Journalist Fredrik Virtanen has been nominated for the Swedish IT prize Guldmusen (the Golden Mouse) for his “innovative” use of blogs. His quit-smoking-blog at Aftonbladet.se has had thousands of visitors since its inception. No wonder Sweden is in dire straits as an IT nation if that’s the best we’ve got. Are there no Swedish Dan Gillmors, Arianna Huffingtons or David Sifrys out there? This is not aimed at you Fredrik, but what a load of boloney.
A whole galaxy of blogs
Fans of Star Wars can start their own blog at StarWars.com. It’s a great way to get devoted fans to spread the word about Episode III. And to get them to pay for a membership since only members can start a blog.
Link via Micropersuasion.
Blogs can be more than “online diarrhea”
A popular misconception among some mainstream media is that blogs are just online diaries, so blogs are a fad. Blogs are a waste of time. Who wants to read all these stories about what people had for breakfast and at what time they walked their dog? Like this quote from a column in Sundsvalls Tidning about journalist Per Svensson at Expressen and his new blog (are bad journo blogs giving the rest of us a bad rep?).
“Alla pratar men har inget att säga.
Alla informerar men ingen vet någonting.
Alla vill bli författare men ingen är ett skit intresserad av litteratur.”
Everyone talks but no-one has anything to say. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Just because there are so called cat blogs out there (not that there’s anything wrong with that…), doesn’t mean that all blogs are the same. And as always, Amy Gahran at the Contentious blog says it so much better than me. “Too often, blogs are primarily described or defined as personal online diaries.” They can be online diaries, but often they are not.
Gahran lists 6 blog myths and stereotypes to avoid. I especially like this one. “Weblogs are personal diaries, usually amateurish”. Gahran writes “Well, that’s like saying most of the universe is hydrogen and dust. Yeah, BUT: There are galaxies and black holes and planets and nebulae, too. Which would you rather focus on?”
600 svar till blogg-enkäten
Minns någon bandet Ojj!600!? De lär ha tagit namnet efter ett mycket lågt arvode (alltså 600 kronor) efter en spelning. Kom att tänka på dem när jag har nu stängt insamlingen av enkätsvar i min bloggläsarundersökning. Totalt har 600 personer svarat, vilket är ett långt större antal respondenter än jag vågat hoppas på. Eftersom jag ska åka till London mot slutet av veckan hinner jag inte göra så mycket analysarbete de närmaste dagarna, räkna inte med någon sammanfattning förrän i inledningen av nästa vecka. Men som en liten teaser kan jag avslöja att kristdemokrater inte verkar ha upptäckt bloggar ännu. På frågan “Vilket parti skulle du rösta på om det var riksdagsval i Sverige idag?” svarade endast 0,8% av alla bloggläsare “kristdemokraterna”. Resten får ni vänta på ett litet tag till.
Uppdatering: Via mejl berättar Stig Vig om den riktiga bakgrunden till namnet Ojj!600, vilket alltså inte är den jag beskrivet ovan.
Corporate blogging survey
PR blogger John Cass has initiated a corporate blogging survey. If you are a corporate blogger you can click here to take the survey.
DN launches diary, not blog
A new day, a new media blog. Dagens Nyheter today launched it’s first blog. Andreas Ekström writes about the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev. But I am surprised to see the lack of permalinks, RSS feeds, comments etc. You know the drill by know. How come it is so hard for mainstream media to get these things right? Aren’t they experts in publishing? Andreas has his own blog, so I had high hopes this would be a proper blog. Now it is just a diary.
Also, see Journalisten about the definition of blogs (in Swedish).