Written on January 21st, 2005 at 10:01 pm by David Shawver
Returning to Blog Ethics
Jeff Jarvis is taking another stab at the blogging and ethics question and this time tries to take a different approach -‘Some of us have been looking at this ethics question the wrong way: The starting point is not to impose a code of ethics on a medium but instead to understand the ethic of the medium — and its community — as it exists: What are bloggers already telling us about their ethic?’
He then goes on to identify 6 ethics which I quite like:
‘: The ethic of transparency: We believe that our public deserves to know about us and our perspective to better judge what we say.
: The ethic of conversation: We do not believe in one-sided lectures. We believe conversation leads to better understanding.
: The ethic of humanity: We believe this medium lives at a human level while old media lives at an institutional level.
: The ethic of the link: We believe one of our key jobs is to link our public to other voices and to source material so they may judge themselves.
: The ethic of correction: We believe it is vital to correct errors quickly and openly.
: The ethic of immediacy: We believe that the fast spread of information is will yield better information.’
Written on January 19th, 2005 at 04:01 pm by David Shawver
Blogathon - 24 hours of Blogging for the children of the Tsunami
Thanks for all those who stopped by the Blogathon yesterday. With your help we raised close to $1000 USD (still tallying it up). Of course its not too late to make a donation so that could go up some more.
I wrote a number of Pro Blogger related posts over there which I’ll tranfer to this blog in the next few days. Til then its back to a semi normal blogging day (although don’t expect too much deep thought - after 24 hours of straight blogging I’m feeling a little out of it today.
Written on January 19th, 2005 at 10:01 am by David Shawver
Pitch me Your Posts
This time tomorrow I will have been blogging for 7 hours straight in my blogathon to raise money for the Tsunami appeal, I’ll have added around 30 entries and I just know that I’ll be starting to wonder where the next 70 will come from.
So this is a call for the most interesting post (or two) that you’ve written on your blog in the past few days. Leave a link in comments below and if I find it interesting (and if I don’t get hundreds submitted - unlikely) I’ll link up to it with some comments. Might be a good way to promote your writing and get your blog noticed by a few more readers.
Written on January 18th, 2005 at 09:01 am by David Shawver
Journalism’s Critique of Blogging - A Great PR Tool
Interesting piece over at What Next Blog looking at the way the Wall St. Journal and New York Times are Still Dissing Bloggers.
‘It went on to create tension by saying that “Bloggers push stories and theories that make big media look slow, defensive or part of some far-fetched conspiracy.” Noting that “competition is rarely welcomed by the incumbents,”, the article admitted that “it can help make them better.”‘
I actually think that the more they critique blogging the more successful they will making it.
In my early days of blogging I had a little blog that hardly anyone ever read - it had a readership of 10 to 20 a day (which I thought was pretty decent!), mainly just my family and one or two friends. I wrote mainly on issues of spirituality and faith.
However one day I created a bit of a stir by posting about how I’d visited a local Mosque’s open day. This was the first day that ‘Greg’ appeared on my blog. ‘Greg’ (I do not know if this is his real name) was offended by my visit and subsequent post and made it his business for the next month or six to be my personal troll. He commented on anything and everything that I wrote.
An interesting thing happened though - whilst Greg’s critiques, arguments and dissing were aimed at hurting me they actually were the reason that my blog became quite prominent in the community of bloggers that I was attempting to become a part of.
Greg sealed my popularity one day by surfing to around 100 blogs in this community and leaving a comment accusing me of being a “F#@$ing muslim loving, liberal”. Thankfully he did so with a link back to my blog.
The next day my traffic was in the thousands with the link ups. 99% of the traffic was supportive of me and many remain readers of that blog today. The dissing not only energized me and motivated me to write more - but it also intrigued many potential readers and drew them to what I was doing. I could not have publicized my blog any better if I’d done so myself. Of course I wrote a big post thanking Greg for his help and have not heard from him on my blog since.
Now I’m not arguing that we all find ourselves trolls, or pick fights with one another - but I would argue that whilst the blogosphere might seem under attack from time to time that there might be some truth in the old adage - ‘any publicity is good publicity’.
Written on January 18th, 2005 at 09:01 am by David Shawver
BlogMine -Content, Clicks, Cash!
Another blog revenue stream has been announced - this time its BlogMine.com whose motto is ‘Content, Clicks Cash!’ Their main service is ‘GoldRush’.
‘GoldRush makes you money. It analyzes the blog’s content and provides text ads targeted to your content and your audience. No need to worry about irrelevant ads showing up in your blog and feeds.’
Once again - it is a contextual system which rules out those of us using Google’s Adsense.
This is the third such system to be announced in the last month or two. We’ve already seen two very similar services announced in Chitika and Crisp Ads. I’m yet to really see many bloggers using them and have not heard any tales of success (or failure for that matter) on them.
Written on January 18th, 2005 at 09:01 am by David Shawver
Google to Kill Blog Comment Spam?
Steve Rubel points to a rumored announcement of a system of blocking Google’s bots reading your comments - thereby taking the incentive for comment spammers to leave comments.
‘But since then several bloggers have reported that Winer was testing a new Google linking mechanism that might put an end to blog comment spam by omitting all links from its PageRank calculations that have a rel=”nofollow” attribute tag. This would change the economics behind why people comment spam popular blogs - to boost their Google search rank. If this is true, it would certainly be welcome. Stay tuned.’
I’m all in favor of any such system - but suspect that if it is left up to bloggers to insert the code into their own templates that it will only ever be used by a certain percentage of the blogosphere and as a result there will always be some incentive for comment spammers to continue on their merry spamming ways. Maybe if such a system were to be included in all future releases of the big blogging systems it would help combat the problem more. Bring it on though I say - I’m sick of the morning ritual of cleansing my blogs from the filth.
Of course there will be a cost of blocking Google from Comments also. A cost to legitimate bloggers who interact with other legitimate bloggers. In the same way that spammers comments will no longer promote them in Google - legitimate bloggers will lose backlinks from comments and slip in their Google rankings. Search engine ranking is very dependent upon backlinks to your blog - if many of us were to review our backlinks we’d find that a lot of them come from our own comments. I do not leave comments for this purpose - comments for me are about connecting with other bloggers and exchanging ideas - however a side benefit of doing so is the way it increases profile in Google. I leave around 10 comments per day on others blogs - over two years of blogging this is over 6000 links to my sites. If these were to disappear I wonder what impact it would have. I suspect that if this system were to be implemented on past comments that many bloggers would see a corresponding slip in their SERPs. I guess there is a cost to every gain in life.
Written on January 17th, 2005 at 09:01 am by David Shawver
Technorati Tags for Dummies
Everyone is talking about Tags at the moment. With the launch of Technorati’s new Tag service it is no wonder that they are because it is a technology that has the potential to change the way we find and interact with one another’s content. Rather than rewrite what has already been written on the topic I thought I’d provide you with a list of excellent resources that have already been written on Technorati Tags. Feel free to submit your own suggestions and articles on Tags below in comments. Here are some of the better posts and resources on tags that I’ve found so far:
- Technorati has an information page on Using Technorati Tags - ‘Think of a tag as a simple category name. People can categorize their posts, photos, and links with any tag that makes sense.’
Sifry writes that Tags are still in beta - and that ‘ there are kinks to be worked out, and missing features, too. For example, we still miss some tags here and there, especially for certain weblogs, due to some post detection issues. We’re working on that. In addition, we will be providing RSS feeds so you can subscribe to your favorite tags. We’re also working on ways that anyone can participate and be included in the system, keep your eyes on this space in the near future.’
- Corante has an excellent article on Technorati tags: (Take 2) with some good introductory remarks and some observations and guesses about how the technology will unfold - ‘Just slap a tag on something and now its value becomes social, not individual. As these tags are added willy-nilly, two issues arise: We want to get more value from them and we want to work out the scaling problems — it’s one thing when there are 30 things tagged with “weasels” and another when there are 300,000. A site like Technorati, which already gets its value as an aggregator, is in a good position to innovate around both issues.’
- View from the Isle by Larix Consulting writes On Technorati tags…another folksonomy - Why is tagging important? Well I think the explosive popularity ofFlickr anddel.icio.us really show us why. People like to categorize things and like to read about/see pictures/bookmarks from people who are also interested in these things. It is another extension of social networking. And it will be the next wave to expand the blogsphere and make it even more useful.’ Tris also considers Tag Spam which could not be far away.
- How to Blog for Fun & Profit has an excellent introduction to Technorati TAGs - ”Tagging represents a new way to filter and categorize the web even further than we already can. But it also represents a new level of viral socialization. Technorati.com has implemented a new tagging service which makes use of Flickr and Del.icio.us.’
Naptsterization writes about Tagging at Technorati, Flickr and Del.icio.us - ‘What I’m wondering about is how quickly the spammers will figure this all out, and use it to their advantage. Currently, even though I block comment spam across my blogs, and know that Technorati, Feedster, PubSub et al, as well as Google, don’t log comments or at least comment links because of the spam problem, the comment spammers try ever increasingly clever tricks. They might leave 500 comments in a hour (like I wouldn’t notice) each with a different IP address, a different URL they want linked to for google juice, a different return email address, different products.‘
Jeff Jarvis in Tag me writes - ‘I want a plug-in that lets me add tags to posts as easily as I add the less flexible categories. Better yet, I’d love a smart plug-in tied into a network of Technorati/Flickr tags that suggests tags to me.’ - Here Here - I want a plug in like that too!!!
Technorati Tag Plugins, Tools and Bookmarklets
- Oddiophile has developed a bookmarklet that automates the writing of Technorati Tagging Code.
- John Jottings has a short piece on using Technorati Tags in Movable Type
- WordPress Plug ins has developed a Technorati Tag - WordPress Plugin
- Drunk and Tired has some useful ideas and code for Blogger Users wanting to use Technorati Tags
- Jabberwocky has developed a plug in (version 1) to help WordPress users use Technorati Tags
- Notebook has this handy little bookmarklet that allows you to search Tecnorati’s Tags
Technorati Tags: Technorati, Tags, Blogging,
Written on January 16th, 2005 at 08:01 pm by David Shawver
Blogger asks to be removed from Bloglines
Saw this interesting post over at the The Trademark Blog where he explains why he has asked Bloglines to remove his RSS feed from its service.
‘It was brought to my attention that a website named Bloglines was reproducing the Trademark Blog, surrounding it with its own frame, stripping the page of my contact info. It identifies itself as a news aggregator. It is not authorized to reproduce my content nor to change the appearance of my pages, which it does. In response to my inquiry to Blogline’s CEO as to whether they sell advertising, he indicated that they ‘are not currently running advertising.’ Nevertheless, the Blogline’s home page currently is soliciting ‘targeted advertisements.’ I would also assume that Blogline is accumulating commercially-useful mailing lists (its privacy policy appears to allow it to sell information). The privacy policy also has a provision entitled ‘mergers and acquisitions’ clearly allowing it to sell its lists.
Thus, in my view, Bloglines’ reproduction of my site is a commercial derivative work. Bloglines has agreed to remove my site from its service and I thank it in advance for its cooperation….’
I wrote last week that Bloglines would be walking a fine line if they put ads on there service - I suspect we might see more of this type of thing - although at this point I suspect that its a mistake to ask to be removed as Bloglines is a major player when it comes to RSS which is increasingly being used by readers to read blogs.
I would agree with Scobleizer who writes ‘if you don’t want your full posts reprinted somewhere else, don’t put them into RSS. That’s one reason most commercial sites don’t include full content in their feeds.’
Bloglines is just one system that uses RSS - Scobleizer is write in suggesting that the only real way to get around other sites publishing your full posts is to either disable RSS altogether on your site or only allow it to publish excerpts. I find excerpts is a good way forward because it exposes your content to potential readers but also gives them reason to visit your site.
Written on January 16th, 2005 at 08:01 pm by David Shawver
Why ((Insert Occupation Here)) Should Blog
There seems to be a recent spate of articles being written that argue the case for why different occupations ‘Should Blog’. Here is just a few that I found in just a few minutes.
- Why advertising, marketing and PR pros should blog
- The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog
- Seven Reasons Why Business Should Blog Now
- Why Small Businesses should blog
- Why corporate boards should blog
- Why ministers should blog….
- Why MP’s Should Get Blogging
- 10 reasons why should a politician blog
- Why postgrads should blog
- Why Journalists Should Blog
- Why sociologists should blog
- Why Authors Should Blog
- Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs - almost makes the field but just needs to get a ’should’ in there.
It is a good list - but there are a few missing articles I suspect. How about:
- Why Teachers Should Blog
- Why Accountants Should Blog
- Why Academics Should Blog
- Why Hairdressers Should Blog (well why not!?)
- Why Plumbers Should Blog
So here is my challenge to you (it is part of my ‘Blogger Idol‘ project for this week). Write a “Why <<Insert Occupation Here>> Should Blog” article on your own blog. Then head over to the Blogger Idol Blog and leave a link in the comments section to your article. I’ll add my favorite ones to the list in this post.
Update: Here are some of the new ones added so far:
- Why Stay at Home Mothers Should Blog
- Why PhD Students Should Blog
- Why Writers Should Blgo
- Why Journalists Should Blog
Written on January 16th, 2005 at 06:01 pm by David Shawver
Will Podcasting Make Money ?
pc4media has a good post examining the question of Will Podcasting Make Money?
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