Ok so this week was all about blogging, how it started and how far it has come. I have a few comments in regards to the blogging world.
I am only new at blogging myself but it has been around for over a decade. But only since freeware such as Blogger and Wordpress were released early last decade, we have seen this trend explode. As you no longer needed to understand or read code to create your own webspace, people started up their own weblogs and have started to talk about what ever interests them. You will find that when you Google search a topic, you will find many a blog of what your looking for.
Linking to other blogs and vice verser can get your blog up the Google list when people do a search on what you have blogged about. The more links back to your blog, the higher your ranking. I have a little problem with this concept. Yes, for legitimate link backs are fantastic, but there are so many spammers out there that log on and post links to bogus websites or sites that have nothing to do with the topic you are discussing. As the owner of the blog, make sure you publish comments that you see fit to best suit your topic.
Citizen publishing (ie blogging) is a new "source" for main stream media such as news centres for Newspapers and News Headlines on TV. There are many sites that watch different bloggers RSS feeds to report news. In the Celebrity world, you have blogger leaders such as PerezHilton.com and TMZ who report breaking news (if you could call it that) about Celebrities of interest. These 2 have exposed many a celebrity such as Paris Hilton, Lyndsay Lohan, and Britnay Spears, as their life scandals pan out. Though these 2 blogs are now companies who hire many people to do the researching, they did just start out as some fun in the beginning. There is nothing stopping you from starting your own blog like these.
But do we need more of these kinds of blogs? How do we differentiate from bogus blogs and legitimate blogs? Many Media outlets rely on the software that tells them if many people are linking and clicking on breaking stories of interest. Also, citizens who have mobile phones that are connected to the internet and have a camera can send breaking story photos to News Outlets as they happen. Anyone now can become a photo journalist.
My question is, are we killing the News? Journalism as a profession that requires a Degree to become a reputable Journalist, but also if you have a good enough Blog, you too can be a classed as a Journalist. Are we cheapening this profession? Will we then have less informed news coverage and less research put into creating reputable stories? I do like the fact that it easy for people to start up a conversation using the WWW as a tool for this, but when does enough become enough? When does the public draw the line been amateur and professional publishing? Are we killing the Publishing industry? The Media? Privacy?
No comments:
Post a Comment