Blogging; the next big thing.
Introduction: Blogging, now in its infancy is poised to become a new model of interactive journalism
(Source: Vijay Times, VT CONNECT.)
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal
We have all heard about blogging, (short for weblog). Blogging is a popular indulgent of all who have the facility of time and computers. A blog consists of periodical entries into one's webspace on the Internet, meant for personal or public reading. Blogging was previously initiated as a method to direct traffic into one's website by offering blog space in addition to other facilities and making sure that lots of individuals logged on to visit the site. This over time has resulted in a revolution of speech pattern. Everyone who is anyone is talking… blogging. Private thoughts, stories about their pets, strong opinions, and community networking etc. the information is on the net for everyone to read.
It is not surprising though that suddenly everyone's a publisher and everyone's a critic. Bloggers are discussing issues, problems in the market, products, environment and culture. Internet writing has not only started its own language but also provided a strong medium of critical information exchange. If an individual has had a bad experience with a product or service he is quick to add it to his blog and a public blog can do as much harm as well as good to any product. What is more crucial is that these are real people's opinions. So can companies and marketing individuals and writers avoid or ignore it? No, because this is the ultimate word-of-mouth marketing.
Working for or on a blog can be one of the strongest weapons of journalism, communication and public relations in the next decade and one of the developments of new media. Raymond M Kristiansen says, "Corporate blogging is on the rise, and as big corporations start to realize that it is through conversations with their customers that they can create trust, they will invest in some people who are good at creating these conversations.
One of the best-known instances of conversations-creating blogger is Robert Scoble, who works for Microsoft. The interesting thing with Robert Scoble whose role is to be a "technology evangelist" at Microsoft, is that his role is to act as Microsoft ambassador, and yet be himself. Robert works for Microsoft, and he writes about all kinds of issues, including Microsoft, on his personal blog For Microsoft; Robert Scoble is a good "community guy." In the future, there will be millions of such community guys who are, in essence, mostly cheaper than big PR companies and more effective also because a good blogger creates trust.
A good blogger does not just want to sell you something; he wants to have a Conversation with you. In the case of Robert, he acts as our "window" into the world of Microsoft and even though I still might not like Microsoft for different reasons, I do like Robert, and that also affects the view I take on Microsoft."
With the recent Tsunami catastrophe, many individuals who were witness to the calamity hit area, blogged their experiences and videos onto the Internet. These were readily lapped up by newspaper agencies and ended in becoming a part of their websites. E.g.: CNN encouraged a lot of individuals to blog and leave their comments and experiences onto their site. The result? Lots of instant information downloaded right from the source, from the real people.
Raymond explains, "Citizen Journalism is one huge opportunity for the future, most cell phones will be able to take video within a year, and when people then see something happen, they can record it. If you then have within the market some company that pays for these videos and take care of "the rest" (contacting newspapers, etc) it could become a quite interesting business idea."
On questioning if writing for the Internet would be a good idea, Raymond is quick to add, "Yeah well, firstly I think it is important to note that this is just at the very beginning, we will see a massive growth of freelancing for the net in the future and there will be many alternative ways in which content will be distributed and paid for. About.com is a perfect example where people are responsible for writing about their 'subject' and they are then paid according to how many visitors they have on the site. It is a complex issue. There are several ways in which you could work on a blog.
Firstly, you could create your own blog and then work on that blog, creating a readership later on, you could ask for donations or you could add some advertisement on your site, which means that you could earn some from that. But I think most writers will be blogging for newspapers or for companies" Interestingly, Raymond is going to New York for a conference on money in blogging on May 17-18,2005.
Suddenly, I realized that if everyone is writing on the web, and information is going to be easily accessible through blogging, where would the journalists go? Would journalism ever be needed for the Internet?
"The journalists will always be required… But it is indeed an interesting development because we will see the growth of new streams of information… And because there will be so much information out there, we will rather be paying for 'the filters'. We will pay journalists to help us find things that we like to get to know about. But, these filters will be much more personalized than today. In a few years the TV will basically be on-line and you will then be able to subscribe to video feeds from people from all around the world, this would lead to interesting new ways." He said.
Blogging is one of new job opportunities that have come up in the recent past. Though many people are unfamiliar to the new job occupation, you must remember that this is still in its infancy and has a long way to go before it becomes a lucrative career in India.
Raymond M Kristiansen, (27 years) stays in Bergen, Norway. He works as a video blogging responsible in BlogSoft (http://www.blogsoft.net), which is a Norwegian blogging software company, he is also active in the video blogging community worldwide, and is head moderator at Ourmedia.org. Educated in Philosophy and English and presently studying at University of Bergen, Raymond got actively involved into blogging first in 1999 and has been blogging since then on different sites. His main interests in blogging lies in how blogging can help people from around the world communicate. He is also active in a Norwegian Political Party as blogging responsible - the party is the Norwegian Liberal Party (http://www.venstre.no)
(Source: Vijay Times, VT CONNECT.)
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal
We have all heard about blogging, (short for weblog). Blogging is a popular indulgent of all who have the facility of time and computers. A blog consists of periodical entries into one's webspace on the Internet, meant for personal or public reading. Blogging was previously initiated as a method to direct traffic into one's website by offering blog space in addition to other facilities and making sure that lots of individuals logged on to visit the site. This over time has resulted in a revolution of speech pattern. Everyone who is anyone is talking… blogging. Private thoughts, stories about their pets, strong opinions, and community networking etc. the information is on the net for everyone to read.
It is not surprising though that suddenly everyone's a publisher and everyone's a critic. Bloggers are discussing issues, problems in the market, products, environment and culture. Internet writing has not only started its own language but also provided a strong medium of critical information exchange. If an individual has had a bad experience with a product or service he is quick to add it to his blog and a public blog can do as much harm as well as good to any product. What is more crucial is that these are real people's opinions. So can companies and marketing individuals and writers avoid or ignore it? No, because this is the ultimate word-of-mouth marketing.
Working for or on a blog can be one of the strongest weapons of journalism, communication and public relations in the next decade and one of the developments of new media. Raymond M Kristiansen says, "Corporate blogging is on the rise, and as big corporations start to realize that it is through conversations with their customers that they can create trust, they will invest in some people who are good at creating these conversations.
One of the best-known instances of conversations-creating blogger is Robert Scoble, who works for Microsoft. The interesting thing with Robert Scoble whose role is to be a "technology evangelist" at Microsoft, is that his role is to act as Microsoft ambassador, and yet be himself. Robert works for Microsoft, and he writes about all kinds of issues, including Microsoft, on his personal blog For Microsoft; Robert Scoble is a good "community guy." In the future, there will be millions of such community guys who are, in essence, mostly cheaper than big PR companies and more effective also because a good blogger creates trust.
A good blogger does not just want to sell you something; he wants to have a Conversation with you. In the case of Robert, he acts as our "window" into the world of Microsoft and even though I still might not like Microsoft for different reasons, I do like Robert, and that also affects the view I take on Microsoft."
With the recent Tsunami catastrophe, many individuals who were witness to the calamity hit area, blogged their experiences and videos onto the Internet. These were readily lapped up by newspaper agencies and ended in becoming a part of their websites. E.g.: CNN encouraged a lot of individuals to blog and leave their comments and experiences onto their site. The result? Lots of instant information downloaded right from the source, from the real people.
Raymond explains, "Citizen Journalism is one huge opportunity for the future, most cell phones will be able to take video within a year, and when people then see something happen, they can record it. If you then have within the market some company that pays for these videos and take care of "the rest" (contacting newspapers, etc) it could become a quite interesting business idea."
On questioning if writing for the Internet would be a good idea, Raymond is quick to add, "Yeah well, firstly I think it is important to note that this is just at the very beginning, we will see a massive growth of freelancing for the net in the future and there will be many alternative ways in which content will be distributed and paid for. About.com is a perfect example where people are responsible for writing about their 'subject' and they are then paid according to how many visitors they have on the site. It is a complex issue. There are several ways in which you could work on a blog.
Firstly, you could create your own blog and then work on that blog, creating a readership later on, you could ask for donations or you could add some advertisement on your site, which means that you could earn some from that. But I think most writers will be blogging for newspapers or for companies" Interestingly, Raymond is going to New York for a conference on money in blogging on May 17-18,2005.
Suddenly, I realized that if everyone is writing on the web, and information is going to be easily accessible through blogging, where would the journalists go? Would journalism ever be needed for the Internet?
"The journalists will always be required… But it is indeed an interesting development because we will see the growth of new streams of information… And because there will be so much information out there, we will rather be paying for 'the filters'. We will pay journalists to help us find things that we like to get to know about. But, these filters will be much more personalized than today. In a few years the TV will basically be on-line and you will then be able to subscribe to video feeds from people from all around the world, this would lead to interesting new ways." He said.
Blogging is one of new job opportunities that have come up in the recent past. Though many people are unfamiliar to the new job occupation, you must remember that this is still in its infancy and has a long way to go before it becomes a lucrative career in India.
Raymond M Kristiansen, (27 years) stays in Bergen, Norway. He works as a video blogging responsible in BlogSoft (http://www.blogsoft.net), which is a Norwegian blogging software company, he is also active in the video blogging community worldwide, and is head moderator at Ourmedia.org. Educated in Philosophy and English and presently studying at University of Bergen, Raymond got actively involved into blogging first in 1999 and has been blogging since then on different sites. His main interests in blogging lies in how blogging can help people from around the world communicate. He is also active in a Norwegian Political Party as blogging responsible - the party is the Norwegian Liberal Party (http://www.venstre.no)
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