream media picked the story up again, and it led to Senator Lott's resignation.



Behold, the power of blogging.

Work Blogs

I looked through the list of work related blogs compiled by James Richards and was surprised by the sheer number of call centre blogs. I can attribute two plausible reasons for this.

1) Call centre's attract certain types of people and these people like to blog
2) Call centre workers are stressed and need to vent more than other industry workers

Whatever the cause, I read 'My Worst Call of the Day' and found it hilarious. I think the main reason for this is that the author writes very well. His style is fresh, has a good flow/rhythm, and is well presented.

I think the second reason that his blog is so interesting to read is that everyone has spoken with call centre workers at some point, and it's interesting to see the other side of it.

The third, and possibly most important reason if looked at from a long-term position, is that he doesn't just limit himself to 'the worst call of the day'. He keeps the topics new and interesting by introducing different themes, such as 'What I wanted to say', 'Elderly Stories', and 'What I've said, but shouldn't have'. By varying the topics, the blog stays fresh and interesting.

I really like this blog, my only disappointment with it being that it appears the author has stopped posting. His last post was dated 10/25/2005.

Posting on Blogs

I chose to post on Alfred the Ok's blog, having found a link to it from BigJohn's. I specifically decided to post on it because his latest post was discussing a topic I hear from time to time (You know you're getting old when...), and have discussed with friends before.

I find the topic fascinating. I've had the same discussion with friends. I've heard others discuss it. I've even heard it as a live discussion on Radio 1. I find the answers to it especially interesting.

Most of the comments on Alfred the Ok's blog were short, so I kept mine short as well. Were I writing a longer comment, I would have mentioned the pain in my back, the slight sound I utter as I stand up, my decreasing interest in fashion and celebrity news, and my inability to understand some of the txt spk that is floating around. I can mention so many things, but as the post referred to music, I gave my personal experience of that, and left it at that.

Still, an interesting topic and a well written post.

Online News Comparisons

To compare how different online media sources publish the same news, I'll be looking at Bob Woolmer's death, and how The Sun (a typical UK tabloid), The Times (a typical UK quality), The Pakistan Times (a national paper from Woolmer's home), MSN News (an American based online news media source) and The Jamaica Observer (a national paper from where Woolmer died) present and cover the news.

Bob Woolmer was the 58 year old coach of the Pakistan cricket team. He was found dead on Sunday morning.

The Sun's headline is 'Match fix Mafia killed Bob'
The Times - 'US pathologist called in over Woolmer as Pakistan team faces quiz'
MSN News - 'Woolmer 'had broken bone in his neck''
The Jamaica Observer - 'Woolmer Strangled?'
The Pakistan Times - 'So Long, Woolmer! Tribute to Legendary Coach' and another related article, 'Pakistan's ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Saddened by Woolmer's Death'

The Sun's article is focused heavily on the circumstances surrounding his death, and the motivation behind it.

The Times looks at the cause of death, and addresses the motivation for murder. It has more detail than the Sun in terms of facts, figures and background information.

MSN News features a relatively small article in comparison to the others, and although it mentions the possibility of murder, it is much more skeptical.

The Jamaica Observer focuses more on the local aspect of it, the hotel and some background details, as can be expected. It comments on the possibility of the murder, but focuses less on the scandalous background behind it.

I strangely couldn't find much detail of the 'murder' on The Pakistan Times website. The two articles I found related to the ex-Prime Minister's feelings on the murder, and a tribute.

In summary, as can be expected 'local' papers focus on the local issues. In the Jamaica media, the focus is the hotel and location. In the Pakistan media, the focus is the 'country's' reaction, and a tribute.

The tabloid paper focused heavily on the 'scandal' behind the news, though this again is to be expected.

The global news sources focused on the facts behind the event, and didn't address the local issues in as much detail.

Rojo - Helpful, or just a total pain?

Rojo is a site designed to help you organise your RSS and atom feeds. The concept behind Rojo is fairly simple. You subscribe to it (completely free of charge), and then select news feeds that you want to be present on your Rojo homepage. You can select feeds from a list that Rojo gives you when you sign up, or you can use the Rojo search engine to search for specific feeds.

Personally, I'm uninterested in 'Gossip', 'Fashion', 'Celebrities', 'Entertainment', etc. The only feeds I'm interested in are news related, though not just limited to national news, but global. This said, I don't enjoy reading tabloid stories, or tabloid presentations of national news. With this in mind, I signed up to Rojo, and added the BBC national, and the BBC world news feeds, as well as the Times, Telegraph and Guardian feeds.

This was a mistake.

From what I can tell, Rojo does not limit the number of articles presented through a feed. This resulted in over 10,000 results. Even though the feeds were ordered by age, from my point of view, this makes it useless. I also found it difficult to unsubscribe myself from feeds. This is not to say it is impossible, just not as easy as it could be.

However, these were mainstream media feeds. If you subscribe to a small, specialised feed, you will not be hindered by a result in the thousands. However, unless your interest base was very narrow and extremely specialised you'd still find it pointless.

The Elderly and The Internet

Can the elderly and the Internet 'get along'. My initial impression, was no, no they can't. Once a month my grandmother rings me and tells me she'd like some help with her research. My grandmother is a City & Guilds bead worker and by research, she means she wants to go online and use the Internet to try to find new bead work patterns. My grandmother does not have a computer, so comes to my house to use mine. My grandmother cannot use the Internet, so comes to my house when I'm there so I can use it for her. She does this once a month because her bead work magazine has a website and as a subscriber she can access 'hidden' patterns.

I don't look forward to this time of the month.

I enjoy seeing my grandmother, but I don't enjoy teaching her the same 'skills' anew each time. She tries hard, and acts like the understands and is interested in what I've shown her. By next month however, she has forgotten all I've shown her and insists I show her again.

I was of the opinion that all elderly people had this phobia of the Internet, coupled with the inability to learn.

The Internet Journal of Health defines this phobia as 'computer anxiety' and conducted a study on the elderly and computer usage. They reported that 39% of the elderly (over 65) participants in the study experienced computer anxiety before the study. Only 59% were confident they'd be able to find information on the Internet. During the study, they taught the elderly to use the Internet and computers more effectively. By the end, only 20% of the participants feared the computer, and 80% were confident they could find information on the Internet.

I had assumed that most people over a certain age were unable to use the Internet.

On YouTube, there's a self-proclaimed 'Oldest Man on YouTube', posting at the age of 82. He uses YouTube to post theories, jokes, rants and stories.

There's a 68 year old blogger, calling himself 'Big John', who uses the Internet as a space to 'express himself' and 'rant' for lack of a better word.

However, EarthLink compiled a report on Internet Usage Statistics and state that 79% of people of 65 say they will never use the Internet. It also states that only 4% of people of 65 use the Internet on a regular basis.

Group Blog Evaluation

LDNY - A good plan, but unrealistic?

I felt that the idea behind LDNY was good. It was interesting, it had a specific target market who we could identify and write to, and it was focused so we knew how to go about it.

However, in reality, it may not have been attainable in the long run. Based on geography alone, it became difficult to recommend and review places that we could not physically experience. In addition, in the long term, I feel we may have began to struggle to find events/activities/places to recommend/review. Especially if we limit ourselves to just recommendations. If we were reviewing, we could look at the good, as well as the mediocre and the truly awful. We would have had more scope.

Furthermore, with most of the topics, because we could not experience the subject that we were talking about, we had to read reviews. This inevitably meant that to an extent we were repeating what others said and potentially just reviewing reviews.

In terms of the target audience, although it was clearly defined so we knew who we were writing to, no one in our group is a part of that target (the target being 25-40 business travellers who frequented New York and London).

When it came to the actual reviews/recommendations, I had difficulty reviewing art exhibitions effectively when I couldn't see them. I could see a few of the images, but when it comes to viewing art, it depends on so much more (scale, context, surroundings, atmosphere, etc.). I felt my best review was 'Family Pictures' - The Guggenheim, purely because it was a focused photographic exhibition (which is where my 'art' knowledge is more focused and in depth), and I had seen a few of the photographs before. Even the photographs I couldn't view, I knew the photographers in depth and could still comment on their style and give what I felt would have been a much more accurate review.

In addition, I felt that 200 words are too few to accurately review art. By the time I had explained the concept behind the work and given details as to its location, I had very few words left to be able to describe the work and give my personal interpretation.

I think the lack of personal interpretation led to the site feeling more like an advert than a review/recommendation resource.

The layout of the site led to its purpose being unclear. We never actually mentioned on the site who it was for, or directly commented on what would be discussed. The labels helped, but it was still unclear. The template may have been a poor choice. We couldn't change part of the colour scheme and the title size was stuck, potentially too small. With the layout of the posts, it became more helpful once labels were clicked on and the posts filtered. As a group of posts, the topics were jumbled and confusing. The labels helped, but may have been too inconspicuous.

With images, I felt some could have been bigger. We were trying to maintain a style and layout, but I think for some topics a large image would have been more appropriate, specifically art and potentially food/restaurants as well.

This seems incredibly negative, but we had some strengths as well.

I felt we all wrote well and to a consistent style. Our comments when we incorporated personal opinion were interesting and helpful. I think the idea was ambitious, and although we 'grumbled' about it at times, most of us managed to post once a day and were able to discuss things as a group and work well together.

Will It Blend?

Will It Blend? is an odd cross of the typical YouTube comedy video, and American advertising. It's like the adverts that feature a salesman explaining how an all new washing powder can get the housewife's sheets even whiter.

The advertising itself is somewhat retro, with cliche music, 'flashy' graphics, and inserts of other video clips showing what else can be blended.

It's hard to tell whether or not these 'flaws' are actual flaws. They liven up the video and make it more entertaining. As an advertising tool, it works well. It costs nothing to upload videos to YouTube, and it can only be a minor cost to actually produce the videos. The blender the video feature's, is Blendtec's TotalBlender. This blender costs $400. This is a high price for a blender, but if they manage to sell even 1 through their 'advertising' on YouTube, I'd be willing to believe it completely covers the video production costs.

Will It Blend? raises interesting questions regarding YouTube as a marketing tool, not just a 'place of expression' for a community of web users. The question remains as to what this means for the future of YouTube. Could it in fact become an archive of adverts, all low cost and with potentially wide market penetration? It's possible, but I hope not, and I think YouTube's community wouldn't want it either.