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Archive for Blog Platform
The Power of the Commentariat. Or Perhaps Not: Blog Platform
A couple of days ago I drew your attention to a seminar to launch a report by Editorial Intelligence called “The Power of the Commentariat”. Or rather, they have launched half of it and expect the public to buy the rest from Amazon
It’s an interesting document and I’d like to do a review of the whole thing. I have asked Editorial Intelligence for a review copy of the whole document. If one is not forthcoming, I shall review the half of the report that they have seen fit to release.
Listening to the podcast of the seminar, there are a number of moments of “Don Quixote” incongruity. However, if you want to skip the fun, and just hear what I think - then go to the next section.
The Emperor with no clothes gives advice on dress sense
Golly, Polly!
Polly Toynbee whinged complained about bloggers launching “vituperative” and “personal” attacks on her. Perhaps she thought noone had read her vituperative and personal attacks on numerous targets.
Has anyone read Polly on Boris these last few weeks, or Polly on the Archishop of Canterbury six months ago, or on any number of different people at different times?
That’s why she’s such good value for bloggers. If she didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her.
Charles “how dare you intrude into my private life” Clarke
Charles Clarke complaining about doorstepping by journalists.
This is a politician in a cabinet which passed all manner of unnecessary restrictions on liberty from the right to demonstrate, through DNA profiling of the innocent with no effective redress, via compliance with Extraordinary Rendition, to an Extradition Treaty allowing British Citizens to be yanked out of their daily lives by foreign judges to face trial in the United States on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
Forgive me, Mr Clarke, if my sympathy for you is limited.
Again, Charles Clarke on the unfairness of anonymously expressed views
Charles Clarke complaining about anyone putting forward a viewpoint anonymously.
Er, sorry, Mr Clarke - but I thought that anonymous briefings (and bullying) were used relentlessly by the New Labour administration (of which you were a key part) as a tool for media manipulation.
What do they think of bloggers?
Quite a lot of ill-informed nonsense, but some people “Get it” (Danny Finkelstein and others) or nearly get it (Julia Hobsbawm among them).
Bloggers are dreadful horrible nasty vindictive followers of Guido Fawkes
Columnists are specifically described as being of “different types”, but bloggers are apparently all the same and we are all “followers” of Guido Fawkes (wonder what Professor Norm, Tim Ireland, Natalie and The F-Word would say about that).
And, regardless of the vitriol poured on him, Guido has done some superb work - my favourite is the the exposure of Peter Hain’s attempt to drive a double decker bendybus through the rules and principles supposed to govern elections in his own party.
He had also entertained us from time to time by getting the things hilariously wrong from time to time (one word: Newsnight).
Bloggers are all the same
A very, very funny comment.
Anybody who says that has not mastered their brief to comment on bloggers. It has a “whole class of Japanese students out on bicycles in Cambridge for the first time going the wrong way round a traffic island, knowing they are wrong but being too scared to go back” feel about it (ack. Bishop of Maidstone). I’d suggest working harder and getting out more.
Bloggers are Masculine
This was a statement from Julia Hobsbawm in the closing conversation. Certainly most are, but there is no male monopoly - even in politics.
My thoughts?
The Commentariat (as represented in this podcast) seem to be having a few problems getting to grips with the blogging medium - in particular coping with the diversity.
How can they cope with the plethora of blogs? Have they “got to read” all of this? (yes you do - at least enough of it enough times to develop a familiarity sufficient to make a sensible judgement).
The Internet is stuffed with automatic tools to help you get to grips with the flow of comment, including aggregators, specialised search engines (www.technorati.com, Google news and blog search), and services to try and judge what is important (www.technorati.com again, www.wikio.com).
The UK Political Blogosphere is also heavily summarised if you know where to look. How many columnists heave heard of the Britblog Roundup, the Scottish Roundup, the Welsh Blog Index, Cassilis’s roundup of think tanks, and the numerous other “signposts” that are published every week? Hopefully at least some know about these various “roundups”.
If they aren’t familiar with these tools then - again - it’s a matter of getting out more and working at it a bit. That’s not exactly difficult.
And I haven’t even mentioned RSS and RSS Readers (Google Reader, Feed Demon to name one online and one offline reader).
Even Danny Finkelstein - who writes a fantastic blog at Comment Central - quoted the “Cover it Live” chatroom service (btw, Danny, it IS moderated) as potentially useful. The fact is that chatrooms have existed for years and years and years; when I was diagnosed with Diabetes a regular chatroom meetup was one way I learnt to cope - that was in 2001, and they were old then. The problem here is mainly that there has been too much conservatism to use them appropriately. There are dozens of tools out there - sites just need the minimal knowledge to use them and the willingness to take a slight risk as to what will happen.
if I was a struggling columnist floundering in a sea of blog comment, I would make a point of taking Jemima Kiss or Chris Vallance (or me!) out for a long, expensive lunch to quiz them on how to read blogs the easy way.
Wrapping Up
Guido and Iain have commented on the Power of the Commentariat “do”.
And Guido is making a feature of holding columnists to account. A good idea, but it needs more than just him.
Iain has commented more sympathetically on the report itself.
In the meantime you can listen to the podcast here, and download half the report here.
Editorial Intelligence’s service was quoted as an example of a site helping people get to grips with online comment. I disagree - it is expensively paid for and therefore helps maintain an “in-crowd”.
I’m wondering if the Editorial Intelligence Model is now way past it’s sell by date - given that summaries of most of the stuff written by commentators and columnists is now syndicated via RSS. I wonder whether MySociety could build us something better for the whole world - not just those who can afford the subscriptions - to use if someone gave them £5k and a month.
The thing that the Commentariat actually need to do is to shatter their “bubble on a pedestal” from the inside before it gets shattered for them from the outside.
I’ll follow this article with a review of the full report, or half the report - depending on what is made available to me.
You can get the first half at the link above, and the second half of The Power of the Commentariat
And a slight apology - I have not linked absolutely everything in this article as I am away from home.
Has Google canned the Economist in Search Rankings? Blog Platform
The Google Page Rank figure of the Economist has been reduced from 8 down to 5 - a huge reduction. It may be down to a punishment from Google for the Economist displaying questionable “paid-for” text links as “classified adverts”. Here’s my take.
I should say that this article is not aiming to be exhaustive, as Google can adjust published page rank without affecting search engine rankings. My aim is to identify some issues for bloggers to watch.
What has happened?
The Economist has had its ranking value slugged by Google. It has gone down from a usual Page Rank of 8, down to a current Page Rank of 5 (The Page Rank is one factor that indicates how much importance Google attaches to a webpage). It seems that they have made a basic mistake of selling text links on the home page, which bear no real relation to the content of the page - and then by leaving simple “links” in place which will enhance the position of those client sites in Google.
Both practices are resolutely opposed by Google (summary), and have been for some time.
Here is a screen shot of the bottom of the Economist home page this lunchtime:
The list of advertisers is areas which are often found trying to gain advantage in the search engines by link buying. As Patrick Altoft puts it:
My only concern is that this is pretty much a “who’s who” of link buyers that Google could use to hand out penalties.
What they have done
The Economist is selling home page text-link adverts (terms and conditions as PDF - 200k)
Here is a screenshot segment of the source code from the page:
You get the point: multiple links to the same site, a mass of keywords, and they are simple links that pass pagerank.
Several Basic Mistakes
There seem to be several howlersmistakes:
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Text links being sold to advertising Clients not particularly relevant to the page. Bearing in mind that the practice has been under fire from Google for some considerable time, that was asking for trouble.
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Allowing those links to be visible to search engines. The recommendation is to add a “nofollow” attribute to the links, use Javascript, or to use a redirect.
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To do this with Credit Checking Services and “Cheap Loan” Finance companies seems - on top of the above - to be like running a red-flag up the flagpole for
What to do when a political blog is banned at work
From time to time Political Blogs are found to be inaccessible from within certain organisations. Here are a few ideas about how to get your blog to be accessible again.
The best option - of course - is to get the ban lifted.
Beyond that, there are some things that bloggers and blog-readers can do to access the blocked websites.
So, how do you get a ban lifted?
My suspicion is that most blog-bans are caused by cockup rather than conspiracy - even though it is flattering to think that someone cares enough to ban our blog. I think bans are usually down to:
- Your blog appearing on a list of sites banned automatically by the corporate firewall - it could be simple as the odd “f*ck” in an article.
- You are falling foul of a restrictive corporate policy - perhaps from some years ago.
- The IT department is having a laugh.
- And (very) occasionally some insecure politician or manager with a lack of self-confidence has actually had it banned.
If you are on an auto-ban list that came with the corporate software, then talk to the people who own the list if you can find out who they are. They will usually be helpful - but go through to Technical Support and avoid Sales like the plague. In this case, it will take some time.
If it is a real ban, then it helps to have friends inside - and an innocent enquiry along the lines of “this didn’t work” along with an explanation of a valid reason why the site needed to be accessed may help. Something like this:
“I followed a link from <insert name of public figure here>’s website to <insert address of your blog here> website and it wouldn’t let me read it. Can you help?” from an insider should have a good chance of doing the trick.
Of course, make sure a link does exist, and be prepared to show them.
Probably the enquiry should be addressed to someone in IT who is sympathetic to the enquirer, and will just make the change on the spot. If you can do the request in passing at the water cooler or when something else is being fixed, so much the better.
Growing Pains: What happens when your blog becomes a little bigger?
There’s an excellent short interview with a “Blog Producer” from Weblogs Inc. by Darren Rowse over at Problogger. It points up a few of the issues that arise and skills that are needed to take a blog from being the “voice of one person” to being a slightly larger enterprise - with a range of voices, or covering a range of niches.
Blog Support Staff?
In Weblogs Inc. I’d define the role of Blog Producer like this:
“The back room bod responsible for ensuring that everything is in place to make sure that those writing for one or more blogs can do their jobs as easily and as well as possible”.
or - to put it another way - the person who lets the other people do their jobs.
I’ll quote one question and answer here, but you’ll have to follow the link below to read the whole interview:
Darren: Do you have any advice or tips for smaller to medium sized blogs that want to step up in terms of professionalism and growth?
Victor: Building a team is crucial, always. Once you grow beyond just yourself, it is important to have a talent pool who can bring a variety of skills to the table. This usually means a level of tech-savvy (people shouldn’t be afraid of wikis or simple HTML) plus a certain level of management ability. There also gets a point where you need someone focusing on sales!
Occasional Columns on the Wardman Wire: Blog Platform
This is the second of three extra Blog Platform columns to outline the current writers and features on the Wardman Wire , and to look at future developments.
This article talks about the “occasional columns”. Currently we have 3 of these.
Not a Number
Mike Rouse stopped writing regularly for the blog when he left 18 Doughty Street.
The column covered the important area of the interaction of technology and new media, and how this would effect politics and political communication.
This is a column I’d like to restart - as it is an area of rapid change and high interest.
Free Speech
I’m expecting Free Speech to be one of the main themes in UK politics over the next 5 years - especially as there have been increasing circumscribing of many different freedoms in the UK over the last decade.
We gave extensive coverage to the Usmanov case, and will continue to do our bit to campaign for the right to freedom of expression in the UK - and in particular reform of the UK Libel Laws.
Any politician who will commit themselves to reversing many of the repressive laws we have seen introduced - from the restrictions on demonstrations to the centralisation of personal information will be in a strong position to ask me for my vote at the next election.
If there is a writer out there willing to contribute a weekly (or more occasional) article around Civil Liberties to the blog, this column is waiting for you. I should add that I am always willing to back good writers or bloggers who do not yet have much experience or a high profile.
Hot Issue
This is a column we wheel out when there is a currently contentious issue - it consists of a summary of different viewpoints, and some analysis from the writer.
Wrapping Up
I will add further occasional columns as and when seems necessary.
There will be one more article in this series on Monday morning. I will put up a few indicators as to where I hope to take the blog over the next 3-4 months.
Tags: hot issue, not a number, free speech, wardman wire[tags]hot issue, not a number, free speech, wardman wire[/tags]
Article Series - WW Running Order and Looking Ahead
- Occasional Columns on the Wardman Wire: Blog Platform
- Wardman Wire Run down of Regular Weekly Postings: Blog Platform
- Wardman Wire Weekly Running Order
Wardman Wire Run down of Regular Weekly Postings: Blog Platform
Back in early December I posted a run-down of the list of weekly columns on the Wardman Wire, using the excuse that the site “has been a bit of a building site recently with a lot of changes”. I’m pleased to say that the move from a personal political blog to a site with a wider team of writers is nearly complete - so there may be a bit more stability round here for the next few months (at least in terms of who is writing).
This is an extra Blog Platform column to map out where we are and where we may be going.
What Happens each Week
I’m doing a rundown by day this time. There’s more to say, but I’ll keep this post as short as I can manage. Now that the rate of change on the blog is slowing down (at least in terms of new and guest writers), I’ll see if I can be more reliable at making sure that things appear on the right day.
Our practice is - with one or two exceptions - to publish the column each day at 11:00am, to give time for the article to hit the RSS feed in time for the lunch break. Then nothing else appears until perhaps 4pm.
As ever, the best way not to miss anything is to subscribe to our RSS feed.
Nearly Every day
![column-a-daily-roundup-header[1]](http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/column-a-daily-roundup-header1.gif)
“The Daily Roundup” is currently a roundup of 10 or a dozen newspaper stories designed to provide “blog fodder” for our readers. It focuses on interesting and occasionally unusual stories. On good days it is published around 1am; on not quite so good days with breakfast or a little later. As you can see from the podcast player in the sidebar, we experimented with a daily podcast - I hope to take that forward, but I’m thinking about a practical approach.
The “Morning Funny” (which needs a better name) is a cartoon or joke which appears at the start of the day - usually at around 9:00am. There are agreements in place with 5 or 6 different cartoonists to reproduce their work, and I sometimes re-recycle a joke from the Adam Smith Institute Jokester; make that “used to re-recycle” - he has retired.
Monday
“The Day Job” is about what bloggers do when they are not blogging. I have only done one of these, and intend to increase the frequency.
Tuesday
“Politics Decoded” is Garbo’s weekly political comment column - running for 6 months now. Garbo publishes his “bon mots” before lunch on a Tuesday with the reliability of Mr Gordon asking Mr Cameron questions at PMQs instead of answering them.
Article Series - WW Running Order and Looking Ahead
- Occasional Columns on the Wardman Wire: Blog Platform
- Wardman Wire Run down of Regular Weekly Postings: Blog Platform
- Wardman Wire Weekly Running Order
2008 will be more vigorous for political blogs: Straws in the Wind
Looking around, I see that competition in the political blog world in the UK is starting to hot up, which must be a good thing after a not very innovative 2007 - when relatively little progress was made in the world of independent political blogging.
In support of that statement, remember that the UK independent Political Blog “A-List” (which consists, more or less, of Iain Dale, Guido, Slugger, Political Betting, UK Polling Report and Conservative Home) did not change from Autumn 2006 to Autumn 2007.
How was that possible in such a volatile world as the blogosphere?
There was more disturbance among lower profile blogs, with new arrivals such as Our Kingdom and Ordovicius, and Liberal Conspiracy. I expect all of these to make significant progress in 2008.
It would take a full article to develop this theme, but here are some straws in the wind pointing towards a more competitive environment:
- A plethora of new roundups, including a new one I found today from Tony Sharp called “Six of the Best“. It’s actually a daily feature.
- In addition to things I am doing, there are now new politics podcasts Wolverhampton Politics and Realpolitik.
- The talk about an overhaul of Labour Home. We need vigorous grassroots politics in all parts of the spectrum.
- The new Centre Right newswire / magazine from Conservative Home.
- Many people adding new angles and features to their blogs. This goes from Iain Dale adding a roundup (Daley Dozen), many more guest bloggers and a political performance index to the Diary via Garbo adding some opinion content to The Poliblogs to Tony Sharp adding his own roundup as discussed above.
A key question is whether political bloggers will be competing for a larger share of cake, or seeking to enlarge the cake by drawing in a “non-politico” reader base.
Whether we manage to reach the general public - as opposed to the specific public - is in our own hands.
Tags: political blogging, signs for 2008[tags]political blogging, signs for 2008[/tags]
