Blogging makes you more popular?

A study has come out which says that people who blog can feel less isolated and more satisfied with your friendships both online and in the real world. The two month study found those who blogged felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those in the study who didn't.

Could this be because bloggers have a platform to vent frustration and express emotion? Or is it that we're a bunch of egotists who like to think people want to read what we have to say ;-)

10 years of blogging

So, it's ten years since the term weblog was first used by a man collecting a list of links on his Robot Wisdom website. It's sure come a long way since then!

However, I really believe a blog is for documenting your thoughts on a subject that interests you. It's a place for sharing and raising opinions, and a place for breaking the news.

Just because the term was only invented ten years ago doesn't mean people weren't blogging before that. A company I worked at had it's own development diary on their public website which was in essence a blog. Many scientists I know were documenting their work in their field on the internet.

The real explosion of blogs happened thanks to the software that makes it all possible and the rise of platforms such as Wordpress. Blogs existed long before that, they just weren't called blogs and certainly were more difficult to create!

Blogosphere Stunned...

Have to agree wholeheartedly with Mike Arrington of Techcrunch. The Onion is genius!!

Entire Blogosphere Stunned By Blogger's Special Weekend Post

NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday.

The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was linked to by several thousand sites, including Daily Kos, Digg, and The New York Times.

"Wow, what a special treat this was for all of us," said Talking Points Memo head blogger Joshua Micah Marshal, who, along with all other bloggers, checks Tiedemann's site every day just in case something monumental occurs. "I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday to find out if Ben decided to put [the shelf] in his bedroom or the living room. The pictures were great, too."

Within two hours of going live, Tiedemann's 15-word post received 34,634,897 comments.

Bloggers beware...

I've just been reading a story on the International Herald Tribune about the former U.K. ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray and his blogging woes.

He's made what the press are calling a major faux pas by posting "potentially defamatory" information about Alisher Usmanov, a mining mogul who's currently trying to take a stake in Arsenal football club. Murray's ISP (Fasthosts) received a deluge of ominous legal letters demanding the removal of said information. And now, a couple of weeks later Murrays blog is no more having disappeared off the internet. Apparently he is due to reappear on that well known Dutch ISP who is happy to give a home to some of the more edgy bloggers out there.

Obviously the blogging community is up in arms about this kind of censorship. The main worry is the way Fasthosts removed the blogs without any legal ruling being decided. This means that none of our blogs are safe (if you're hosting in the UK) and if you annoy the wrong people you could well see your blog disappear before your eyes.

I hope this doesn't increases in prevalence, it would be nice to think that freedom of speech could exist in 2007, but I really doubt it does when dealing with people with vast fortunes.

User comments, a different take

I love The Onion, and here once again they've hit the nail on the proverbial head with this video showing how they (the media) respond to users comments. Really makes sense if you've ever run a blog, social network or user generated content based site.

Viewer Voices: Where We Respond To The Opinions Of Our Uninformed Viewers

What if business meetings were like internet comments...

So what would your business meetings be like if we all spoke like threaded comments on an internet forum or blog post? The below gives you a pretty good idea ;-)

Is Technorati broken again?

Recently Technorati has been having problems with indexing new posts after you ping the service. A few weeks back it went almost a week without picking up anything new from my blog. Today it's doing the same, and yesterday it picked up one but missed out older posts.

They seem to be having some issues over at Technorati towers. The indexing issue is the tip of the iceberg. Technorati is losing it's usefulness to bloggers and regularly I see posts saying that bloggers no longer rely on it to deliver the traffic it once did. I get very little traffic from Technorati now but like to keep my site up to date by auto-pinging it.

I'd be interested to hear others opinions about the service and what they use to gain traffic now it's broken.

Bloggers cashing in

Details in Business Week here about how much the top bloggers are raking in from their online antics.

Unsurprising list of people but the amounts are quite staggering. Some bloggers are refuting the claims but it's probably pretty accurate judging by the traffic levels that they claim...

Good on them. However, it does of course make those of us who do it for nothing that much more honourable ;-)

Most annoying web words

E-consultancy.com has a blog post about a recent YouGov survey which asked people what words used on the web were most likely to make them 'wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard' (pretty extreme reactions to words if you ask me).

The results are below:

1. folksonomy
2. blogosphere
3. blog
4. netiquette
5. blook
6. webinar
7. vlog
8. social network
9. cookie
10. wiki, podcast and avatar
    

I'm a bit flummoxed! Who did they ask, a load of people who've never heard of these words or didn't understand them I'd bet. Folksonomy is an excellent word but only really makes sense if you understand taxonomy and it's meaning. Also, some of these words have been around for years, so why ask? All seems a bit pointless to me!

Bush administration not happy with bloggers 'shield'

Unsurprisingly the Bush admin has expressed it's displeasure at the Free Flow of Information act. The act would allow bloggers engaged in journalistic pursuits to be granted immunity from divulging confidential sources.

"The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web," Rachel Brand, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing here. She also argued it would protect "a terrorist operative who videotaped a message from a terrorist leader threatening attacks on Americans."

Sounds a bit ridiculous to me. If a blogger is reporting something then should they have the same rights to privacy for them and their sources as any other person involved in journalism!

Bloggers facing the sack

Croner, the HR company, have commissioned a study of 2,000 people who publish blogs or web pages to find out how sensitive the information they post can be. They reckon that more than a third risk the sack through posting of defamatory or libellous information.

The BBC carries the full story here.

Self PR online

In these days of social networks and community based web sites it's no surprise to learn that employers are wising up to the wealth of information that prospective employees are posting about themselves online. Most web users have signed up to at least one social network or community, many using their own names or posting identifying details. Some of these sites are good self PR (Linkedin, Xing, Soflow etc), while others can be sources of rather less positive PR (MySpace, Bebo, Faceparty etc). With the pervasiveness of these websites and the growing profile, is it now time people got a bit more cautious about what they post?

According to a report from business social network, Viadeo these social networks can have a significant effect when applying for a job. According to the research, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the internet and 59 per cent of those said it influences recruitment decisions. A quarter of HR decision-makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online. Examples of information that has proved to create a negative impression of candidates include MySpace or Faceparty sites which expose excessive drinking or a general disrespect for work. Ethical issues which prospects post about on blogs and social sites can also put a stop to a job application before it gets off the ground.

The moral? Careful what you post, you never know who's reading your blog/profile... Self PR is something you can control through sensible use of blogs and social networks, you can even improve your employability through strategic use of the positive networks or blogging about issues relating to your chosen field. This could become a really good way to increase your profile with employers and to impress before you even get to interview.

Tagging taking over

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the use of tagging is growing fast among US web users. The December 2006 survey has found that 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts. On a typical day online, 7% of internet users say they tag or categorize online content.

Tagging has always had this perception that it's a step towards a semantic (read more intelligent) way to traverse the web, but in reality it is proving a common sense approach to cutting and dicing information to make it easier to manage/find. Although it does have it's detractors who say tagging is too simple, I'm of the opinion that it's an incredibly useful tool when used correctly. Roll on the day when all content management systems come with a built in folksonomy function!

Blogging set to peak in 2007

The BBC is reporting some Gartner analysis into the quantity of blogs and how that growth will continue (or drop off) in the next year.

They say that the number of blogs will level out at around 100 million next year. Apparently, Gartner reckon that 200 million people have already given up on their blogs.

It's quite an undertaking to make sure that your blog is posted to regularly, I've been as guilt as others of leaving it dead for periods of time, being able to devote the time to post every day is not always possible when you have a full-time job and life to devote time to as well!

How celebrated is your blog?

Nice, fun little tool on Kineda which allows you to enter your blogs url and then it grades your status as a bloglebrity using Technorati rankings.

Bit of fun for a Wednesday morning... I'm only C-List apparently, so gives me something to aim for :)

Newspapers cashing in on social media

Mashable (quickly becoming a must visit destination every morning) is carrying a story about The Sun newspaper and it's first foray into the social networking world.

My Sun is the newspapers first attempt at acquiring some user generated content through a social networking type platform. It's fairly obvious the My comes from MySpace and it's obvious a lot of inspiration has been taken from the social media darlings of the moment.

However, I don't want to take anything away from The Sun as in my eyes it looks like they've made a really good job of coming up with a social space which will allow them to engage their readers and create a community around their newspaper website.

Everyone wants to talk about the news, and let's face it, The Sun carries the kind of stories that get people talking!

The core of this service sits around discussion forums, a blogging platform and the ability to add comments and send in pictures related to stories on the site. It's all tied around a nice feature caled My Sun which gives signed up users a profile area to tell the world about themselves and a blog to post their opinion on things. Also, My Page is a nice feature where you can specify categories of stories that interest you and they get delivered to your page. It's this level of personalisation that could make this a really shrewd move for The Sun!

I think it's a great idea, not that it's groundbreaking, but it's been nicely implemented. The selection of services offered gives real value to users and regular readers of The Sun online are sure to sign up.

A very smart first step into the social arena for this tabloid newspaper!