Agenda

1. Who are bloggers

2. Types

3. Understanding the blogging mentality

What is a blog?

Perceptions of Bloggers? Blogging?

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/

• Link blogging

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

Going beyond info dissemination

• Disseminators

• Interpreters

• Mobilizers

• Adversarial

• You must be passionate, have a desire to share and educate

Sharing – SOB report

Why?

• Niche– Enhance authority and promote oneself

• Build community

• Help others to learn

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

Blogging Policies

• Don’t edit – libel– Encourages conformity (McAdams)

• No opinion

Cutting out the Middle People

• Editors – Comments or email

• Sources– Officials, pr spokespeople

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

What is the Blogosphere?

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

What is a Blogroll?

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

What is RSS?

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

Next Class

• Online Jobs

• Meet your groups for final project

• First blog post, comment, blogroll due