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FeedBlog, Blog, Blog. . .
Journal
Web logs (blogs) are taking over the Internet. The author joins the swell, and affirms that navigating the online world of discussion/discourse/dissing is an eclectic adventure.
I AM NO LONGER a mere magazine columnist. I’m also a blogger. My words and thoughts now leap off the sandiegomagazine.com Web page. It’s exciting to enter the new-media tent . . . until I find out there are an estimated 80 million blogs in operation worldwide. Experts believe something like 100,000 new ones pop up each day. I call my blog “Ron Don’s Downtown Blog.” Given the numbers, though, maybe I should call it “The Latest Grain of Sand on the Beach.”
The blogosphere as it now exists has been compared to America’s Wild West. That’s not to say it’s a place where unwashed men in 10-gallon hats gallop into town, head straight to Miss Kitty’s saloon and wind up in a bruised, drunken pile after playing poker all night. (That is a blog I’d visit, though.) The comparison to cowboy days of yore implies that amid all the ambient technology, anarchy rules. Nearly anyone can start a blog. About nearly anything.
In San Diego, politics is a hot blog topic (blopic?). Union-Tribune editorial writer Chris Reed writes the humbly named America’s Finest Blog. At online news Web site voiceofsandiego.org, Scott Lewis uses a self-deprecatory blog moniker: SLOP (Scott Lewis on Politics). City Attorney Mike Aguirre got so tired of being flamed on every other blog in town, he started his own——The Aguirre Report.
For coverage of the February 5 election, KPBS trained a team of citizen bloggers. Real estate is covered in a fair share on San Diego–based blogs. The San Diego Zoo gets its due, too——baby panda Zhen Zhen ought to get herself a blog publicist (blogicist? Okay, enough). I found blogs that focus on the Padres, the Chargers and chiropractic concerns. There are blogs about wildfires, sailing and a very organized one called San Diego Pagan Pride. I could go on, but you get the point.
I NEEDED TO TALK TO a blog expert. Blogspert (sorry) Sree Sreenivasan is dean of students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He runs the new-media program. Of the 80 million-plus blogs put out worldwide, he says, “most are read by the writer . . . and his or her mother.”
Bloggers are teens, as well as folks 80 and older, says Sreenivasan. “They have all kinds of interests. My wife is now blogging——she blogs about cooking. It’s what interests her.”
But what does it mean to the face of journalism, and how does it impact our lives if every yahoo (if not every Yahoo!) is throwing his or her thoughts out for public consumption?
“It’s not necessarily true that blogs are all-important, or that they are changing our lives,” says Sreenivasan. “But there’s nothing wrong with public discourse. This tells us people like to talk to each other, and being able to get different viewpoints is an interesting development.
“In terms of news value and believability, I don’t think blogs are a negative. Granted, not all blogs are good. People should be skeptical of blogs. But in the print world, should people dismiss San Diego Magazine because tabloids exist? You have to differentiate. For every sphere of public interest, there’s now a blog. That can have some impact, and that may help highlight or spotlight information that would have gotten lost.”
Sreenivasan does a lot of public speaking on this topic and has a series of Web video lectures, including “Web 2.0: Terms Every Media Professional Should Know.” You can find a good trailer for it at mediabistro.com/web-2.0-terms-21-ondemandvideo.html.
Want a really tasty metaphor? “In the 1960s and ’70s, we decided it was a good idea to diversify our food diets,” says Sreenivasan. “You know, mix in some fruit and salad with the meat and potatoes. Well, blogs are not the meat and potatoes. But they are something you can add to your media diet to enrich it.”
I’m tempted to rename my blog Fruit Salad. But not that tempted.
THE BENEFIT OF SPEAKING with Sreenivasan was twofold. First, he gave me great magazine-column quotes, as you just read. And he gave me direct-benefit tips for writing a good blog. To see if I’ve mastered the technique, here’s where you can click to go directly to my blog: sandiegomagazine.com/RonDon. Note to Web neophytes: For this, you need a computer. Do not simply snap your fingers at this page.
Further note: This column-about-a-blog will also run on our magazine’s Web site, beginning March 1. But this column——whether viewed in the magazine or on a computer screen——should not be confused with the Ron Don’s Downtown Blog. That’s something altogether different.
As you can see, writing for multiple media platforms can be confusing. It’s not as mind-bending as the time-travel plotlines in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. But Web 2.0, and the print media’s ramping up to Web integration, does come with its challenges.
How to cope during the transition? I turned to Sreenivasan again.
“You, Ron, surely have the DNA of a magazine writer,” he says. “When you write for the blog, let yourself go. Don’t lower your standards. But do pace yourself differently. Use strong, active language. And write shorter. Shorter is better.”
Okay. Can do. Good advice.
I should also include photos, tables and lists with my blog. I should encourage readers to respond, and post their comments. And I should participate in the blogosphere. If I want others to comment on my blog, says Sreenivasan, I have to give to get.
Don’t, he says, expect to be loved online (Why should it be different in there?). Don’t expect to be taken as seriously on a blog as in the magazine (Why can’t it be different in there?). And don’t expect instant success (Hah! My fourth blog post got five comments!).
Finally, Sreenivasan says I need to show some enterprise with my blog. “Back in the beginning, the founder of San Diego Magazine had to go around and knock on doors to get his magazine started, right?” he says. “Mr. San Diego Magazine [founder Ed Self] didn’t just put out a magazine and hope people read it, did he?”
Sreenivasan further taunts and tempts me with the notion that blogs do go on to make money and influence sizable constituencies. “Who knows, Ron, you might start a blog today that ends up competing with San Diego Magazine.”
A blogger can dream. And he can hope that using this much magazine space to drive traffic to a Web blog is enterprise that would make a bloguru proud.
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