Vanity & Informational Blogging: Module #4.

Coincidentally, I regularly follow many peoples' vanity blogs. For this module, I chose my favorite vanity blog - Travis McCoy's. Travis McCoy is the lead personality of Gym Class Heroes, one of my favorite groups. His blog covers many different aspects of his life, ranging from posts about release events for their new album, posts about his significant other (Katy Perry), posts about his now successful cousin (Tyga), & posts concerning his recently rehabilitated state after recovering from his addiction to pharmaceuticals. I've been following his blog for a long time, & I find each & every post interesting in some way or another. He lives quite an interesting life, if I do say so myself.

My choice for an informational blog is also a blog I used to frequent. For years, I've been a T-Mobile customer living off of sidekicks, & this blog was a lot of help. The sidekick blog always kept me updated with the newest release of the phone, or new tips & tricks for manipulating the phone I already had. This blog also left me a lot of networking space to exchange information with other Sidekick users. All in all, I think informational blogs are pretty helpful for whatever topic they concern.

I definitely think blogging supports this type of journalism. I think people would be a bit more inclined to read someone's blog daily as opposed to picking up an autobiography. There's a certain connection achieved when you can read up on someone's life that you admire on a daily basis. That doesn't occur with print media - it'd be too much of a project to embark on on a daily basis. Both kinds of blogs, vanity & informational appeal to a certain specific audience. A good vanity blog is very subjective though. It's all about the reader & their interpretation. If the reader is reading a vanity blog written by someone they find interesting, most likely, they'll find it to be a "good vanity blog." I think a good informational blog is a bit more general. A good informational blog just tends to be relative to the topic. As long as the blog can deliver accurate information on the given subject, it's "good" enough.

I believe this module somewhat supports my thesis. I believe blogging is good for very specific things - this being one of them. Authors of vanity blogs get a lot of exposure & publicity while informational blogs provide often very useful information. With this evidence, I think blogging definitely affects journalism. Sometimes, blogging is a very important aspect of journalism.

E-zine Blogging: Module #3.

(With my last two entries, I've had trouble with the Blogspot website. On more than one occasion, for some reason, I've been barred from posting. If anyone has any solutions, help would be appreciated.)

The first link I found, I found through Google search: "current events oriented news blog." This blog is about the strict crackdown on international students from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education has brought home 512 of their students that are part of the 42,000 Saudi students that participate in being educated abroad. Apparently, these few hundred students were struggling academically where ever they were internationally studying.

Also using a Google search, I found a news e-zine concerning a ground-breaking upcoming child & youth program at Douglas College. Douglas College in Vancouver is offering a program that works with Aboriginal children. They're doing this in hopes to reconcile with the First Nations, Inuit, & Metis peoples, & strengthen already strong ties to the community. Many different organizations & groups are all working together to make this innovative program succeed.

The blog & the e-zine, like any two things, had their similarities & differences. Although quite similar, I found the blog to be a little bit more professional & effective. They were both informative, but I feel the blog delivered more to the reader. The blog was also easier to find on the internet. Thankfully, they were both quite simple to read. The events I read on weren't the same, but they both dealt with specific furthering of some kind of academia. Both of the sources of information seemed trustworthy. With anything found on the internet, credibility is always a question though. I have no real way to decipher if what I read is accurate or not. Although a print source could be just as deceiving as an e-zine, or news blog, I'd be much quicker to trust them. I think a traditional form of print has to undergo many more checks & balances than something published onto the uncensored, not-so-unadulterated world wide web.

Although these fields affect the world of journalism, I don't believe this research supported nor unsupported my thesis. This module is directly related to both blogging & journalism, but not whether blogging affects the world of journalism. Because this model doesn't support nor unsupport my original thesis, I don't wish to change it. Blogging still drastically affects the 'journalism-sphere'.

Entrepreneurial & Business Blogging: Module #2.

The "blogosphere" is good for a plethora of different things - entrepreneurial & business promotion, included. Many of the blogs I've come across, just blog-browsing, have been the center of specific business' promotion. Blogs also provide any entrepreneur with a large, vast audience. 

The first blog I found is the "Entrepreneurial Blog of Matt Huggins: The visions & progression of an aspiring Internet entrepreneur." With being an Internet entrepreneur, it's no surprise that he has hundreds of posts about different aspects of the online world. He has posts ranging from blogging (66), to advertising (35), & programming for specific websites like Facebook. Most recently, Huggins has created an online dating website called Black Book Singles. Seemingly, Huggins' efforts are not in vain; his website is growing & he is still regularly updating his blog world.

Although Matt Huggins also talks about business & self-promotion blogging, I decided to find a new example. More research has brought me to the Trade Pals blog. Trade Pals seems to be all about helping entrepreneurs & businesses in gaining some kind of exposure (giving them opportunities to market themselves), & providing them with many tips & tricks. The blog covers everything from "advertisement positioning" to the "50 Most Important & Influential People In The Tech Business". I'm sure most entrepreneurs & business bloggers have this page bookmarked; it offers a lot of help & insight to their world.

The next blog I found goes by the name of "Biz Tips Blog: Shameless Self Promotion", & for this assignment, I find this example rather fitting. This blog, like Trade Pals, offers insight to many aspects of the business world. From low cost marketing tools, blog relief, internet marketing, marketing trends, & Myspace, this website makes it a point to help others make an efficient blog. They offer books & many other self-assessment tools. I'm sure many people regularly thank this "shameless self-promotion" blog, for helping them become better promoters.

Entrepreneurs could market themselves in many other ways. Depending on the kind of financial allowance the entrepreneur has they can market themselves through television commercials & radio commercials, through flyers & business cards, & through the phonebook. If they've already built a credible reputation, they can rely heavily on word of mouth, as well. Regardless of how effective all of these methods could be, I feel a much larger audience is reached through blogging. A commercial would reach many viewers, but once the commercial ends, the exposure is over, unless carried on by word of mouth. With a blog, as long as it's posted, it's permanently viewable to anyone that can reach it. As effective as blogging is, I don't believe it is an alternate to these methods. I think any entrepreneur, trying to get as much exposure as they possibly can, should embark in all the means of self-promotion they can. Blogging is effective, but I don't think it should take the place of everything else.

Through my research, I've found that all of the information I acquired fully supports my thesis. Blogs change journalism because they've made such an affect in that world.

Blogging &Journalism: Module #1.

Fortunately, this is my "Hello" but, not my first blog entry. I used to be one of many people who take part in blogging multiple times a day. I used to have one of these neat little Blogspots & every time I got the urge to write, I'd run to this safe haven. I must admit - it's nice to be back. This time, however, I'm back with a purpose - to discuss blogging & it's affects on journalism. I think, without a doubt, blogging has directly affected more than one aspect of journalism.

When the subject of blogging is brought up, the first thing that's usually addressed is credibility..& rightfully so. A few years ago, BusinessWeek's Senior Writer Stephen Baker & Associate Editor Heather Green, attacked the "blogosphere's" credibility. Although it isn't the most recent article, I believe it to be accurate. Blogging is too open-ended to ensure accuracy. Anybody with access to the internet can spread whatever information they please to anybody with access to the internet to read it. Of course, some blogs can be credible but, how is anyone to decipher what is & what isn't? Robin Good also took a stab at the character of blogging. He agrees that credibility is blog-specific. Like any other subject, it's hard to make a generality of character. Good also gives reasons as to why blogs could possibly be more credible than a news source.

Blogging is one of the most efficient ways to reach an audience. All of the main characteristics of blogging, in some way or another, cater to this vast audience they're able to reach. How are they catering to this audience? By making it a point to be the best public information platform they can possibly be. The four pillars addressed in this article: content, communication, credibility & community, all work together. Blogging has also proved to be affective on a more business end. Because it reaches such a large, vast community, marketing is made very effective. It's pretty clear why this is such an effective platform -- it's unlimited. As long as you have access to a computer & are semi-literate, you can reach anyone that chooses to read your blog. It's as simple as getting to a website, whether it's purposeful or accidental.

Blogging has had both positive & negative impacts on journalism. Blogging has, in a way, discredited & taken away from many journalists who have worked years to receive their various credentials & degrees. Journalists have to undergo a tedious process of checks & balances with various editors & publishers just to get one article published. Bloggers, on the other hand, simply need access to the internet & a subject to speak on in order to blog. Positively, blogging is a very uncensored form of journalism. Without rules & regulations for blogging sites, it's an 'anything-'goes type of policy. More freedom is given to bloggers when it comes to sharing ideas & opinions. Blogging has also opened up the world of journalism to those who otherwise would only be on the receiving end. 

Blogging have effectively given a voice to all of us. Rich or poor, educated or not, blogging is a way for people of all ages and backgrounds to communicate with others.