Entries Tagged 'Weblogs' ↓

Then: “What is a blog?”

Now: “What is Twitter?”

Then: “Why would anyone want to read your blog?”

Now: “Why would anyone want to read your Twitter updates?”

Then: “You really think people care enough about your opinion that you should have a blog?”

Now: “You really think people want to read about what you are doing all the time?”

Then: “Blogging is for egomaniacal exhibitionists.”

Now: “Twitter is for egomaniacal exhibitionists.”

Then: “Blog is a funny word. It sounds stupid.”

Now: “Twitter is a funny word. It sounds stupid.”

Then: “Blogging will be the death of legitimate, long-form journalism.”

Now: “Twitter will be the death of legitimate, long-form blogging.”

Then: “I would never have a blog.”

Now: “I would never have a Twitter.”

Then: “Heyyy, I finally got myself a blog, check it out!”

Now: “FormerSkeptic is now following you on Twitter.”

• Is my time better spent scanning content or reading content?
• Do readers prefer shorter posts that serve primarily as aggregation or would they prefer longer, more in-depth posts with original content from me?
• How much of their post can I excerpt without being perceived as a mooch?
• Should I be linking to “the big boys” as often as I do? Sure, their content is often better, but they have corporate backing, a ton of readers already or both. Should I concentrate solely on highlighting independent bloggers?
• Should I critique local media? What about my own television station’s coverage?
• Why aren’t people commenting at Eye on Blogs? Is it the (admittedly) shitty interface? Is it my own lack of interaction on local blogs? Is it that Bay Area bloggers are already “connected” to existing communities?
• How much nepotism is a bad thing?
• Is this edgy or otherwise possibly offensive post going to bring in traffic or get me sent to the office?
• Should I refer to myself as “I”? Or “we”? Or at all?
• Should post titles reflect the thesis of the post being linked or should it be a reflection of my own opinion? Or neither?
• (more as I think of them)

I’m covering the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco for the work blog, and I’ve written a recap of a blogging panel that I attended that you might be interested in. Here’s a piece:

Facilitating community” is much easier said than done, but you must make those who visit your site feel welcome. That doesn’t mean sparkly icons and overly friendly chit chat with commenters, but make your blog hospitable. Make it easy for them to comment by making sure they don’t have to take unnecessary steps to leave feedback. Making someone log in each time, provide a CAPTCHA or other (seemingly) minor requirements can make someone abandon a comment pretty quick like. Encourage commenting both editorially and technically.

Number two in that list should be number one. It is absolutely paramount that you comment and read other people’s blogs if you want a community to grow in your own. This may seem to take a lot of time and energy, but I assure you that the most organic way to improve traffic to your blog is to be an active participant in someone else’s. Never underestimate the power of the blogger ego. Getting comment feedback is like mainlining crack for many a new media writer. It’s what you want! Why not spread the love and comment like crazy? Let people know you are out there, and that you like what they do. Don’t fake it! Only comment on that which inspires you, but rather than think to yourself, “That was funny,” tell him. Chances are he’s gonna wanna see where you came from, click on your name, and if you’ve got quality content the chances you’ve gained yourself a reader have gone way up.

The free stuff is great advice if you are a pro organization, but this isn’t the best tack for independent bloggers, simply for monetary reasons. However, that bit about promoting your fans is GOLD. If a comment is truly funny or provocative, why not highlight it in a post of its own with your response? Knowing that a blogger respects his readers, values them and even promotes them is big incentive for people to stick around.

Read the rest.

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed. I looked out the window onto a hazy landscape and declared that today would be a good day.

So, imagine my thrill to find in my inbox a note from my dear friend Adam about his brand new political blog Post Politics hosted by the very wise Nashville Post*. It’s live. He’s back (opinion and analysis and all!). And I’m elated. More elated than someone should rightly be about a blog.

The day continues to be a good one.

*Had to scroll allll the way to the bottom of the blog to find a link to their front page. I am a fan of the subtle branding. And the blog looks fantastic and robust.** Did I mention I’m thrilled?

**Nope, not jealous in the least.

This is a first. I’ve been blogging for almost ten years now, and I’ve never been a victim of anything this invasive. Please help me figure this out:

When I make new posts now, somehow, some way, spam links to nasty porn sites insert themselves into my post code! The links do not show up on the front page of this blog, but they do occur in the displayed RSS feed. I’ll take a look at the code of this post before I post it and it won’t be there. But when I come back to it and hit “edit,” I find links to pages about “BBW fingering.” I do not want that.

The more I think about it the more pissed off I get. Is this because I changed my template? How the fuck did these spammers infect my blogging platform? Ugh! Make it stop. Any help or hints you have would be greatly appreciated.

As you can see I just broke my own webpage trying to be cute and hand code CSS. I don’t have the wherewithal to fix it right now, but rest assured that a) I know it is fucked and b) I will rectify it sooner rather than later.

[Cross-posted at Eye on Blogs.]

The 600-pound gorilla in the newsroom where I write right now is that 14 people have been terminated from KPIX due to drastic budget cuts. No, this isn’t a twisted April Fools Day prank, since the involuntary cuts happened yesterday. It’s a reality; seasoned, veteran reporters who have decades upon decades of Emmy-winning experience have been shown the door because advertising revenues are way down in this election year (when they were projected to be much higher). And it wasn’t just on-air individuals who lost their jobs, but those behind the scenes as well. Every single department in the station was subject to cuts.

Word of cuts left the newsroom in near solemn silence, which is a departure from the lively chatter that typically permeates the building. It was (and is) a day of mourning at CBS 5–for those who had to leave, for those whose dear friends are no longer their colleagues and for those who were put in the difficult position of making such hard decisions. Manny Ramos, Bill Schechner, Tony Russomano and John Lobertini are class acts and have brought 60+ years of top-notch journalism to the Bay Area. Their contributions cannot be overlooked. The outrage from SFGate readers is palpable (and suprisingly coherent for newspaper web comments, frankly). Many in the community are feeling a sense of loss today, and not just sadness for good newsmen who lost their jobs, but cynicism about what kind of news they’ll get going forward. These journalists have been a foundation of ace television reporting for decades. Their absence will be noticeable for a long time to come.

I can’t quite describe how strange it is to be writing about this situation from where I sit. I have only been employed at KPIX since mid-November when I was hired to do a job that didn’t exist before. Full-time blogger at a news station is not a common position, in fact, it’s pretty rare (though becoming more and more common). Having a newsroom staffer monitor and produce blog(s) as their sole responsibility is not something even I, a blogger since 1999, would have imagined five years ago. Now stations across the country are making new media, social networking and online publishing a priority as advertising dollars are moving from the silver screen to the computer screen. They are hiring up bloggers who are well-versed in internet news and culture to manage those web properties. Some would debate that a position like this is superfluous, and frankly, they’d have a lot of good arguments, no doubt. Other still would say that the landscape of news dissemination is morphing so quickly that to ignore new media innovations like blogging is a death knell. Those people, too, have many valid points.

It is undeniable that, despite current economic trends that do not bode well, the t.v. news and newspaper business is struggling. They are struggling to catch up to the power of the web which has, in many ways, robbed them of many of their most valuable assets. News gets made online and broken online before traditional media types can even react. Not their fault, exactly, the machine is just too huge and cumbersome. Mainstream media organizations simply aren’t as nimble as independent online newsmakers. However, what the machine lacks in dexterity, it makes up for in spades with exclusive contacts, years of knowledge and hard-won reputation. It’s a morphing industry, no doubt about it. These cuts are an illustration of that inevitable fact.

Here is what other bloggers are saying about the unfortunate KPIX layoffs:

TV Freak:

Yesterday was a sad one at KPIX-Channel 5, where the downsizing trend that has had the newspaper industry in its grips came to the local television station…In the case of KPIX, the station is losing plenty of valuable experience. Ramos and Schechner have five Emmys between them and decades of on-air experience. Schechner has been on TV in the Bay Area since 1972.

TVPhotogBlog:

I recieved a phone call tonight from a friend in the know. He’s lucky to still have a job but he’s still worried…

From Forbes Field to the Bay and Back:

So much for stations being loyal to long time employees.

Ever notice they never fire the General Manager ?

Or so it seems anyway…

California Majority Report:

Lobertini is a solid reporter, one of the best of putting the inner workings of state government into laymen’s terms. He also isn’t shy about putting state leaders on the spot with tough questions, as Gov. Schwarzenegger (and Gov. Davis) found out the hard way on several occasions. I’m sure he’ll land a spot somewhere, but it’s sad to be reporting nearly weekly on the further decline of veteran Sacramento reporters.

And here are some select comments from the active SFGate section in regards to this development:

norcalguy101 wrote:Who watches news on tv anymore. I’ve cancelled my cable. If I want to watch baseball, basketball, or live video coverage, or read the news….it’s all online….plus you get what interests you rather than have to sit their and get stuffed with what a producer thinks I need to know….which based upon the three leading Bay Area news programs is not much…

<WeatherGuy wrote:I don’t know any of these fired reporters. I stopped watching the news when the internet came around in the middle 90s and I could find my own information at my leisure. Local news is just depressing anyway

hoecakes wrote:That’s a shame. Those fired reporters were really good and credible. I worry that they’re going to turn into KRON with idiots like Ysabel Duron (laughs inappropriately and cuts everyone off with her inane driver) and Henry Tannenbaum (complete idiot blowhard). KTVU’s new male morning anchor sucks too with his yukking delivery. Man, local news used to be so good, and now?

wakeupalive wrote:You will all be missed. Just another reason not to watch local news anymore. They are putting on people that can barely read and definitely aren’t news reporters. PBS or nothing else at this point. Sad.

spidra wrote:I’m sorry to hear about these folks joining the host of others in the Bay Area who were laid off or will be laid off this year. It would be great if the experienced reporters, the ones who are truly journalists, could take advantage of not having to please a corporate boss anymore and produce their own blogs and podcasts. It would be interesting to see what they’d come up with if they no longer had to worry about sponsors and shareholders.

leake wrote:Local news is not news - it’s advertising dollars. So what if they move the props around a little, or give the anchors new haircuts every now and then - it’s all about the packaging, not the content. Let’s face it, from a business perspective KPIX and its local news programming is not and will never be “60 Minutes”… And older TV news reporters are not about to start blogging their way to success anytime soon.

I’ve invited some staffers here at CBS 5 to contribute their words on what is a great loss this has been to them both personally and professionally. I hope they do so. I watched yesterday as those who have seen one another most mornings for many, many recent years shed tears for those who were affected. Those wrapped in embraces were then called into manager offices to get the same news that had just stricken their friend. It was hard to watch. I can’t imagine how hard it was for those sent home after 20 or 30 years. The level of distress was at a fever pitch. Employees talked in tiny puddles, wondering aloud if they’d be next. They wondered to their comrades how this news organization would change in the days and weeks to come. Would there be enough of them to get it all done? Their work is done at break-neck pace as is.

Friends are gone. They aren’t coming back. It’s been hard around here, and I imagine it won’t get easier, at least on an emotional level, for a long while.

Readers, you are welcomed to comment on these unfortunate turn of events in our comment section below. Leave well wishes for those who are gone or express your displeasure. You have the floor.

RELATED:

WBZ Boston Appears to Be Hardest-Hit; KPIX San Francisco Bloodied, Too

Latino Casualties at CBS

1% of CBS News Staff Cut in Round of Layoffs

Current Mood: elated

Because Kleinheider got a job!:

Adam “A.C.” Kleinheider, who until recently ran the respected VolunteerVoters.com site for WKRN-TV News 2, will on Monday join NashvillePost.com to augment the site’s breaking news coverage with a political blog.

Kleinheider ran VolunteerVoters.com for almost two years, amassing a loyal readership of local business and political leaders with his aggregation of and commentary on political blogs from all corners of Tennessee.

Kleinheider’s work will supplement the political reporting of NashvillePost.com veteran Ken Whitehouse, who among other stories recently broke the news that John Wilder will retire.

“We’re excited about bringing on board A.C., whose skills and network are a terrific addition to our team,” said Geert De Lombaerde, associate editor of NashvillePost.com. “Diversifying our content with his aggregation experience will cement our place as the premier source for Nashville-area political news and views.”

Go read the rest from the Nashville Post. It has always been a good paper, but it just got a lot more valuable in my eyes.

I’m no fan of Bill Hobbs*, but I try to give props where they are due, so here goes nothing. Hobbs left a comment at the farewell post at Volunteer Voters that deserves praise on a couple of levels. First, I’ll make with what he said:

It’s been a week, and I’ve come to a conclusion about the demise of VolunteerVoters.com. It’s not a big loss. It’s a MAMMOTHLY HUGE loss. There is a giant hole in the media fabric in Tennessee when it comes to political news. VV was the indispensable go-to source for all things political involving Tennessee, and provided depth and context that the various disparate news outlets often lack.

Additionally, while MSM outlets mention or quote from press releases and documents and such, VV often uploaded the whole thing, or gave readers a link to it - making it a far more valuable resource than any single MSM outlet for politics junkies.

It’s a damned shame that WKRN couldn’t figure out how to monetize the single most valuable political news property in the state. Here’s hoping that some other news outlet, one which understands the new media - and the new media consumer - and wants to be an information portal for its readers rather than just an information destination, decides it wants to take over VV, or at least hire Kleinheider to build a VV replacement for them.

This comment from Hobbs is about as close to how I feel about the situation as it can be. That site was special. It did something no other site does, at least not on the same level (hard for those with other jobs to compete with a full-time, paid blogger), which is streamline local and related national political news and opinion for an influential and sizable audience. Nashville editors, Tennessee senators and journalists all over the country logged in on a daily basis to read what Kleinheider brought. Surely someone with some smarts and a little vision can turn that into a profitable endeavor, at least in the long term. Bill’s dead on with that statement.

Here’s what also deserved recognition, and what prompted me to write this post: Kleinheider gave Hobbs hell. I mean, he deserved it, but VV was relentless when it came to the GOP blogger who is, no matter how you slice it, a force to be reckoned with. And yet, Hobbs comes to one of his biggest critic’s defense because what Volunteer Voters gave to its readers was bigger than all that. Cheers to Bill for being a big man. At least about that.

*Oh hai, understatement.

This comment was left by a Nashville News 2 staffer on the farewell post at Volunteer Voters, the political blog once run by that station:

Although, I always hate to see any one lose their job and I appreciate the work that Adam did here at WKRN. I have to say that if his departure saves the job of just one employee that actually does tv work then it was worth it to me. This is a tv station not a blog station. I saw a lot of tv employees lose their jobs while Internet people remained. Before Adam was let go we had 3 Internet people and only 4 directors. For a TV station that is just not smart. Blogs are a luxury for a tv station not a necessity and this station can’t afford any luxuries.

While I can totally see why this employee would feel this way, it is evident that they are completely unaware of how the internet is changing their profession in radical ways that cannot be ignored. People with this mentality will either catch on or get swept away in the new media tide.

Adapt or die.