I just ran across an article on blogs in the Omaha World Herald (this link will be dead within few weeks, a testament to the tech-savviness of the OWH).
They define a blog as “An online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on the Web; also called Weblog, Web log” and make no mention of the benefits of blogging for businesses, self promotion, just how RSS allows one to “read entries from several different blogs on one site,” how blogs help power popular search engines such as Google, or how blogs are turning marketing and advertising upside down. I know newspapers are written at the third-grade level, but this is ridiculous.
The article explains how to set up a weblog like this: “Anybody can do it. If you’re technically savvy, you can create a Web page for your blog that’s based in your own machine. It’s not easy - there aren’t any places to click or windows to open, just long strings of computer commands.” Huh? In all fairness, they do go on to mention blogger.com.
Then there is the blogs that they link to in the article. I get the feeling they didn’t spend very much time scouring the internet for the best in Omaha blogs. Kenneth Ross’s blog is a pretty decent representation of what a blog is, but Cathie English’s blog hasn’t been updated in over nine months! Jitterblogs.org opens to an excessively prominent disclaimer, which links to another page, which links to five blogs, two of which have zero posts, one that has one post (from five months ago), and another that also hasn’t been updated in five months. Certainly, simply by clicking on “Omaha” in someone’s blogger profile, they would have stumbled upon the hub of Omaha-based blogging.
Maybe they don’t want to generate too much interest in blogs, seeing as how blogs and technology such as RSS threaten to make newspapers, and the old method of advertising that powers them, extinct.
c. s. said,
February 7, 2005 @ 8:59 am
As an Omaha native, I’m not really surprised at Omaha.com’s lack of web-savvy. As they say, all of the trends work their way from the coast to the middle of the country, and since Omaha is nearly dead center…
Blogs (dumbest word ever) do not power Google. Google has been around long before the rise of personal publishing. It just happened that given the way PageRank is calculated, weblogs are given more weight than they deserve. LinkFarms were once able to prey on PageRank, too, but Google shut them down (coincidentally, this coincided with the rise in comment spam, surprise!).
One can get to the top of search engine results without the aid of weblogs. I should know, I’ve done it. All it takes is good, frequently updated information and a website that is designed properly with things like headlines and alt information for images (things that help out people, too). Blogs just happen to do both because of how easy it is to add fresh content and default templates use good, semantic code that search engines like.
Quite frankly, weblogs for business is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What happened to just calling it “News” or “Press Releases”? That’s what companies *used* to call it before “Blog” became the next big buzz word that was proclaimed to fulfill all of your marketing desires.
That’s the problem with people who are obsessed with blogs: everything needs to be a blog or run by [insert blog publishing tool here] or must have [insert syndication format here].
joeschmidt said,
February 7, 2005 @ 6:46 pm
C.S. - did you actually read the articles he linked to in his post? It doesn’t appear that you did because the links clearly state specific examples of why blogging IS good for businesses and that Google and blogs DO go hand in hand.
Your feelings about blogs seem to be quite evident in your own website. Your online diary certainly “looks” like a blog, but with no RSS feed to speak of. You should change your domain name to anti-blog.com instead of misspelling the word cinnamon, you would probably get more traffic.
C.S. - Homework for tonight: Go back and read the links in David’s post and research the history of google and blogs. (Google first opened it’s doors in Sept. 1998, blogger.com was founded in Aug. of 1999. I wouldn’t exactly say “Google has been around long before the rise of personal publishing”).
Also check out these blogs:
Scripting News (archives back to 1997)
Dr. Gerald Lucas’ blog(archives back to 1991)
Blogging defined in 15 words (via The Red Couch)
Renee said,
February 10, 2005 @ 4:50 pm
Bahahahah! The hub, indeed.
The writer of the article sent an email to former Nebraskan Scott of Dead Batteries who used to live in Nebraska City and is now in Iowa. He said he wasn’t in the area anymore but said he would forward her contact info to other Omaha area bloggers. I emailed the reporter with links to my blogs and never heard a word. Oh well. I did manage to make it into their 80s hair article last year. Alas, fame is fleeting. hehe
Jeremy Combs said,
February 21, 2005 @ 3:11 pm
DK, I hear you cluckin’ big chicken. And what about the use of blogs to convey REAL news? I think the mainstream media is in trouble. The internet, and more specifically Blogs, have created a way for people to get information that is not controlled by corporate interests. A perfect example would be all of the vote fraud evidence during the past election. Where was that in the mainstream media? Nowhere to be found, either because the average reporter has no balls, or the corporation to which they are a slave will not allow them to display their balls. What have you really learned from the mainstream media recently? Anything? I mean, their news is that these things called Blogs exist. Well, in my best Chris Farley impression, “Whoopty Frickin’ Doo!!” I think Blogs will be a necessary weapon in the fight against the impending fascism in this country. Dude, speaking of fascism, did you hear I got a jaywalking ticket this weekend in Lincoln? What’s up with that?