IN THIS ISSUE: March 10, 2004 To Archive Index Everything You Need to Know About Business Blogging But Didn't Know Who to Ask REPORT: Reality PR Strategy HP Study Proves Bloggers Plagiarize, Posing Both Threat and Opportunity For PR Industry NY Times Reporter to Repay Oprah Show for Home Makeover The Best Resources Online

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS BLOGGING BUT DIDN'T KNOW WHO TO ASK

By B.L. Ochman

Talk of blogs is everywhere. But a lot of people still have basic questions about what blogs are and what businesses can do with them. Here are some straightforward explanations that will tell you just about everything you wanted to know about business blogging, but didn't know who to ask.

1. What's a blog?

A blog is a content management tool. Using simple software that is generally free, bloggers can easily and quickly publish copy, photos, artwork and even video to the Internet without knowing any html or programming.

The content is automatically archived by the blogger and easily searchable by visitors under the categories the blogger establishes. The headlines of the most recent posts on the blog are displayed, along with links to other blogs, sites or resources that the blogger selects.

Unlike a Website, a blog can be updated in seconds by a person with virtually no technical knowledge. No need to FTP, no need to understand complex file structure, style sheets or any of the technical elements of Website creation.

I hired a designer to set up my What's Next Blog because I wanted it to look like my Website, whatsnextonline. She templated the most common tasks that I perform so that I never encounter any technical issues at all. Most businesses will want to work with a designer to give the site a look and feel easily identified with the company's other graphics.

On What's Next Blog, I write commentary on Internet marketing, PR, news and politics. Some of the posts would certainly not be appropriate for my business Website, but give me an unfettered outlet for my opinions. That's one of the reasons blogging is fun.

2. How do blogs differ from other online discussions, such as listservs or discussion forums?

On a listserv or forum, anyone can start a new discussion thread. On a blog, only the blog publisher can post a new item. Readers can comment on posts but cannot start a new topic.

Blog posts generally are followed by a link for comments. People who read a post and wish to comment on it simply type in their name, email address and comment on a built in form. The comment is then visible to visitors to the blog, who can comment on the comments. The blogger can turn off the "comment" feature and also can decide to accept, reject or edit a comment but no reader can change or delete a comment. However, a blog that doesn't allow comments is not a true blog.

An e-zine is a publication containing the work of one or more writers. Can contain artwork, photos, streaming media. Readers wishing to make a comment can send a suggestion to the editor, who then can publish or respond to it.

Creating an html e-zine issue requires knowledge of programming, unless a designer has created templates that can be filled in with copy and artwork. Archiving the content of a newsletter or e-zine is not automatic and requires programming skills. Search software must be integrated into the archives.

Readers can comment to the publisher by email and the publisher can decide whether or not to publish these comments. E-zines are delivered by e-mail and/or posted to a Website. Some e-zines are now providing RSS feeds as a delivery option because e-zines and email newsletters are frequently caught in or mangled by spam filters.

Since blogs can have many different formats (which generally have to be set up by a programmer or designer) a blog can become a template for a newsletter or e-zine and notification that an issue has been published can be sent by email.

Newsgroups allow members to post comments or start a thread to which others add comments. However, newsgroup software does not allow posting of photographs, artwork or streaming media, or automatic archiving or delivery by RSS Feed.

3. How have blogs changed communications -- both internally and externally?

Blogs allow anyone with an opinion to be a publisher. It's a very democratic system: you don't need to know any code, all you do is fill in a template, push a button and your content is live. It frees companies from the tyranny of the IT department, lets writers be spontaneous, interactive and fast.

4. Who's using blogs effectively? What makes their efforts successful?

Jones Soda is great. It aims right at their target teen market and gets them completely involved with the product. They can submit names for new flavors, photos and art that get used on the soda labels. Skateboarding and snowboarding stars are featured and the kids have a great community on the site.

Macromedia Flash Product Blog takes advantage of blog's ability to provide really extensive product information, instruction and background.

These blogs establish their authors as experts in their field because they provide useful information:

Trademark Blog (by Attorney Mark Schwimmer)

Snark Hunting (Igor Int'l branding consultants' blog)

AdRants Steve Hall comments on the advertising industry, new campaigns, promotions, etc.

5. What are the potential risks or pitfalls in using blogs (both internally and externally)?

It is important that the people who represent the company in the blog are the same people you would allow to represent the company to the media or to the outside world.

However, to fit the definition of blog, the blog has to be unedited and free from the legal mumbo jumbo that often mars PR material and robs it of credibility.

The Dr. Pepper Raging Cow blog has become a classic example of what PR people should NOT do. The company set up the blog and then went to several young bloggers and offered them financial rewards for blogging about the Raging Cow blog being cool.

Bloggers caught wind of the scheme and Raging Cow was creamed all over the Blogosphere. You can look up the case study on Marketing Wonk by typing "Raging Cow" into the search bar.

 

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HP STUDY PROVES THE OBVIOUS: BLOGGERS PLAGIARIZE
POSING AN OPPORTUNITY AND A THREAT TO PR INDUSTRY

For the PR industry, bloggers are both an opportunity and a threat. As a recent study shows, bloggers copy from each other, and rumors can spread across the Internet like wildfire. Knowing who to pitch can help, but knowing how to put out a fire is equally important.

Hewlett Packard Labs study shows that more than 70% of the time, top bloggers plagiarize from lesser known bloggers. I could have told them that for a whole lot less than I'm sure they spent.

Says Slashdot "from the we-prefer-to-say-'borrow' dept: the HP study scientifically proves what most people already knew: bloggers steal their ideas from other bloggers."

For example, sleaze ball gossip monger blogger Matt Drudge claimed a scoop on the alleged, and quickly disproved rumor of an affair between John Kerry and an intern. In fact, the story had been reported several days earlier on Watchblog Nonetheless, Drudge was credited worldwide with the scoop.

In a Guardian column titled "Why Drudge is Bad for Online Journalism" Paul Carr notes that "Drudge refuses to let the facts get in the way of a good lie, but that most of those lies … are supplied to him by print journalists who don't have enough evidence to put them into their own pages.

Thanks to people like Drudge, the Internet is turning into a gigantic gossip laundering operation for cowardly print hacks. Heard a juicy rumour about a presidential candidate? Know it's probably total rubbish but want to print it anyway? No problem! Just leak it to Drudge, wait for him to print it and then run it in your own pages as an "internet rumour". Job done." Many bloggers, like Slashdot, Instapundit and MarketingWonk are aggregators, who do a limited amount of original reporting. These three and many others strive to high journalistic standards. They comment on relevant news with credit to a wide range of sources. A lot of blogs, including some of the bigger names, just lift content from other blogs without accreditation.

Publicists Take Heed
This practice is not unique to bloggers. It is also the norm for wire services like Associated Press, which, according to a many reporters, frequently picks up stories from member papers without providing attribution.

Smart publicists know, for example, that certain newspaper writers syndicate appropriate copy to wire services. So coverage in a local paper can result in a national story when that writer's story is picked up by a service like AP. And Web savvy PR people know which small circulation bloggers' posts are most likely to be "borrowed" by bloggers with wider audiences.

And any publicist can attest that even at the biggest media outlets, press releases, without a word changed, are often run under reporters' bylines. Publicists don't complain about this practice; their clients are happy for the placements.

That practice is fine as long as the story is positive. But when it's an unsubstantiated negative story, it's hard to fight back. News, good and bad, stays online, available through search engines, forever. The only way to counter bad news is with a greater quantity of good news. The problem is, news gets old in days, and nobody wants to hear old news, even if it is correcting wrong information.

Time to stop stealing
Says the HP study, "These findings are important to sociologists who are interested in learning how ideas grow from isolated topics into full-blown epidemics that "infect" large populations. Such an understanding is also important to marketers, who hope to be able to pitch products and ideas directly to the most influential people in a given group.

HP has come up with an algorythm that is supposed to ferret out the originator of information so people can go to the source, rather than the aggregator. The team has made some of its research available online in the form of the Blog Epidemic Analyzer, a Java program that reveals the implicit and inferred links between blogs in an interactive, visual form.

They hope to be able to apply the technology to other information, like e-mail, to improve productivity.

I hope bloggers and other journalists will stop stealing from eachother and start giving their sources attribution.

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NY TIMES REPORTER TO REPAY OPRAH SHOW FOR HOME MAKEOVER

NEW YORK (Reuters)
- New York Times culture reporter Jesse McKinley has been ordered by the newspaper to reimburse "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for renovations done on his New York apartment for a segment of the popular television talk show. According to the New York Post, the renovations were worth $50,000.

The Times said culture reporter Jesse McKinley "unintentionally" violated its code of ethics prohibiting accepting gifts worth more than $25 when his wife arranged for celebrity designer Thom Filicia, known from the television show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," to fix up his apartment for the Winfrey show.

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THE BEST RESOURCES ONLINE

Bad Day Antidote Click on the link and then type in your first name.

God Checker
I've often wanted to make a mythology reference in something I was writing, but didn't know my gods. Your Guide to the Gods takes a lighthearted view of gods and mythological figures from around the world. It "aims to cover all Gods of mythology, literature and legend" as well as pagan figures. Information on over 1,300 deities is browseable by pantheon/culture or searchable. Several types of gods are not yet available, including Roman and Indian gods. From a group of religion and mythology enthusiasts.

Source: Librarians' Index to the Internet

Research Motherlode
This site from the University of Minnesota (UM) Libraries has eight modules designed to teach library research techniques. You'll be a research whiz you follow their instructions.

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