Week 6 posting

For this weeks assignment, find a strictly vanity blog and an info. Blog and compare and contrast the two in several paragraphs.

Vanity blog: http://www.myspace.com/godamunginsects

Info blog: http://baseballblogs.org/

1. Summarize each of the 2 research links you found above.

Well, the first blog I listed is most certainly the DEFINITION of a vanity blog. This guy is someone I used to know back in high school who seems to believe himself to be some sort of deity. If you take the time to read his ramblings, I’m sure you’ll agree. It’s really quite sad, the way he rambles on about himself being “the fulfillment of the prophesy”. Guess you have to know the guy to really understand how deeply he believes this stuff.

The second blog I’ve listed is actually a blog of blogs, so to speak. This lists a great many people who blog about baseball and its’ goings-on. More than anything it’s a ranting post for people who aren’t really insiders, but like to think that they have the answers to every team’s problems. It’s a home of armchair quarterbacks nationwide (sorry, couldn’t think of the baseball version of that analogy).

2. Do you feel blogging particularly supports this type of journalism as compared to print media? Why or why not? What makes for a good info. blog? What makes for a good vanity blog?

I do feel that blogging supports this type of journalism, simply because a great many of the posts which I’ve read in blogs are inane drivel that would never make it through the gatekeepers of legitimate media. Good info blogs are driven by good research and good connections, but if a person had those connections, they would likely be employed by someone who wanted to publish their material. I’m not sure that I believe in such a thing as a good vanity blog.

3. Did the research material you found support or not support your original thesis (posted in module 1) To help you quantify your research, rate the preceding question on a scale of 1 to 5.

5: Strongly supports my thesis.

Section III -- The great endangered news blog

1. This week, continuing our research into how blogs are used and whether they have an impact on print media, let's look at a pre-cursor to the blog that you read about in your text, the e-zine. E-zines are magazines published on-line. One might call the blogging equivalent to the e-zine the news blog. For this weeks assignment, find a news or current events oriented e-zine as well as a news or current events oriented blog and compare and contrast the two.

1. Summarize each of the 2 research links you found above.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000210.php

Well, I google-searched for current events e-zines, and came up with this. Not much about news or current events on it, but I must say that it’s one of the more entertaining news blogs I’ve seen. I’d say this guy needs to fix his metadata so google can file him better, but to be honest, I’m glad I found this. A favorite topic: his love for his children. Pleasant to read.

http://www.ezine-dir.com/glinks/jump.cgi?ID=23565

This leads to American Journal e-zine, which seems to focus on Americana and all things amenable to apple pie and baseball. Certainly a bit more serious, definitely more professional, absolutely less entertaining. I read half a page and had to hit the snooze button. Owned by a company, which means the topics are mostly homogenized and issues aren’t exactly burning.

2. Compare and contrast the blog to the e-zine. Which do you feel was more professional and effective? Mentioned in #1 Which was easier to find on the internet? E-zines are a pain in the tuckus to find on the internet unless you have money, which I don’t. Blogs of any kind are a dime a dozen, but great blogs like The Sneeze are much rarer than I’d like. Which was easier to read? I found the professional e-zine to be boring as all hell, and honestly, less informative – however, the news blog I read wasn’t exactly written to be informative. I would have a hard time believing the word of a blogger. Did they both cover the same current events? Umm, no. The Sneeze had a major article about the commissioning, and subsequent painting, of a copy of the famous ‘boxer through the ropes’ painting substituting Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots. Did you feel they were credible or trustworthy? I felt that each was credible and trustworthy for the subject matter that they covered. If I were searching for actual news, I would never consult a blog unless it was the blog written by the person I was looking up. Would you be more likely to feel a print source such as a newspaper or magazine was more credible than a blog? Than an e-zine? Why? Yes and yes. If something is in print, it has to go through many more gatekeepers than online content. That doesn’t mean that print news is infallible, simply that it is comparably more trustworthy.

3. Did the research material you found support or not support your original thesis (posted in module 1)? To help you quantify your research, rate the preceding question on a scale of 1 to 5.

5 Strongly supports my thesis.

1. Summarize each of the 3 research links you found above.

http://webdesign.about.com/cs/weblogs/a/aa061603a.htm

This page at About.com gives some quick hints on how to use a weblog to augment an already-existing website, with a focus on stodgy corporations going for that personal touch and companies that frequently have small messages to get out to their return customers. A nice, quick read.

http://www.101publicrelations.com/bloggingforbusiness.html

While this site is essentially an advertisement for an e-book on blogging, it does list a great many reasons why businesses need to set up a weblog. Of course, these reasons may be biased due to the company’s product being directly attached to blogging, but I digress. For only $47, you too can understand why something my 8 year old cousin can set up is absolutely necessary for your business to survive! (faith healing not included)

http://www.prowrestlingx.com/

This website is the weblog of a video game a friend of mine has been working on for nigh on 3 years now. They don’t make regular entries (as most blogs tend to die out within a short amount of time) and when they do, they aren’t exactly earth-shattering. But the fact that I’ve been waiting for this game to come out for a few years necessitates that I check the RSS feed at least weekly to see if there was a sudden breakthrough. That, I believe, is what business blogging is all about – the RSS feed of automatic information.

2. What other options would an entrepreneur have to market themselves to their audience? What things can a blog do for an entrepreneur that these other means of self-promotion can not? Do you feel blogs are an effective alternative to these methods? Why or why not?

While blogging is a cost-effective (read, cheap or free) tool for getting your message out there into the blogosphere, it is NOT very effective at moving that message outside of your little circle. While many companies, and even more bands, are advertising on MySpace (which I firmly believe is a tool of the Debbil) and getting themselves “added” on as many profiles as possible, you still lose the audience that isn’t hip to those new-fandangled places. My grandpa, who walked uphill both ways in the blinding snow to get to work at the minefield, is unlikely to catch that type of advertising.

Other options would include getting up the gumption to do a permanent website (not impossible in today’s market), sending out snail-mail or e-mail to your closest customers, or having one of those insane sign-twirlers that are all the rage right now. Personally, I believe that doing a website with semi-regular updates that are attached to a subscribable RSS-feed is the way to go. You get to be more hands-on with your graphic design, the layout of your info, and while a blog is more immediate, a self-designed website can be just as much so. It takes a total of 2 minutes to cut-and-paste your text from a Word document to your HTML page, and upload it to the Intarwebz. To me, blogging is for untrained, lazy folk. Just my opinion. I can’t think of anything that a weblog gives me that I can’t replicate easily with a regular webpage.

3. Did the research material you found support or not support your original thesis (posted in module 1)? To help you quantify your research, rate the preceding question on a scale of 1 to 5.

The research material I found was NOT in support of my thesis. However, when I am asked to find websites that support blogging, it’s a given that they will not support my thesis that weblogs are generally poorly-written drivel from depressed teenagers and snake-oil salesmen. Wait… it does support the snake-oil sales thing, with a $47 charge for a book telling you why you should blog for business. I stand corrected… I think I pulled even here. 3 out of 5.

Project 1: Intro of Self, Intro of Thesis

My name is T. Fields, and I am against the following statement: Blogging has significantly impacted the print journalism industry.

It is a certifiable fact that newspaper subscription numbers have fallen significantly in recent years, but the reasons for this are nebulous at best. While some of the more obvious answers, such as internet news sources that are more up-to-the-minute and accessible, certainly have weight, other sources propose that newspapers are becoming less popular due to the obvious spin and sensationalizing forced in by copywriters desperately jockeying for a position on the front page. While this treatment of the news has been brought to light time and again, this very smearing of the truth and force-feeding of opinion is what blogging is essentially all about. I believe that blogging, while occasionally truthful and even less-occasionally useful, is all about the self-important egomaniac trying to push their shrill voice to the forefront of a crowd of people with the same sheep-like thought processes. If blogging is the death of the Associated Press, this world is headed for an ugly time in which rumors will rule the day and misinformation will be the most prominent form of information.

The best news of all is that my position will be incredibly easy to defend, given the wealth of inane bloggers out there. Good luck, all.