Cindy E. Rodríguez
Observations about journalism, digital media, technology and other obsessions.
Blogging will never die
I’m so tired about bloggers blogging about the pending death of blogging.
There are so many bloggers now that bloggers can blog about the best blogs on the web, and there will be readers for THAT.
But, seriously, isn’t it ironic that bloggers are writing about this, considering that 26 million more blogs were created in the U.S. in 2010.
There are now a total of 152 MILLION blogs in a country of 308 million people.
The problem isn’t that blogging is dying, it’s that EVERYONE thinks they can write an interesting blog. They’re cluttering the blogosphere with really lame or stolen copy they regurgitate.
Those blogs will die.
The New York Times reported earlier this year that fewer teens are blogging, precisely because few people were reading their posts. Just because you create a blog, doesn’t mean people are going to read it.
The blogs that will have a thriving audience are the ones that are:
1. well written,
2. have original content,
3. serve a need,
4. allows readers to engage and interact* (this is vital!)
Through word-of-mouth and OUR social networks, we are learning about the better blogs. We might hear about them through Twitter or Facebook and then we’ll read. If it has a VALUE to the reader, they WILL read your WHOLE BLOG POST. And if you have a book on the topic and they are interested they will buy your book.
Blogging is here to stay. It will not be replaced by a Tweet or a FourSquare check-in. It won’t be replaced by Facebook, either. For journalists and writers, these are social networking tools that can be used to establish your brand and draw readers to your blogs.
We don’t know which direction journalism is going, but it’s clear that we are becoming more socially connected through the internet. Facebook is the most visited website in America. People want to connect and interact with information they get.
This precisely what the Web 3.0 is supposed to be about. It’s just that, in some ways, Mark Zuckerberg beat them to it. (I’m often surprised at how many journalists know zip about the semantic web, aka, Web 3.0 being built.)
People on Facebook do not have to be talking about trivial dribble. They can be engaging people in a manner that educates people. But let’s leave that discussion for another time.
The point I want to leave people with is that a microblog is a starting point. It’s an appetizer. The blog is the enchilada, and if it’s a good one, people will savor it and want more. Just make sure that you create a blog that allows people to comment, interact, and respond.
I look forward to meeting all the wonderful budding journalists who will be at the Spring College Media Convention in New York City. My session on how to create a blog will be Monday at 2 p.m. Be there or be FourSquare.
Use the hashtag #cmanyc11
Subscribing to On The Media’s podcast
One of my favorite radio shows is On the Media, a one-hour radio program exploring issues in journalism and the media in general. It airs Sundays at 10 a.m. on WNYC in New York City, and elsewhere in the country at different times (check the NPR station finder.)
It’s available as a podcast. I’m often surprised that so many people I know — including tech-savvy NPR listeners — don’t know about all the great NPR podcasts. For journalists, this one is a must-subscribe show. So here’s the link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nprs-on-the-media/id73330715. It’ll take you to the podcast subscribe page. Follow it to iTunes and subscribe. (Then just make sure you refresh your podcast subscriptions when you sync your smartphone.)
Wael Ghonim on what he calls The Revolution 2.0
A videotape of Wael Ghonim’s Ted Talk.
Ghonim is a Google executive who understood the power of social networking. He created the Facebook memorial page We Are All Khaled Said, named after a young Egyptian man who was beaten to death by Egyptian security forces. According to witnesses, two detectives and a police officer stormed a cybercafé, asking people for the IDs. When Said protested, the cops beat him to death. A gory photo of his beaten-to-a-pulp face appeared on that FB page. Word spread via YouTube, Twitter, FB, and other social networking sites and it galvanized young people to fight back.
The “2.0″ modifier refers to the interactivity of our current iteration of the web, which incorporates social media. The first version of the web, which was static is referred to as 1.0. (Great minds are currently working on 3.0, though Mark Zuckerberg might beat them to it.)
One in 13 people in the world are on Facebook
…and other amazing stats and facts are included in this video by Alex Trimpe
The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.
Online news source MUST consider our social network needs
My friend, David Mejías, pretty much says it all — in 132 characters.
One of the media companies that needs to do this ASAP is the The New York Times. No, NYT, I don’t want to just “recommend” a story, that appears as a line in my FB status timeline. I’d like to post the story — myself. That means doing a cut and paste of the story URL into my FB wall.
But if I do that, look at the ugly placeholder art that runs alongside the post:
When instead it should grab the photo that appeared with the story online:
The smartest FB users are tech-savvy and don’t want to post items that look unsophisticated or unattractive.
Egyptians can still tweet via voice call
Google has set up “Speak To Tweet,” a service for Egyptians without internet access.
Callers only need to call the numbers listed below and the audio will be uploaded to a website called Say Now.
+16504194796 and +390662207294 are the two numbers to dial.
This was done in response to dictator Hosni Mubarak’s decision to cut off the internet. Most of the nation’s ISPs have been shut off for the past several days.
How internet traffic to and from Egypt crashed on January 27: (Source: Arbor Networks.)
Do you believe Meg Whitman?
Screenshot of TMZ's exclusive. To see the documents, click here: http://bit.ly/aIaOBT
Understandably, many people believe that Meg Whitman, the failed CEO of eBay who is running for governor of California, is bending the truth when she claims that she had no idea that her maid of nine years, Nicandra Díaz de Santillán, was an undocumented immigrant.
After hearing Díaz’s story, and reading all the available documents in this kangaroo court called The American Public (I can’t stand that this is a TMZ exclusive because they are cheapening the discussion to a low-brow sport), the evidence seems stacked against Whitman.
Whitman allegedly threw out letters from the Social Security Administration, notifying her that Díaz’s Social Security Number doesn’t match her name and does not exist as such in their database. Note to Whitman: Your maid is the person who throws out your trash. Maybe she assumed Díaz couldn’t read English?
Díaz’s celebrity attorney, Gloria Allred, lays out a list of allegations that make Whitman look like a monster boss. Among the allegations: Whitman made Díaz spend extra hours doing other housework for the same amount of pay and told her she may lose her job if she takes maternity leave. Could this be true? Whitman has been embroiled in a previous allegation that she got pushy — literally — with one of her subordinates.
While I think Whitman could take a hit from the news bombshell, I am more concerned about the reverberating effects it will have on undocumented immigrants. Hate crimes are already on the rise and I worry that the way the fear-mongerers are going to play it, on Hate Radio and Hate TV, might incite one of their minions to feel justified in beating a person because he suspects the person is an undocumented immigrant.
Why everyone should ♥ Jason Schwartzman
I first fell in love with Jason Schwartzman after seeing “i ♥ huckabees” on DVD three years ago. The film had an amazing cast — Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg and Jude Law — but it was Schwartzman who stole every scene.
I don’t watch much TV, but every Sunday evening I try to catch the HBO series, “Bored to Death” — just for Schwartzman. His sidekick character, played by Ted Danson gets laughs out of me when he does physical comedy, and just because he kind of looks like a skeleton clown, but Danson isn’t so great with his lines. He seems a bit stilted.
Schwartzman’s other sidekick, who is played by the ubiquitous Zach Galifianakis, isn’t so funny, either. Galifianakis — known to everyone as Zach “Gal-ee-fi…oh, you know, the fat guy with the red hair who is in almost every movie” — was hysterical in “The Hangover” because he knew to play that weird character catatonic-straight, but in “Bored to Death” he’s a bit uneven. And I’m tired of the fat-man jokes. Oh, and Jonathan Ames, please give us some complex female characters. Overall, however, it’s a well written show and Schwartzman puts it over the top.
If for some reason you’ve never seen his work, watch this video advertisement Schwartzman did for The New Yoker’s new iPad app. The ad lasts two minutes, and that’s all the time you’ll need to see why I ♥ Schwartzman.
