Advanced Online Media

 

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Blogs

BENEFITS OF BLOGGING
CREATING A FREE BLOG
ETHICS
EXAMPLES FROM PREVIOUS STUDENTS
EXAMPLES OF NEWSPAPER BLOGS
FINDING BLOGS
GETTING TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG
GRADING
LINKS
MORE INFORMATION
PROMOTING YOUR BLOG
WRITING A GREAT BLOG

Everyone must keep a blog. You’ll post once a week for 10 weeks, and your posts will be graded. The grading criteria are below. You must choose a topic related to the news and stick with that one topic for 10 weeks.

EXAMPLES OF BLOGS FROM PREVIOUS STUDENTS
Below are examples of excellent blogs from previous semesters:

• Intellitainment (Cassandra)
• Telling Stories: A Writer’s Blog (Ryan)
• Arizona Green Scene (Ashley)
• West Coast Bias (Darin)
• Armchair GM’s Executive Decisions (Alex)
• NFL (Gabe)
• NFL draft (Alana) was syndicated
• The Fourth Estate (Ray)
• Phoenix Suns (Hannah)
• 2006 Mariners (Eric)
• NBA (Richard)
• Local Music Scene (Chelsea)
• Politically Inactive (Lindsey)
• Hurricane Katrina (Dianna)
• Native Americans (Regina)

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Cecil Schwalbe Two male albatrosses eye each other on Isla Espanola.

BENEFITS OF BLOGGING

  1. Writing on a regular schedule makes you a better writer.
  2. Linking practice (includes choosing reliable sources).
  3. Collaboration (commenting, linking).
  4. Editing.
  5. Use of HTML if you modify the template.
  6. Use of a content management system (CMS).

CREATING A FREE BLOG

  • Blogger.com requires a Gmail address (free) — VERY EASY
  • WordPress.com, also free, has more options than Blogger, but it can be confusing.

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FINDING BLOGS

  • Google’s Blog Search is an indexing tool that points to the latest buzz on any keyword or topic.
  • Technorati is the best blog-search option on the Web. Technorati indexes by topic, allowing you to find, for example, just those blogs that love cats. It also lists the most popular terms people are blogging about and features a Top 100 list.
  • Ice Rocket is another good resource for looking up blogs on a particular topic, such as Phoenix Suns, or for searching for blog entries by a certain author or within a specified time period.

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Cecil Schwalbe The males clack their bills as they duel over a female (to the right).

PROMOTING YOUR BLOG by Serena Carpenter

  1. Ask a blogger to review your blog before announcing your blog. Write a few posts to ensure that it is ready to go public.
  2. Sign up for FeedBurner to allow people to subscribe to your posts via RSS. People can read your subscriptions on Google Reader, Netvibes, My Yahoo or Bloglines. You have to add the URL produced from FeedBurner to your blog before people can subscribe. In basic WordPress you have to copy and paste the URL in Widget. Go to Edit > RSS Widget > Paste URL
  3. Always provide an About/Contact section.
  4. If you know of organizations that will feature your blog, seek them out. You could ask to blog for a local online news publication.
  5. It is more important to link to other bloggers than organizations. List reputable bloggers on your blogroll, and write about them and other bloggers occasionally. A blogroll is a list of links to your favorite blogs (it can be a short list, just your favorites). Google Reader will allow you to export an OPML file that contains the blogs to which you subscribe.
  6. Add your blog URL to any Web page with your name on it (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook, faculty Web page).
  7. Facebook is not only about socializing but also about promoting. Post your posts on Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon and any other social networking site. Seek out a wider circle of friends if you have not already.
  8. If you have blogger friends who write about your topic, let them know about you. They might write a post about you or add you to their blogroll. This will increase traffic and exposure to your blog.
  9. You can cross-post to promote your blog and reach a wider audience, such as Open Salon.
  10. Add your blog to Wikipedia under external links. Think about what keywords people would use to find your blog topic.
  11. Allow people to comment on your blog.
  12. Comment on other blogger’s posts related to your topic.
  13. Sign up for an account on Technorati, BlogPulse and other blog search engines to add your blog to their directory.
  14. Add posts to Digg.
  15. Sign up for Pingomatic to update multiple services and search engines when you post. Also, ping Technorati.
  16. Use your post to teach others about your topic and provide resources via links.
  17. Weekdays tend to attract more readers.
  18. Add your blog to other directories. Search out other organizations that feature aggregations of news feeds or directories related to your blog topic. For example, check out cyberjounalist.net or the Poynter Blog Network.
  19. Add a Web page Translator widget to your site, such as Windows Live.
  20. Use Site Meter or Feedjit to measure traffic to your blog. Google Analytics and ShinyStat provide additional data about your readers. The blogging application must allow the embedding of code for Google Analytics and Feedjit. Basic WordPress does not allow embedding of code unless you upgrade or get your own URL. However, you can usually add the Blog Stats, Top Clicks, or Top Posts widgets in WordPress to publicly measure traffic.
  21. Add a Flickr badge to point people to your photos (join Flickr first).
  22. Add your del.icio.us link roll (join del.icio.us first).
  23. For more ideas, check out 60 ridiculously useful tools for your blog.
  24. Seth Godin’s blog lists 56 ways to drive traffic to your blog.

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WRITING A GREAT BLOG

  1. Short posts and short sentences make your blog easy to read.
  2. Include at least one link to another blog or Web site in every post.
  3. Write good link text. Click here is bad link text (Where will you go? You don't know!). This is good link text: Lyndon gave us 10 tips that help him write his blog. Why is it good? Because the text of the link gives you a reasonable expectation of what you will see if you click!
  4. Use good keywords in the headline for every blog post.
  5. Read other blogs—and leave thoughtful comments on them. The more you look at other blogs, the better your own blog will be.
  6. Use an RSS reader, such as Google Reader,* to subscribe to other blogs. This is much more efficient than bookmarking them!
  7. The blogosphere is all about connecting. Your links to other blogs (and your comments on other blogs) will come back around to your blog as others link to your posts.
  8. Do not steal other people's text. Quote a brief excerpt and LINK, if you like someone's post.
  9. Do not steal other people’s images. Include a caption and photo credit OR a directional in the text and a photo credit. If you didn’t have a caption for the photo above, you could reference it in the text where you describe the two male albatrosses clacking their bills as they duel over a female (above, photo by Cecil Schwalbe).

* Use Google Reader to export your subscriptions as an OPML file. Then you can import that file to your blog. In Google Reader, see the link at the bottom of your list of feeds, "Manage subscriptions." Then go to the "Import/Export" tab.

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Cecil Schwalbe The victor hunkers down with his lady.

LINKS

Each post must have a functioning link to an outside web page that is not written by you. This requirement is meant to encourage you to search the web regularly for new and interesting content.

Your blog post must comment on the linked content. The link must be relevant to what you’ve written in your post.

Links are more valuable (higher quality) when they’re more specific. A link to the home page of The New York Times is not very valuable because (a) anyone can find that page without your help and (b) the contents of that page will change in less than 24 hours.

Links are more valuable when the linked content is provided by someone with expertise or a unique perspective. The content of some personal web pages has little value because the author lacks qualifications.

Links are more valuable when your link text tells the user what to expect. The words “Click here” or “This link” do not tell the user anything about the linked content.

You can also add relevant photos, audio clips or video clips to your blog. Just speak to the Lovely and Gracious Mrs. Dodge.

According to Columbus Dispatch staffers, a good hyperlink should:

  • Be trustworthy
  • Provide background and context
  • Deal with a related subject but in a new or different way
  • Be authoritative—foundation, government organizations, individual or organization seen as leader in field
  • Be credible
  • Add understanding
  • Expand on the topic — stuff you couldn’t fit in a news story
  • Offer tangible information
        Locations
        FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
        How something works
  • Be relevant
  • Work
  • Provide further detail
  • Broaden content
  • Describe content rather than point to it by linking from a noun, instead of phrases such as “Click here” or “Click this.”

ETHICS

Be sure to read the Blogger’ Code of Ethics before you start blogging.

NO EATING OR DRINKING IN THE LAB

GRADING

Total points for your blog posts: 150 (out of 1,000 for the entire course). Each blog post is worth 15 points. This will be calculated as follows:

7 points for content and writing style
Is it interesting? Thoughtful? Conversational? Written in your voice? Relevant to your blog’s focus? Timely? Current? Interesting to your audience?

6 points for mechanics
Grammar, spelling, punctuation and AP style. You will lose points for misspelled words, grammar and punctuation errors, inaccuracies and the like.

Note that AP style includes certain standards related to content, and you’re expected to follow those standards. While other blog writers may use curse words, pornographic language and graphic descriptions of violence, you’ll lose points if you do the same. The reason: Your written language in this course must be of professional journalistic quality. Bloggers who aren’t journalists can follow different standards—but you cannot.

Put a title on each posting.

2 points for quality and relevance of the link(s) you included in the post
Quality means the site is credible and current.
Relevant means the site applies to your topic. Link to other blogs, columns, op-ed pieces and stories, not just Web sites.

Important! Be sure to check the COMMENTS link for feedback, questions and comments from the Lovely and Gracious and others. Classmates are encouraged to comment.

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EXAMPLES OF MEDIA BLOGS

  • Guardian on technology
  • Huckleberries Online
  • TV Decoder: Lead blogger is TVNewser creator Brian Stelter
  • The Bastard Machine: By San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman
  • Cyberjournalist wiki
  • Cyberjournalist list of ongoing blogs published by news sites
  • ABC News national political correspondent Jake Tapper blogs a few times a day. All blogs here are vetted in advance by News Practices.
  • ABC News Investigative Unit correspondent Brian Ross
  • ABC News science correspondent Ned Potter
  • David Pogue of the New York Times has a great voice, is engaging and has really taken to his technology niche. You can see an example of posts tagged under his name at Engadget, a high-traffic tech blog.
  • Get on the Bus focuses on education issues.
  • USA Today’s Pop Candy (entertainment)
  • Washington Post’s Going Out Gurus (entertainment)
  • At the Orlando Sentinel TV Guy by TV critic Hal Boedeker is the top blog,
  • USA Today’s On Deadline (breaking news and must-read stories)
  • New York Time’s Shifting Careers (smart thinking at work)
  • Bakersfield’s Ask the Californian (business and finance, neighborhoods and news)
  • Washington Post’s Small Business
  • Spokesman-Review’s News is a Conversation (transparency/editorial)
  • Washington Post on just about anything (by editors, feature writers and columnists)
  • Kansas City Star crime blog
  • Peter Abraham’s LoHud Yankees Blog for the Journal News (sports)
  • The Picker is behind the Tulsa World weekly football game picks contest. He writes a column in the paper, but his blog is where he has brought in a load of new players. He said his big thing is to reply to comments in the comments section. He really tries to have a conversation with people. One week he had 95 comments on one of his posts. He averages 35 comments per blog.

MORE INFORMATION

There are as many different forms of blogs as there are magazines or TV shows or newspaper columns. Some blogs are newsy, others are not. Some are personal diaries, others are not. Etc., etc.

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© 2008-2009 Carol B. Schwalbe