What is happening to journalism?

And what is happening to the media's sense of mission?

When doing statistical analysis to find out what is popular on our websites, the results are often disturbing. The 'tabloid' news beats hard news hands down, every time; good 'documentary type'/hardcore news simply cannot compete with infotainment styled gossip/scandal. Standards have changed (some would say dropped) because of the pressure of profits, but also the broadening, the flattening of content into a 24/7 stream of infotainment from myriad sources.

The question is, who now decides what is news? Are we still providing a public service, or are we simply pandering to a public hungry to hear about Britney, Paris and a snake-bitten golfer?

Entertain and Teach

When I was a teacher in South Korea an old fogey once said: "I am NOT an entertainer." This guy was a highly qualified educator, and there had been complaints that his textbook approach was 'too boring'. I understood his point, but I also felt that he was fundamentally misguided in his approach. If you can't hold people's interest, no matter how important the thing is you're communicating, well you've lost already.

But there is certainly a crisis going on, and we all know that the internet is distracting a lot of eyeballs (and revenue) away from traditional media, and newspapers in particular.

Here's the rub: original reporting is what distinguishes newspapers and good news from second hand, second rate media. Original reporting is hard work, it requires effort, and passion. It is knocking on doors, pushing, chest beating work. It is also, often, highly local. It is uncovering, unearthing, a skelton in a neighbours garden. It is up close and personal, and we discover important insights about what is really happening in our community - how things are being run, what decision makers are really doing (compared to what they are saying) and so on. Now, with advertising revenues for newspapers contracting, there is less money for newspapers to spend on reporters, less money dedicated to the task of doing valuable hard nosed reporting. Which means that essentially the likes of Google and Yahoo (Yahoo is the biggest online News site in the world, followed by MSNBC) who are critically dependent on newspapers for their content are also, in a sense, the most critical saboteurs of the revenue stream of newspapers.

Less is More, More or Less

More and more revenue is being diverted away from newspapers, even though newspapers remain the key conduit, the fountainhead, for news. Radio, TV, and online content all tap in to news printed every day.

As a result of the dearth of content providers, and the public's participation in providing content (citizen journalism), quality, consistency and reliability is an ongoing issue. Once again original reporting distinguishes. There are plenty of sites that simply regurgitate or recycle [this blog suffers the same tendency]. Thus newspapers are finding their ownership of the news quickly usurped, and then disseminated at a fantastic speed. As such competition is levelling the playing field, bringing Media Providers face to face with this vital question: 'Should we give the public what it wants or what it ought to want, or ought to know?' The question can be rephrased: Who decides what is news? The editor, or the public? Is it an either or?

What is certain is that newspapers have in the past and must continue to provide a public service. It can be a difficult situation where a company is essentially providing a public service, but must answer to shareholders in terms of the fundamentals of private enterprise (bottom line revenues). Selling news is still a business after all, isn't it? Or have things shifted to the extent that with the internet and other technologies, we all have the capacity to know everything. Do we really need a single resource? The answer is we do, but possibly less than we did before. How much less is the question.

It is easy for news providers to make the mistake of covering big international stories (as seen on CNN, Sky and BBC and mirrored elsewhere). Once again, what distinguishes a newspaper or indeed any media is its attention, its sensitivity, the quality of its local context. To the extent that it can address and reflect and provide vital insights into a local context, to this extent the Media (or medium) becomes, and can become, indispensable.

Online

Online news is a challenge simply because the online viewer (I dislike the term user) is engaged in an entirely different approach/mindset to a person holding a newspaper. This is simply because, armed with a mouse, a viewer is super-connected to limitless digitised networks. It is very easy to match thinking with information on the web. It is easier by far to draw information towards you, rather than to page through something tangible, but static.

Think for example of someone looking for a job, or a house, or a car online, as opposed to someone having to wave through endless mismatches set out in document form. The one is simply a far more efficienct option.

The way online viewers consume news is highly accelarated, highly efficient, and highly spontaneous. The methodology is sometimes called infosnacking, or infochunking. The word conjures up a new ethos immediately, not based on necessarily wanting formulaic news, but a more personalised, more interesting mix that is in parts informative, entertaining and interesting, but most of all convenient. It's exactly what the viewer wants, and it's interactive.

My aim as a writer is to simply write stories (both here and for mass media) that taste good and are good for you.

For further background read this excellent article:
Journalism without journalists

Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger (WIRED)

Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom coined the term "weblog" Dec. 17, 1997 -- 10 years ago Monday -- to describe the daily list of links that "logged" his travels across the web.

In the decade hence, Barger feels that he's gained some wisdom of his own about blogging. Here's Barger's top 10 tips for novice bloggers:

My intent for weblogs in 1997 was to make the web as a whole more transparent, via a sort of "mesh network," where each weblog amplifies just those signals (or links) its author likes best. 1998-1999 was for me the Golden Age of Weblogs, when the following principles were widely understood:

1. A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. (So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.) [Except it lacks personality: It's like ordering something from a menu into a drive-thru mike, rather than from a waitress or something else real.]

2. You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted elsewhere … but if you have more original posts than links, you probably need to learn some humility. [Interesting..seems I'm on the right track. Although this blog certainly started out - in terms of original content - on the wrong track. The first half is almost exclusively all about me and my thoughts...]

3. If you spend a little time searching before you post, you can probably find your idea well articulated elsewhere already. [True. Which starts to beg the question: why blog? The answer is, some people who know you want are interested in your thoughts, your ideas, and want to share in your conversation - not some stranger's. Right?]

4. Being truly yourself is always hipper than suppressing a link just because it's not trendy enough. Your readers need to get to know you. [Aha, see my above comment.]

5. You can always improve on the author's own page title, when describing a link. (At least make sure your description is full enough that readers will recognize any pages they've already visited, without having to visit them again.)

6. Always include some adjective describing your own reaction to the linked page (great, useful, imaginative, clever, etc.) [Makes sense.]

7. Credit the source that led you to it, so your readers have the option of "moving upstream."

8. Warn about "gotchas" -- weird formatting, multipage stories, extra-long files, etc. Don't camouflage the main link among unneeded (or poorly labeled) auxiliary links.

9. Pick some favorite authors or celebrities and create a Google News feed that tracks new mentions of them, so other fans can follow them via your weblog. [Awesome idea.]

10. Re-post your favorite links from time to time, for people who missed them the first time.

Bullard: “Bloggers must be creative” (INTERVIEW – PART 2)

RP: [If] you could earn money blogging, would you start again?
Bullard: I don’t know. Probably not. I think probably because it’s so time consuming and because the emotional and intellectual reward is quite low. It’s easier for me to go and shoot a couple of episodes of Car Torque…where…um, at least if the cameraman or director says I’m a shit that’s fine, because I know who they here. But [with this] you’ve got a whole load of people and you don’t know who they are. I think it’s quite emotionally draining. I think there’s a lot of pressure to be original because I think if you want to do it properly – it’s like a column – you’ve got to be creative. You can’t just put up: [BARITONE VOICE]: ‘I had some wheat bix for breakfast.’
[Laughter].

Ingredient X

You’ve got to come into today’s news and throw an angle on it. And it’s got to be – for me – as fresh as the column. It’s got to have ingredient X – a couple of gags maybe – that says, this defines it. This actually puts it head and shoulders above the others. Another point I’d like to make – which I've made in an article – is that I’ve yet to meet what I’d call someone of substance who blogs.

I mean, Johan Rupert didn’t rush up and say: ‘I always read your blog.’ I mean, you want to aim at that market. I mean it could get there…
NVDL: Yeah.
RP: I think you should read Nick’s blog.
NVDL: No but I totally agree with that because 99% - this seems to be changing though – but 99% of what’s out there is actually drivel. Which is actually quite scary.
Bullard: Are a lot of people sort’ve sitting in libraries pretending to study for exams and actually blogging? I mean how- when- I mean downstairs there are one or two people, you know their names, they’re on every blog. They were on Sarah Britten’s, they were on mine…
NVDL: Mmmm
Bullard: And these weren’t three hundred word responses. These were three thousand word responses.
NVDL: It seems to mean if you’re a blogger, by implication, you don’t have a life. You know what I mean?
Bullard: You get this image of someone who has a dogeared copy of Loslyf, a half eaten Debonnairs Pizza, a rather untidy room in a sort’ve run down area of Joburg where the guy hasn’t actually emerged into the light for at least five weeks.
NVDL: The other things is – I mean I also blog – and I think part of it is, because of cellphones and everything else, I have this perception that no one actually listens to you.
Bullard: Mmmm
NVDL: You know what I mean? I mean, we are listening right now but you do have this perception that in a lot of conversations you have with people, one person is speaking [while] the other one is somewhere else. There’s not actually a…[EMPHATIC GESTURE]: I’M HERE NOW AND SO ARE YOU HERE NOW. Know what I mean?

Why Do we Blog?

I think that’s part of the reason why people blog. It’s that desperate yearning to communicate something.
Bullard: Absolutely. Is there anybody in there?
NVDL: And it is desperate. But what I would like – as a member of the pubic – from your blog which doesn’t exist is an almost one way stream of information. Not really commenting or reacting to what people are saying, but basically, you’re a writer and you’ve got your opinions… I mean that’s how I started blogging regularly – I was writing anyway. I’m not in your league at all but what I’m saying is, what you’re writing anyway, why not – once it’s published – why not put that in the public domain so it’s accessible. You know there are people who want to know what you’re saying…
Bullard: They haven’t done that with the weekly column. I don’t know if it’s a policy decision.
NVDL: I think with this company they wanted to get some sort of…
Bullard: Interaction.
NVDL: I think they wanted to utilize that[The Hype Around David Bullard], but I would think, for you personally, if you’re writing anyway, all you do is you copy and paste it – it takes no time – and all it is is a resource of David Bullard’s writing. It’s a resource. If you like it read it; comment if you like it, but that’s not really what it’s there for. It’s a resource; use it if you like.
Bullard: How many people look at your blog? Do you know how many people pass through?
NVDL: My record hits was earlier this week. 871 on Monday [8th October 2007].
Bullard: And what’s the general percentage of comments? Is it difficult to say?
NVDL: It’s not very high.
Bullard: I don’t know how many people pass through my blog, but I know how many people comment, and how many reactions I’ve had.

When and Why Do We [Care] To Comment

NVDL: I think there are a few reasons why your blog elicits comments. One of them is you’re high profile. Another thing is what you’re saying is part of the public consciousness at the time.
Bullard: Yeah, you can’t go wrong putting up why I’m a white supremacist. I mean it’s bound to get a reaction.
RP: Yeah [Laughs]
NVDL: And - yeah, it’s controversial - and the other aspect is it’s intelligent. What I’ve found – I’ve read some of the comments on your blog – there seems to be this desire to out-think in quite a nasty way though. You sort’ve try to blast someone with an insult, which is better than another insult.
RP: Yeah.
Bullard: Yeah, I know what you mean.
NVDL: I think you called it ‘kindergarten bashing’.
Bullard: Someone comes in and says: ‘Oh you should be reduced to a cub reporter.’ Or, you know: ‘You’re a failed stockbroker.’ I was never even a stockbroker. But you get all of these strange perceptions…
NVDL: Yeah.

On Defending The Perceptions of Cybersquatters

Bullard: I think once you start defending those [perceptions] you’ve shown you’re even interested in the debate, and it’s just a waste of space. What I eventually did was just delete the one’s I didn’t like.
RP: [LAUGHS]
Bullard: And then I got accused of censorship; I was quite happy with that. It’s my blog. If you want to come to my party and you actually start throwing up over the furniture, and nicking my CD’s, I’m gonna chuck you out the house. Same on the blog.
NVDL: I’m sure you’ve experienced this: You tend to get a lot of response[s] when you’ve made an error. That’s how people are. If they agree they don’t say anything. It’s this crazy aspect of people [especially on blogs] that people are quick to criticize [and show you they're right and you're wrong] and slow to praise. People do praise, but they’re much quicker [snapping fingers] to criticize.
I think it’s an ego thing, like: Oh, I see you made a mistake. You’re this intelligent person, there’s your error and I’ve spotted it, so that elevates me.
Bullard: Yes. But you know what can do [WRY SMILE], at least in the print medium. Blame the subs. You say, well of course, the bloody subs should have picked that up. And no one actually excuses you, but at least you’ve got someone else to blame. Blogging, unfortunately, you can’t, can you, really? It’s your court.

Tune in here next Wednesday (or whenever), for Part 3: Bullard - An Out to Lunch TV Talk Show?
For more refer to search label: The Bullard Tapes

Is The Net Good For Writers?

By RU Sirius (10zenmonkeys.com)

"Writing as a special talent became obsolete in the 19th century. The bottleneck was publishing."

That bold statement came from Clay Shirky when I interviewed him for the NeoFiles webzine back in 2002. I never got around to asking him if that was an aesthetic judgment or a statement about economics and social relations.

But here's a contrasting viewpoint. Novelist William Burroughs met playwright Samuel Beckett, and after some small talk, Beckett looked directly at Burroughs and said, propitiously, "You're a writer." Burroughs instantly understood that Beckett was welcoming him into a very tiny and exclusive club — that there are only a few writers alive at any one time in human history. Beckett was saying that Burroughs was one of them. Everybody writes. Not everybody is a writer. Or at least, that's what some of us think...

Now the web — and its democratizing impact — has spread for over a decade. Over a billion people can deliver their text to a very broad public. It's a fantastic thing which gives a global voice to dissidents in various regions, makes people less lonely by connecting other people with similar interests and problems, ad infinitum.

But what does it mean for writers and writing? What does it mean for those who specialize in writing well?

I've asked ten professional writers, including Mr. Shirky, to assess the net's impact on writers. Here are their answers to the question...

For more on this interesting article, click here.

USA (traffic) Overtakes SA

Green shaded areas show traffic sources from the USA. The darker the color the more visitors per State - Source Google Analytics
Recently the traffic from the USA has overtaken my core audience - if there is such a thing - on this site. According to Google Analytics 87% of new visitors have been from the States, and the most popular page has been an embedded video showing a road exploding in Iraq (video shot from a vehicle on the road).
Click here to view.

The rest of the top 5 worldwide sources are:
1. USA
2. UK
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. South Korea.

Most American visitors are based in New York, California, Colorado and Texas.
Average time visitors spend on this site is 2 minutes. I'd like to bump that up to 5. If you have any suggestions, do leave a comment.

I've also emailed a number of brands that I would like to associate with me-as-a-brand. These include Kauai, Virgin Active, Oakley, Timex, Polar, Cervelo, Samsung, Chrysler and others.

Brands are not represented on the internet, but I think we can safely add the word 'yet' to that sentence. Brands and blogs are a natural synergy; naturally some brands and blogs are incompatible.

Since there is a fair amount of girls-in-bikini's on this site, I wouldn't mind adding to the above list: Speedo, 'O Neil and Victoria's Secret.

Now, time to get back to the traffic...

Humorous Accident - The best video clips are here

Are you an Amablogger-blogger?

The above ranking lasted about 2 minutes... ;-)
Get sorted at Amatomu.com

David Bullard won’t be reading this article. He recently quit blogging. For the rest, if you’re one of the 25 037 bloggers out there (11% active apparently), then you need to get yourself sorted at Amatomu.

Amatomu is basically a local-is-lekker version of Technorati, but I’m inclined to say it’s a lot better than Technorati: it’s zippy, it’s dynamic. It should be; it’s run by the geniuses at Mail & Guardian.

The site is very practical, useful and interesting. What’s nifty is you get to see a ranking of the local blogs according to a number of criteria. You can also see where the local Zeitgeist (what everything is thinking about) is going. Google has recently launched a South African version of their Zeitgeist, but it’s nice to have a one-stop-shop for all things Blogging.

Amatomu also provides overall stats for the South African blogosphere: you’d better believe it is expanding at a PHENOMENAL rate. To give you an idea, August’s tally of unique blog visitors is 621 204. This puts blogs in the top 5 of South Africa's most popular websites.

These statistics and others have urgent implications for mainstream media. But some websites are responding to the changing playing fields. Johncom’s The Times.co.za is decribed on Amatomu as: “… the first mainstream newspaper to embrace blogs and the social media and social networking environment in general in its print pages.”

Amatomu have also ranked The Times.co.za as their ‘Player of the Week’.
Arthur Goldstuck writing for M&G’s Thought Leader defends the nomination as follows:
“The Times… serves almost as a manual for social media. It gives bloggers a print platform to flex their blogging muscles as “blogumists” and expand their audiences dramatically.”

I agree. The Times.co.za is the only South African News website I know of that allows you to embed video onto your blog. Are there any others right now? Plenty of overseas sites (like Metacafe and YouTube) have provided this option for some time.

What Blogs Are About

Bloggers want to have a conversation within their communities, and sometimes, outwards, as they attempt to engage with a wider audience. So being able to post news onto facebook, or your own blog helps get these conversations going. I’ve been experimenting lately with my own blog, but I’m not always sure I want too many strangers reading my content. The more people who visit my blog, I’ve started to realize, the more cagey I have to be about personal revelations.

Be Careful What You Blog

What you blog I suppose depends on what you’re prepared to etch in stone. It’s true that once you post to the web, it’s very difficult to erase. Just ask Amy Polumbo how she felt after being crowned Miss New Jersey, and then having some skimpy Facebook pictures emerge in a tasteless (and unsuccessful) blackmailing scandal. I’ve also ranted on my own blog and reaped the whirlwind. Bloggers and those who read them forget that once the emotion has passed, the words remain, so beware that you’re venturing where angels fear to tread.

Forever and Ever, (Web)men

The phrase ‘carved in stone’ will soon be a less articulate expression, than ‘carved in cyberstone’. The good news is you can pay some companies (like Namyz, Defend My Name and International Reputation Management) to erase questionable content. This usually involves negotiation with webmasters. But in reality, once information is on the internet, it can be downloaded onto computers, and even if erased off the net, copies are likely to remain and even resurface.

Now, How It Works

So here’s how Amatomu works. In order to track your blog, whose visiting and how popular it is, you need to embed an HTML tag onto your site. Don’t worry, it’s invisible. You might want to add a ‘Schmaak This’ button so that people can rate your posts and you can check how popular you are in the blogosphere. Another useful tool to either consult or attach to your site is Amatomu’s Zeitgeist.

Posting articles relating to the Amatomu Zeitgeist means you’re tapping into the stream of consciousness of the crowd. Being relevant is more important than ever if you mean to be an interesting blogger. Amatomu enables your blog to be all that it can be.

*Vincent Maher, the M&G Online's strategist

Dave Bullard Quits Blogging

Can't say I blame DB. I visited his blog and almost every comment -without exception - was vitriol. SCAAARY!

Copycat

It may seem incredibly two-faced to have a 'No Copying' icon imbedded on this page, when I do reproduce a lot of current and popular news onto this site.

The 'Do Not Copy' clause is really to cover my own writing, which is not news but creative writing (fiction).

It does make me wonder what news agencies must think/feel about blogger lifting content and using them on their sites. This phenomen, when employed as the sole raison d'être for the existence of a site, means you're no longer dealing with a blog, but a SPLOG: a SPam bLog.

So am I a Splogger? To some extent I suppose that's true. A splogger though doesn't really care about content, just hits. Anything that's popular is the bread and butter of the splogger. My blog is really interested in meaningful news, though I have to admit I add what I can to spice it up: some humor, some sexy babes.

The real reason behind the Copycat clause is to protect the novels I place on this site. At the moment there are three:
Holiday
Half Full Moon
The Sun Shines and Burns

I've also loaded up a fourth which I've since abandoned (a work in progress).

Today for example I'll be loading up some revisions done to Half Full Moon. I personally believe it is good writing, better than some of the stuff on bookshelves today. Blogging is supposed to enable serious (he thinks!) literally talents like me to get themselves noticed/published.

What happens though when your book online becomes a paperback, published under someone elses name? You'll only know about that one when your own words visit you in the local bookshop, and by then Mr Plagiarism is holidaying in the Bahamas, courtesy of all those evenings you weren't clubbing and having sex with your girlfriend.

Perhaps that's a story too:
The Bestseller's Life: the story of an ordinary man, living a (fairly) ordinary life, who finds the plagiariser who is living the life he might have lived...

NickvanderLeek.com Hits 45 000

You may noticed an upsurge in tech capability of this site. This is due to a consistent and concentrated hands on approach.

Like anything, paying attention and focussing on your 'baby' is going to be analogous to nurturing, and anything nurtured will provide you with a gain, an improvement on previous results/behaviour.

Being situated now in the centre of news/information, it is part of my job to know and understand what is popular, what is working, and how to take that further. How does one recycle your visitor through your site, transforming a hit into a journey, transforming the surfer into an avid explorer.

One way is to have an appropriate mix of content: news, images, text, video etc. Recently I've upgraded all of these. Content on the web is currency.

The latest innovation, and one I have been wanting to bring about since this Blog started nearly 3 years ago (in October 2004) has been to streamline and simplify the URL. It makes sense to have an accessible and appropriate naming convention, and since March 2005 3 x Luck (3rd Time Lucky) has not been a boon to this site.

Blogger has also upgraded its features and use-ability a great deal.

I have to also say that the purpose of this site is not chiefly to promote me. It is to generate awareness on the crucially important issues of our time, and to the extent that the webcounter spins faster, it means this important consciousness is spreading. If I am to be associated with credibility, then that is a good result. I believe there are many important things individuals can do that can make a real and meaningful difference. And this blog needs to challenge the overriding question of our time:

Are we too selfish to change?

I have a feeling post- End of the World (which means Post Carbon), credible blogs will provide vital and crucial information relating to functioning and survival and finding communities.
This seems fanciful and even silly, except the clock is ticking. Peak Oil has occurred in 2006, which means 'bad stuff' is heading our way and gaining momemtum. It's already happening. We think it's going to get better, but it's not. It's not nice, it's not a happy idea, but please don't patronise anyone and call it negative thinking. What we need is a mixture of positive thinking and critical thinking. Especially the latter.

What isn't working?

And then, what can we do?
All we can do is organise ourselves, and our communities, and have an influence on bettering our immediate environments. That's what this blog is all about.

100 Million Page Views

Xu Jinglei is the world's most successful (aka popular) blogger. Not unusually one of her postings (which might be about her cats, or a moodswing) can elicit up to 1000 responses.

The 33 year-old Beijing actress writes about her struggles to learn English, but it seems that her encounters with her own cats

On July 12 her blog surpassed the 100 million mark, surpassing www.boingboing.net to become the world's number one blog. Not bad for someone who spends about 20 minutes a day blogging.

But Xu had better watch out; Han Han is an up and coming blogger who is just under the 100 million hit mark. By the time you read this though, the young Chinese author (24) - who recounts dysfunctional school life, life at home and being handsome and hip - may be the new No: 1

Blogcast: Broadcast Your BlogTo The World

To give you an idea about what's possible, here's a Google Analytics generated map which displays who is reading my blog.

Surprise surprise the most visitors are from -

South Africa: 39

Then, surprisingly, 23 visits from the USA (probably a large proportion are based in the Pentagon and CIA ;-)

United Kingdom: 7

Canada: 3

France: 2

Austria: 1

Finland: 1

Peru: 1

New Zealand: 1

Australia: 1

Vietnam: 1

Portugal: 1

India: 1

Malaysia: 1

South Korea: 1

Thailand: 1

Italy: 1

Brazil: 1

Singapore: 1

Disruptive Technologies: Are you armed and dangerous?

How - and why - to join the online revolution

Why blog? For the same reason people buy cargo pants (with a terrorist design), wear Crocs and use cellphones. Because everyone is doing it.

But what makes blogs different to Crocs and cargo pants is that 10 years from now, everyone will have a blog (something like a business card), except not only businessmen will introduce themselves, but brats too, through their blogs.

A 'Disruptive Technology’ according to Wikipedia is:

’...a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or status quo product in the market. Disruptive innovations can be broadly classified into lower-end and new-market disruptive innovations...’

It may sound like a mouthful, but essentially, disruptive technologies are very good for the average person. A good contemporary example is MXIT, which is giving the likes of Vodacom and MTN gray hairs in terms of losing their SMS market share. MXIT offers the same service at a fraction of the cost (each SMS costs around 1 cent).

Blogs are another excellent example of Disruptive Technologies, and in the same breath, so is Reporter.co.za. Reporter.co.za is essentially a user generated blog; it’s the crowd - you - sending us your thoughts and news. If you have a cellphone and an internet connection you can (possibly) compete with some of the best journalists out there. How? By being somewhere where they aren’t and couldn’t possibly be. You can!

Quality is a separate issue of course. People who are not trained to write, or take photos, do not always write stories or take photos that are worth the trouble to look at, or read. But sometimes they are. And sometimes they form the basis for the biggest news stories.
Some video footage for the 9/11 tragedy was provided, as I recall, by a Turkish tourist.* Someone’s cellphone provided us with footage on the London bombings, and recently, the ’London Bombings Again, Almost’.

A blog basically puts incredible power and resources into the hands of an individual. You don’t have to be a corporation with vast networks and resources to beam your message to the world.

Low Cost

You don’t need satellite dishes or banks filled with humming machines. A blog can really be quite a powerful thing: you inputting your thoughts here (on Reporter.co.za) or on your own blog (or both, as I do), and publishing them, means anyone, anywhere - whether it is Fiji or Iceland - can find you.

A mere mouseclick in an arbitrary office or bedroom means someone you don’t even know (or someone you do know) can and read and see what an individual was doing over the weekend in say, Johannesburg, a place they might otherwise never visit (or even think to visit).
A blog also provides the curious Netizen who doesn’t have a blog, with the opportunity to virtually visit, at very close quarters, the lives and times of people from New York to Nieu Bethesda.

Exciting

I find that tremendously exciting, although obviously the limit on how exciting it is depends on how exciting the person is that is loading up whatever it is they are loading onto the net.
This is a good thing to bear in mind, I think, whoever you are. Is it meaningful, is it worth knowing, is it interesting whether relevant to me or not?

Content(ious) Issues

You can make your content interesting by doing a little background research. Google and Wiki some of the terms you’re using and see what others have commented on your subject. Most important, check your own work for mistakes. Once you put it up, those flaws, if they are present, are going to put people ever investing their precious time in your thoughts.
Another reason to blog is to reach out and form, organically in a sense, niche markets, niche communities. This is an area that has made bloggers very competitive.

For example you might have a blog about fishing (the world’s largest outdoor sport), and so with a consistent theme, and updated content, you will be reaching friends and/or strangers that particularly want to be associated with you - and there’s your community. It’s specialised, and customised. This is also what Facebook is all about.

How to blog

A good blog is one that has something new on it each day. That may sound easier than it is. By some accounts there are already 200 million ex-bloggers, since most people who start blogs don’t keep them up and running forever. Some believe blogging will peak at 100 million bloggers.** I think that’s conservative and shortsighted, since China has only just started.
In the end though, good blogs are like good newspapers and magazines. They are worth reading (or watching in the case of video blogs) if the writing (or video) is good. The same applies to this website. So when is writing good, and worth reading?

Many writers, especially citizen journalists underestimate the incredible appeal of local stories. Writing about some of the main stories (for example, the debacle concerning the Health Minister) means that citizen journalists have to compete with acres and acres of excellent broadcast writing on the same subject.

To compete effectively, citizen journalists must invest themselves HYPERlocally. That means, report what is happening in your neighborhood. I recently participated in a discussion*** on this subject, where the speaker spoke about a series of stories sent in by citizens on potholes, in the United Kingdom.

Ordinary people began to take photos of the nearest hazard (using their cellphones), and then sent them in to the BBC. This started a snowball, which led to the implementation of Google Mapping (to form a grid of all the pockmarked routes in England) and probably led to some sort of broader municipal effort to sort out the problem. This story started with hyperlocal content.
You can start a blog by heading to blogger, at www.blogger.com, and follow easy setup instructions. Or, you can make use of the audience that’s here, and encourage others like yourself to do the same, right here at Reporter.co.za. Go on, join the revolution!

*If you have more details on exactly who provided the 9/11 footage, please contact Reporter.co.za and let us know

**Gartner Report’s Top 10 Predictions for 2007

***http://www.andydickinson.net/

Welcome to My World

The substitle to this heading is, I think: The Moleskin Club.

Some bizarre things happened this weekend, including (the serendipitous?) encountering and re-encountering of a complete stranger at 4 different points at Sandton City...More on that (maybe) later.
On pure happenstance I bought myself a black Moleskin notebook...and only did so because Leslie wandered into a shop and I suppose I found something to do while I was there.
Today in a Workshop Moleskin notebooks came out of the woodwork, literally it seemed. Which also suggests, workwise certainly, a round peg in a round hole.

I enjoyed today particularly because it was about my pet thing, blogging. It is obviously one way that a person with virtual no resources can 'talk' to people they know or don't know any where in the world. It is quite a powerful thing, that me inputting my thoughts here, and publishing them, means anyone, anywhere - whether it is Fiji or Iceland, can click on their computers in their offices or bedrooms and read and see what an individual did over the weekend in Johannesburg, a place they might otherwise never visit (or even think to visit).

It also provides the curious Netizen with the opportunity to virtually visit, at very close quarters, the lives and times of people in New York or Nieu Nethesda. I find that tremendously exciting, although obviously the limit on how exciting it is depends on how exciting the person is that is loading up whatever it is they are loading onto the net. Which is a good thing to bear in mind, I think, whoever you are. Is it meaningful, is it worth knowing, is it interesting whether relevant to me or not?

A Forum of Fools

If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing – Anatole France

Privacy is an important concept now, not only in terms of security, but in the context of identity theft, abuse etc. Blogs present a difficult case for a public now able to reach the world in seconds with damning evidence, or equally damaging but false and libelous information.

The internet is like a lot like money, you can use it for good or ill. In both cases, unfortunately human nature indicates an obvious predisposition. By far the majority of internet traffic is to pornographic websites. And by far the majority of financial resources remains in the hands of a fraction of the world’s rich, while an entire continent of people (Africa) starves to death.

The internet has recently become even more popular, as bloggers and those wanting to network connect with others on Facebook and Myspace etc. Blogs are another example of the poor quality not only of writing but also the thinking of the average person. Forums present another alternative for people to discuss and share issues.

Some Forums are based on blogs, such as the inane mushypeasontoast.blogspot.com (now featured as a ‘cool’ website in Cosmopolitan). Better ones include theoildrum.com, where comments are responded to, but even here the moderator is necessarily the owner of the forum, and the decider of what content to broadcast. At least theoildrum.com’s message is constructive, intelligent and useful. In this sense, once again, it is outnumbered by the sheer amount of brainless garbage circulating in cyberspace. Yes, the internet attracts spam, and junkmail and also, unfortunately, the braindead.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish – Charles Caleb Colton

One particular forum I’d like to identify here is http://www.thehubsa.co.za/. Recently in South Africa there was a lot of chest beating over a rugby player wearing a t-shirt with the worlds: Jesus is King. Especially on interactive news sites, many comments were made. What I noticed in many cases was that sometimes 100% of comments were identical, if not 100% identical. I am not sure what the point is for large groups of people to convey something they feel, when so many others obviously feel the same way. Is it a sense of security that what they hope and feel is echoed by others?

The reason I signed up on The Hub was to address a serious concern I had with a local cycling body that fraudulently claimed I was not a member, and then would not respond to my attempts to communicate with themselves and others to address the issue. An important point to make it that unlike almost all the avatars using The Hub, I signed up as myself, providing my real name, and location. I found myself immediately under attack by two avatars, and subsequently discovered that although I didn’t know who they were, they knew me. One, an avatar called Man With No Name I’d studied with at university, the other, Psycho, was someone I often cycled with.

After plenty of one-sided name-calling and insults, an avatar called Popeye posted private information as a New Topic, and then using google, attempted to profile and then belittle me. Naturally the aforementioned avatars were amongst the most frequent responders to this denigrating content. Peculiarly, the administrators of the site allowed this invasion of privacy to happen.

The nature of forums allows individuals to hide behind pseudonyms and post whatever garbage he or she feels like espousing. Unfortunately it's not a phenomena unique to The Hub. – comment made by an avatar called The Thug

Trackz was another quiet avatar that spoke up at this point:

Its important to follow the rules of the forum ...
... but I do support Sunblock [my avatar] in his/her quest to take a stand whether you agree or disagree ... freedom of speech is the foundation of our democracy! Any healthy organisation/sport/company has people that challenge the status quo ... albeit controversial at times!
As for thehubsa ... as a newbie I find some of the personal attacks on a public forum in much worse taste ...

But the worst personal attack was yet to come. With that helpless lust for blood that overtakes so many people, other avatars were attracted, not to the issues I had raised, but merely to the smear-fest. One avatar in particular, bmw-driver, posted a comment in response to a host of criticisms towards me with step by step suggestions on how to commit suicide.

An avatar called bobbie responded as follows:

As a mom with a teenager and two small daughters I take huge offense to this suggestion as to "How to commit suicide". Are you completely out of your mind? Is there not enough violence and crime around us without you making ridiculous and wild suggestions like this?

I hope you have the guts to edit your post and delete point number 2 - I think this is completely unacceptable and has gone way too far.

The moderator then asked for the same thing, and bmw-driver duly deleted his suggestion. The moderator, Cruxpearl, then finally closed the link, with this comment:

… the Hub has become a cesspool of anger, filth an sick comments, certainly not the fun place where like minded cyclist started off coming together to share enjoyed memories and exchange advice and information.

This Topic is also now closed....

Over the weekend, with someone having posted a photograph of Psycho, I called him up, and asked him a few questions, made a few clarifications and then particularly about the public demonstration of bravado (he said he would beat me up if he saw me). Naturally he was very different, even apologetic over the phone.

Subsequently I was banned from the forum, with a farewell message from my varsity mate, someone who sent me a personal message of apology at one point, but it was in the manner of ‘I will apologise if you do’. Under the avatar Man With No Name my ‘pal’ wrote the following:

To be very honest, my irritation with your attitude and comments got the better of me and I regret that.’

Banning is difficult to enforce though. I signed on as a new avatar under a different name but I realized I had nothing to say to these foolish, foolish people.

Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something - Plato

Censorship

Click on this post to link: should blogs like this be allowed?

$6.82

That's how much money this website has earned since launching. It might be a little bit more. I think for 2 years I had adsense running but didn't do something - update settings, or register something - so this is a reflection of the last year or so.

I don't really run this site as a money spinner, but imagine if I did!

One does wonder where some blogs will be 10 years from now. I've seen ordinary websites with over 1 million hits. They're ordinary, but interesting. Probably most will cease to exist. Perhaps this one too. My interest is waning somewhat. Time to call it a day?

(Most) Bloggers are Braindead

South African Blogosphere exposed as dumb

In a local newspaper we’ve had an endless debate on ‘Is being homosexual evil?’ If you think that’s sub par, it’s amazing how base the material is that sometimes circulates on citizen websites. Would-be journalists sometimes write as though they have cornered the market on rational thinking. One particularly uninformed writer even made supposedly witty sideswiping comments about Einstein ('male chauvinist pig or relatively crazy?') that are so moronic, I felt like getting off my chair at work and writhing on the floor in pain. I’d quote you paragraphs from the article, but that would mean I’d have to read it again. Yuck! No thanks.

I don’t know about you, but the forums I’ve found on the internet tend to very quickly lose structure and deteriorate into what David Bullard calls ‘playground name calling’. Bullard cleverly wrote two recent Sunday Times columns on the blogging topic and as a result he ‘single-handedly caused the largest amount of daily traffic ever on the South African blogosphere’. The notorious Bullard gloats about this feat: ‘A 50-something freelance columnist in the print media can attract far more attention from one article than much younger bloggers have ever achieved. That’s game set and match to the print media in my book.’ And indeed it is.

The question has to be posed at this point: What are bloggers doing in this crazy world?

Are they lost in endless cycles of self-examination and introspection? Now is possibly the best time for all bloggers to take at least one day off (particularly bloggers who simply must post content every single day). On this day off they need to do one simple thing: ask themselves if they are adding value. Be honest: are you adding a little value, or a lot? Are you adding any value to the collective? Because however you argue your way around it, probably, nobody cares much either way. The point is, are the efforts of bloggers, hypothetically, worth caring about? Right now, on average, the answer is definitely ‘No.’ Sure, bloggers might care about what they do, and they might - as a sort of attention-credit-facility - provide each other with attention in exchange for mutual acceptance and feedback, but why should people who aren’t bloggers care? The most vital question of all is this: is blogging healthy? Do normal people with decent social lives, and sound minds, want to engage in this mirror-mirror-on-the-wall’ talk? No.

Previously I’ve mentioned blogs that I personally despise (www.mushypeasontoast.blogspot.com). I’ve also mentioned blogs that make a lot of sense, and provide wonderful contributions to our everyday knowledge of the world (Low Impact Man). But there is the fringe blog, like www.Kunstler.com that is harder to pin down. This is because the content is so sophisticated and opinionated, it’s difficult to know whether Mr Kunstler’s rants (against Joe Average) are deserved, or somewhat paranoid. Personally, I believe he is a brilliant spokesman, I believe he is spot on with his prognosis for our collective futures, and Jim Kunstler is gaining converts. Another blog that’s a wonderful resource - well, except that it isn’t updated regularly - is www.chomsky.info.

Perhaps as a blogger myself, I can provide some insight into where some bloggers come from. I’ve been writing since High School, I was the best essayist at school, and have published a few pieces in various magazines. I’ve tried to publish several manuscripts, and spent at least a decade working on several ‘works-in-progress’. So I’m a serious under-the-line, online writer. I haven’t published a single book so far. I’ve published literally hundreds of paid-for articles online. I’ve also, from time to time, posted the opening chapters of my latest novel, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone will discover me. So blogs really do function as a vehicle for writers, both established and soon-(possibly)-to-be-established.

Blogging is a useful tool in the sense that it can allow writers to practice their writing, and to immediately place these attempts in a public domain where they might do some good. This happens, but in exceptional cases. Blogging is both useful and vital for well known writers and their readers to stay in touch with each other. After I read Jim Kunstler’s book for example, it remains incredibly inspiring, and I think, valuable, that I can visit his blog as a resource on its own ? a fountain of wisdom. This provides ongoing insight, and the reader gets to interact at last with the writer. Wow. That can be a dizzying experience.

I don’t imagine that my blog offers the kind of mainstream entertainment that mainstream media does, but that’s not the goal. I do think that people who don’t blog in one way vitally underestimate the value of the blogosphere as a resource. What you have are individuals who are leaving constant messages behind, that are readable anywhere and everywhere. That means, using google, someone from a different country, someone at school, someone who is simply curious, can begin to interact with an intelligent blogger and really find out about the world. You can have a vivid window of what it is like ? on the ground ? to live somewhere else, in a way that TV, and movies, and books just cannot convey. How many people use this resource (in this way)? Few.

It seems that because people have this resource at their disposal, it’s almost too much of a luxury to actually use. I remember as a child, writing 50 letters a week to friends all around the world. When these people replied, you saw all the different sets of handwriting, and the stamps conveyed (in colors, tones and pictures) just how different these countries actually must be: Ireland to Canada, or Mexico or Slovenia. Because the internet is so easy, we seem to forget our manners. We no longer make an effort. Those emails that are 1 or 2 sentences long, and have no introductions or goodbyes ? are they real conversations, or is it kicking a soft ball against the wall, and once it bounces beyond our reach we leave it for some other amusement. That’s a convenience-based-laziness orientation which is highly schizophrenic, and incredibly stupid.

Perhaps a Code of Conduct needs to be set up. Code 5 implies a certain casual set of discipline that people voluntarily adhere to. Other users can vote to confirm that certain minimum standards are set and met. Code 4 to 1 involves a higher and higher set of standards. And so you can choose to associate yourself with the internet sector that suits you best.

Bullard describes bloggers as ‘clearly platinum members of life’s loser’s lounge. If they swam with dolphins’, he writes, ‘they would probably get savaged.’
I think in forums and on our own websites, we should know we are judged by the things we say, and bloggers tend to say a lot, too much. Freedom of speech is one thing, but a measure of discipline and common sense is always good, even in a theoretically anonymous space. Hit and run comments, swearing etc may feel good, but it leaves a particularly nasty grafitti behind. Passers by glance or scroll at responses, then sniff, and go back to where they were.

There should be a litmus test for blogs. I’d suggest these 5 guidelines:

1) Your blog must attract more than 5 hits a day (excluding your own) otherwise, why bother (who are you fooling?)

2) Your blog must occasionally or often be about something (or someone) other than yourself.

3) Your blog should be an extension of yourself, but not an end in itself (well, for now at least)

4) Your blog should be good for others (in other words, it should add value to the internet)

5) Your blog should be good for you

Bloggers should externalize. Dedicate one day a month (and then progressively more time) to exposing some issue in your community. It may be poor roads, or prostitution, weather effects, a local economy, beggars, whatever. Take some pictures and tell the world what is happening outside your front door. What’s going on inside your front door is less relevant. Realize that, and the blogosphere might become self aware one day, and eventually a resource for all.


*http://www.reporter.co.za/columnists/article.aspx?ID=RP21A459600

I agree!: Name and shame offensive bloggers

06 May 2007
By David Bullard
(from www.sundaytimes.com - click on this post's title to link to his article)

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Fred Khumalo and I should feel very flattered indeed.

Every day there are 120000 new blog sites registered — a staggering 43 million a year. According to blog search engine Technorati, there are already 70 million blog sites registered worldwide. Admittedly the majority of the bloggers get bored rather quickly and don’t bother to update their sites, but that’s still 70 million people (higher than the population of the UK) who desperately want to be columnists.

It’s comforting to know that, should Fred or I decide to take a sabbatical, there’s no shortage of people available to hold the fort. The only snag is the quality, or lack of it.

Allow me to explain what I mean. I used to play air guitar with a band called Deep Purple. My playing was perfect, I had attitude and I even smashed my air guitar at the end of the number. The reason I played air guitar is that I couldn’t play real guitar very well so I was forced to dwell in this fantasy world where my guitar playing meant something only to me. I should point out that this was years ago when I was still young and foolish. These days I play air tenor saxophone, which is far more challenging.

Most blog sites are the air guitars of journalism. They’re cobbled together by people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism, mainly because they have very little to say. It’s rather sad how many people think the tedious minutiae of their lives will be of any interest to anyone else.

It’s even sadder when someone reads them.

Many bloggers prefer to remain anonymous and with good reason. The content of their sites is so moronic that even their best friends would disown them if they knew they were the authors. As with most things in life, something that costs nothing is usually worth nothing and that puzzles me. Are there really 70 million bloggers out there hoping that their writing talents will be recognised, or is this just another example of modern narcissism?

Unlike the world of newsprint, there are no rules out there in the blogosphere and that makes it a very confusing place for the consumer. I have no objection to reading my Sunday Times on the Internet because I know the content has been through the same process as the print edition. I do, however, object to some anonymous, scrofulous nerd pumping meaningless drivel into cyberspace at all hours of the day and night simply because he can’t find a girl to sleep with him. These are the sort of w ackos who gun down their fellow students at university. I visited a site the other day that was so hideously racist that it would have qualified its publisher for a long spell in prison if it had appeared in print. So what’s the difference? How come newspapers and magazines have to carry the names of their editors and publishers and watch their content and websites don’t? I’m told that it’s possible to track down the author of any offensive website and perhaps that’s what the government should be doing instead of looking at legislation to gag legitimate publications. Better still, maybe it’s time the print journalists named and shamed some of the more offensive anonymous bloggers and published their physical addresses. Then I can start a blog site called printrevenge.com and bore you all with the details.