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Round-up: Changing nature of blogs

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I’m working on some material about the changing nature of blogs as part of my preparation for a workshop I am leading at the University of Wisconsin next month. Here are some of the posts I’ve collected over the past few weeks that may be used in the session. As always, I’ll post a summary of the session here on the Roadmap.

In no particular order:

Three excellent posts from Newsome.org:  5 steps to good blogging, No comments: old school or playing hooky, and The politics of blogging

Guy Kawasaki’s How to suck up to a blogger

Stowe Boyd, Scoble on tips for joining the A-list

Foghound, Positioning and messaging is not an option

A WSJ article on blog ethics, chiefly around the issue of disclosing financial interest in companies you blog about, found on Media Guerilla, Blogger Disclosure Practices Tested

CorporatePR, When is a blog really a blog?

Web 2.0 malarkey from gaping void

The role of the roll, Shel Holtz

Technorati Favorites, opinions from Media Guerilla, Media Orchard

Micro Persuasion, How and When to Respond to Conversations, a summary of a discussion at the Word of Mouth Marketing conference in January

Cymfony’s new media Knowledge Center (seen on Micro Persuasion)

A post about the A-list "thing" that I missed in my earlier round-up, Why I hate the A-list mentality, Phil Gomes

Worker Bees, Does a blog without comments smell as sweet?

I also plan to talk about Dr. Myra, as an example of what NOT to do.

And Dell will get more than a passing mention, not just for the continuing saga of dis-satisfied customers in Dell Hell, but also for the news item I found on Threadwatch today. Apparently Dell is suing a website designer named Paul Dell for using the domain www.dellwebsites.com. Perhaps there’s more to the story than meets the eye, but it seems to me that Michael Dell can’t be the only Dell on the planet who is allowed to use his name in connection with a business endeavor. Hhmm? Just can’t shake the feeling — Dell is a company that just doesn’t "get it."

Bonus link (not for the workshop and your payback for wading through this post): Cheney’s Got a Gun (tip of the hat to John Wagner for the link)

Journalism & PR Student Blogs

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Jay Rosen (PressThink) announced an expansion to his blog yesterday: the Blue Plate Special. Written primarily by students in his blogging 101 class, the new feature will start later this month. He writes:

"Our intent in the debut is to execute well upon a basic form in journalism: the snapshot, or state-of-the-art report. The first one will be about blogging at American newspapers. Newspapers are definitely past the “let’s start some blogs” stage, but what stage are they at? Where’s the action, traction, and satisfaction in the growing world of newspaper blogs? NYU students and I, joined by a few special guests, pros and amateurs, will try to find out."

For me, this new blog will be an interesting counterpoint to Robert French’s (infOpinions) student PR blogs and the way French uses his own blog to teach his PR and media classes at Auburn University.

These NYU and Auburn students, on either side of the "media relations" coin, have some meaty issues on their plate, and I’m looking forward to their perpectives on the "BIG" questions that consume so many of our blogging hours.

Questions like:

What is the responsibility of a blogger to fact check? Is it different if the blogger is also a professional journalist? Just exactly what defines "professional" — getting paid? quality of writing? affiliations, whether paid or pro bono? Not always the same thing.

What is the role of PR in the new media mix? How is it evolving as the media themselves are changing… from pen and ink to bits and bytes? Is it? How should companies, and their PR people, engage with bloggers?

It’s nice to hear new voices, from people just beginning their professional journeys. Hopefully, in watching, and helping, them learn, we’ll learn a few things ourselves.

Tags: Media, Blogs, Blogging, PR, Public Relations, Journalism