Category Archives: Blogging

Demystifying blogging

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My buddy Chuck posted the following to his blog (AgWired) today:

“Hi there AgWired fans. This morning I’m doing a new media presentation with the folks at John Deere and their agency, BCS Communications. This is an example post for the presentation.”

So what? For many (most? all?) of the people in the room, updating a web page is a Dark Art. Magic. At the very least, a pain in the ass. Some person or persons (or a committee) has to approve the copy and then send it to the web people and –eventually– the web page gets updated.

Chuck just logged in to his Word Press account. Bangs in the copy above…hits the submit button…and publishes for the world to see. It took less time than it is taking me to tell you about it.

I’ve used this analogy before but it’s a good one. When a room full of execs see a demo like this (I wasn’t there but I’ve done a few of these)… it’s like the scene in every Tarzan movie with the Great White Hunters “make fire come from stick,” or when they crank up the movie projector (where did they plug it in?) for the pygmies.

AgWired: Guerilla video

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I refer you, once again, to AgWired for a good example of how easy it is to add video to your blog or website. Chuck Zimmerman is covering the International Poultry and Feed Expos in Atlanta. His posts include –as always– still images and audio. But he is increasingly dropping in short video clips.

He’s just roaming around the floor in this clip but he could just as easily have stopped to interview an exhibitor or speaker. The operative word here is “easily.” He ran the video through Windows Movie Maker (free) for a quick edit and a title…uploaded to YouTube (free)…and then embedded their flash player in his post. Done.

Contrast that to dragging around a cameraman and sound guy (expensive) who have to get back to a studio for post-production (expensive: time and money). Then you gotta get it to the TV station or cable channel and blah, blah, blah. Chuck is carrying everything he needs on his back and if the expo hall is wifi’d…all he needs is a place to sit down.

Radio Iowa: The Blog, getting noticed

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Allbritton Communications launched The Politico today. It’s a free tabloid with an estimated circulation of 25,000 aimed at political junkies and Beltway insiders, and its companion website.

The Politico has garnered attention by snagging high-profile journalists to run the paper. Two of The Washington Post’s top political journalists — editor John Harris and reporter Jim VandeHei — left to become The Politico’s editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively. Reporters have been lured from Time, U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News, among others.

Ben SmithOne of these superstars, Ben Smith, is blogging and includes our own Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa) in “Ben’s Favorite Blogs.” Just the latest high-profile link love for the Bloggerista.

In this 2003 post, I included Kay in my list of “Blogs I Would Read if They Existed.” And now it does. And I do.

More The Politico here and here.

We’ll send out a press release when it’s over

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The Hardest Working Blogger in Show Business, Chuck Zimmerman, is in Berlin, covering the annual meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. IFAJ is “a non-political, professional association for agricultural journalists in 29 countries.” As far as I can determine (and Chuck is aware), he is the only person blogging this event.

You gotta figure that at least some of the attendees have laptops and digital cameras with them. Not one blogger in the bunch? Maybe there’s coverage of the event at the official IFAJ website…nope.

Old Media types can’t understand why I’m even asking? Bloggers can’t imagine attending something like this and not putting up a couple of posts.

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards court bloggers

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Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson chatted with Mrs. John Edwards this afternoon about –among other things I imaging– blogging. Here’s a couple of excerpts from her post/transcription:

“It’s just a great medium and I’m really glad to have the opportunity to speak without having somebody say what I meant to say, you know, which happens whenever there’s a reporter between you — or even, honestly, your own press people — between you and the people you’re trying to get to listen to what you have to say.”

“Here’s what the Internet has to offer. It is a direct medium between people. There is no filter. There is no intervention and that is unparalelled. If you think back about the way we used to communicate in a democracy centuries ago where people stood in the town square, handing out pamphlets with their opinions on them — isn’t this the closest we’ve really come to that again? We’ve returned to that which is what we were based on, where people can stand on their little corner of the Internet, handing out their opinions to people who are willing to listen to them.”

Criticizing Congress

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“In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, but isn’t, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.

Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.”

 

Bloggers take on talk radio hosts

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A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers. This article at NYTimes.com explains and I posted on this when it first came up.

For a dozen years (a long time ago) I co-hosted a one-hour daily call-in show. We did silly shit and almost never got into politics. But we picked the topics for the most part and if the water had gotten too hot, we’d have just stopped taking calls.

That bloggers can now record what we say and send those recordings to our advertisers, urging them to stop advertising on our show… well, that just changes the rules of the game. Big time. Nothing gets a station manager’s attention like a cancellation from a sponsor. “We can always find a new talk show host. Sponsors? Not so easy.”

Your politics will dictate who’s “right” in the story above. But like it or not, yesterday’s “broadcast” is today’s “conversation.” And sometimes it’s all shouting.

“Take a Blogger to Lunch”

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“If we are to survive as news organizations, survival will have to be charted by people who live in the new world, rather than by people who view the Web as either a threat or a tool to gain temporary power in a mortally wounded industry.”

“As news organizations, we inhabit a temporary existence while we wait for the full birth of this new medium. Traditional news organizations must not invest in transitioning people to this new world; we already live in it.

“Where is the innovation? Not in most of our newsrooms. What our newsrooms do have are decision-makers who have never built a Web page by hand, watched Rocketboom, or listened to a podcast. They don’t ‘get’ YouTube and have never heard of Flickr or del.icio.us or Boing Boing.”

— Keith W. Jenkins, the Picture Editor at The Washington Post. Jenkins –a blogger since 1999– was Photography Director at AOL from 1997-1999.

A changing TIME MAGAZINE

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TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel describes some changes at the magazine that “…reflect the way the Internet is affecting pretty much everything about the news business.”

In addition to a new publication date (Friday), the new feature that caught my eye was a blog:

“…now you can start your day by checking our news blog, The Ag, which smartly aggregates and summarizes the most important stories from daily newspapers and blogs around the world.”

Hmm. Someone forgot to tell the editors at TIME that real journalists don’t blog.

“Blogging everywhere you’re not supposed to go in the Ozarks”

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That’s the intrigueing tag line of the Underground Ozarks Blog.

“… a site all about urban exploration in the Ozarks area. You’ll find information and pictures of abandoned places, sewers and drains, ghost towns, and more. If it’s in the Ozarks area, or just close enough to drive to, and you’re not supposed to go there… We’ll get it on the site eventually.”

The blog is written under the nom de guerre, White Rabbit who, along with pals Hiccup, Memory_machine and others, explore (and photograph) some very cool placess. Falstaff Brewery, Nike (Missle) Battery, Erie Sinkhole, “Albino Farm,” Acid Tunnel… just name a few.

If browsing the UOB makes you want to jump into your waders and explore, be sure to read White Rabbit’s disclaimer first:

Underground Ozarks Blog“Just because I do something stupid, doesn’t mean you need to do it, too. Some of the places listed on this site can be extremely hazardous. Adding to that, many of them are also on private property, which means you could be ticketed or arrested if you go there without permission.

In other words, I’m not responsible for you. I would never tell anyone not to go out and explore, but I sure as hell didn’t tell you to do it either. So if you get maimed, killed, or thrown in jail, don’t come crying to me with a subpoena, because it’s not my fault. I don’t have any freaking money anyway.”

Not a bad Philosophy of Life, if you think about it. [Thanks David]