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State of the Blogosphere 08• 75% U.S. bloggers are college
graduates
• 42% have attended graduate school
• More than half have a household income over $75,000– News blogs 2006
• 7%-12% regularly read blogs
– Nielsen/Netratings (2006)• 13% traffic attributed to blogs
Four types of audiences (Pew)• Traditionalists
– heavy tv, wx, mean age 52, 46%
• Disengaged 14%
• Integrators – tv and online 23%
• Net newsers – blogs, online, technology
news, engaged, 13%
State of the Blogosphere• Personal – creativity, therapy,
communication
• Professional – sharing of information from usually individual standpoint
• Community -
• Corporate - published and used by the organization to reach organizational goals– “Blogging is having an incredibly positive impact on their lives,
with bloggers receiving speaking or publishing opportunities, career advancement, and personal satisfaction.” (SOB)
Blogs• http://www.dailypuppy.com/
• http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
• http://www.kweaver.org/blog/• http://checkoutblog.com/
• http://veggietalk.wordpress.com/
• http://yogaforlife.wordpress.com/
Live Blogging
• http://www.coveritlive.com/– Commentary streams live to your web
page or blog– Readers viewing the commentary can ask
questions and participate in polls– Post pictures and respond to comments
• http://www.rjicollaboratory.org/
Splog
• Paparazzi of the sports world– Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban
banned bloggers from locker room in March of 2008 because it had begun to take a toll on his players
– Or a blog that disseminates spam
• http://www.fatcyclist.com/
Video or Photo Blog
• http://blog.nextnewnetworks.com/
• http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/
Review or Tip Blogging
• http://www.sportsproductreview.com/review
How journalists blog
• Journalists feel that info found in blogs is not credible, but perceive they will impact the news industry– Competition– Stereotypes…
• Rarely link to outside content• Mimic news content• Blog corral
PR blogs• Communicate
– Crisis blogging– Save retail
• Brand loyalty
• Journalists read blogs• Seek bloggers
• Cannot send pr to them, you have to understand their world
– Bloggers have a set of shared values, rituals and language, conferences, and are exploring codes of ethics
Blogosphere
• Social network or public sphere representing a community that exists in space
• Links = Quality Blog– Attribution– Link to one another to build social capital– Outbound vs. within links
• Increase traffic
– Increase transparency– Increase diversity of viewpoints on topics
Comments
• Disagree respectively
• Extend conversation• Share links to resources
• Use email for private conversations
Content• Make recommendations• Include product images• Short posts
– 250 words– Break into
paragraphs• Post once a day (M-F)• At least one link
– Must be meaningful– Detail via links
• Blogroll
• Never delete anything• Personal voice• Explain blogging• React quickly• Check grammar
• Biography including email
• Encourage comments
Writing Titles/Headlines
• Communicate a benefit• Controversy or debate• Use keywords
• Power words (easy, discover)• Keep it short• Don’t use periods
Elements of a Blog• Post
– Video, picture, url• Blogroll
– Collection of links • Comments (allow)• Categories (Labels) vs. Tags• Archives
Copyright
• Embed videos from news orgs. and YouTube
• Link to content, not take content from other sites
Blogs• Content Management System (CMS)• Blogger - owned by Google
– Easy to use and get started– Easy to embed multimedia– Blogger mobile (send photos and text to your blog)
• WordPress– Robust
• Resembles a Web site with pages
– Good comments spam filter– Customize CSS themes only if you pay
• Both free
Blogs with Social Networks
• http://buddypress.org/– Install on WordPress to create a social
network to friend other bloggers
• http://open.salon.com/cover.php– http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=21011
Identify Fellow Bloggers
• Sign up for a RSS reader• Search for bloggers in your interested topic
area to help
identify your
niche• Blogroll
• Technorati
Next Class
• Four blog posts
• Four comments on different blogs• Learn how to set up a blog using
WordPress
• Name, URL, Title
• Blogs for blogroll
Sign up for WordPress blog
1. Go to http://wordpress.com/.2. Click the big blue button (sign up and create a new blog).3. Choose your URL carefully because you cannot change it.
Keep it lowercased.
4. Choose your banner title (e.g., Online Journalism, Happy Chickens). It should be something you can promote.
5. Go to your email to activate blog
Set up your blog6. Select Login7. This is your Dashboard. Select “Settings” on the bottom-left navigation.
– Change your tagline “a sentence/phrase that encompasses what your blog is about” and time zone to -7
– Under “Discussion,” uncheck:
–
8. Go to “Appearance” tab, select a theme that reflects your blog topic. Click on blog link to view what theme looks like
You must decide:
Two-column vs. three-column. Make sure it has at least two.
Theme should allow the creation of pages (e.g., about, contact).
Text should not be too wide across. Difficult to read unless it is a narrow column.
Text should have good contrast with background.
Encourage user engagement with RSS
9. Register at http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home– Paste url to set up RSS– Write down entire Feed Address – Click Next
10. Select “My Feeds” and select your blog title. You can who is subscribing to your blog using RSS.
Set up your widgets
11. Go to Widgets (sidebar accessories that help connect you to others) under Appearance.
If you have two sidebars, you will select which sidebar
12. Add Search, RSS, Pages, Links, Categories, Text, Askimet
at minimum. Select Save and Edit Widgets.
Pages – Title it “Contact”
Text – Type 1-2 short sentences about who you are and the purpose of the blog
RSS – just display item content and copy URL from Feedburner to your RSS widget
Set up Blogroll
13. Go to Links tab to set up blogroll
14. Delete wordpress.com and wordpress.org blogs
15. Go to Link Categories if you want both a “blogroll” and an “useful sites” link category
16. Go to “Edit” to add blogs and sites > Add new > Add name of blog/site, URL, and select link category
Begin writing a post
17. Select Posts tab, delete “Hello World” post18. Select “Add New”19. Add title or headline for your individual post20. Begin typing post. It acts as Word Processor.
Use Upload/Insert to add video, photos.Edit HTML to add video embeds.
21. Highlight a word, create a link using the link chainicon22. Add tags and categories. Check mark categories if needed. 23. Save draft or publish.
Create a page
24. Select Pages tab
25. Edit page content
26. Turn off “allow comments and pings”
27. Hit update page
Blog Extras
• Sign up for http://pingomatic.com/– updates different search engines that your blog has updated
• Add your Technorati and Google blog to a directory– http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/– http://www.google.com/support/faqs/bin/static.py?page=faq_blog_search_pinging.html
• Sign up for “Google Blog Search Pinging” service. Go to number three. Click “here”
• Click