(Worthy discussion, and suggestions appreciated - promoted by Adam Bink)
I have for some time been interested in the fate of the old 50 State Blog Network, and what could be done to help revive it.
At the moment there are two different projects going on that Open Left readers might be interested in. One is the revival of the old manual 50 State Blog Roundup, which has been appearing weekly on Open Left and other progressive blogs around the country. Thanks go to Eric Hoffpauir for all of his work on single-handedly getting that going again. I think this is a great effort, but it brings up again what I had seen as the problems in the blog roundup in the first place.
Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it's time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.
We have heard a lot about the...how can I put this politely...challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:
Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites...which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.
I wanted to let y'all know that not only will I be at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh this year, but I will be returning to the OpenLeft pub trivia team with several of our other front-pagers, ensuring our sound victory. Obscure questions about the 1884 election FTW.
The second is that I'll be discussing the financial system and economic crisis with Ian Welsh and my friends Digby and Bob Kuttner, moderated by Jay Ackroyd. Not one to miss. Saturday August 15th, 3-4:15 in room 318.
We'll also be doing an OpenLeft caucus, date/location TBA.
I'm looking forward to meeting many of y'all in person. Click here to register.
It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little...which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we're getting into a proper context.
The goal of today's conversation is to give you a bit more of an "insider look" at today's news; and to do that we'll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we'll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we'll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we'll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.
Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.
A lot of nonprofits are still just starting their outreach on the web. When someone from these groups needs a quick, short answer on where best to simply get started, I invariably direct them to Google for Non-Profits.
Launched approximately a year ago, Google opened up a one-stop shop featuring an array of tools. Beginners will have heard of many of the tools (e.g. YouTube) but the site serves as a reminder that these tools can be harnessed for nonprofit communications and advocacy.
The site is also replete with tutorials on how to use each of Google services. Some of the highlights are:
The following blog item concerns blogging. That makes it "meta." If that's not your thing, scroll down.
It's taken as a given that interest in politics reaches a zenith around November of even-numbered years. Political blog traffic tends to spike, big name bloggers eat caviar and buy Mercedes and live the good life. Then on, say, November 5 traffic drops off and it's back to ramen noodles and riding the beat-up Schwinn.
Sites entirely focused on election-related number compiling and crunching are particularly susceptible to the cycle described above. Hence, Nate Silver is worried about traffic at his site and did some investigating:
Please forgive my ignorance. I know many of you are professional bloggers and many others have been doing this for years. I however have long been a reader of Open Left and a few other sites, but as you can see I have not had much to say as I felt that I was a little out of my league on national issues.
Malaysia's leading political blog was being blocked yesterday in
what was seen as a crackdown on internet websites credited with
contributing to government losses in this year's general election. The
move came as former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was being sworn
in as the new opposition leader following a by-election victory this
week that returned him to parliament for the first time in a decade...The
Malaysia Today website was blocked by state-owned Telekom Malaysia, the
country's leading internet service provider, on the orders of the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which said comments
posted on it were "insensitive, bordering on incitement".
For the past two weeks we have paid more attention to the rest of the world than usual, what with the Olympics drawing our attention to Asia, and the conflict in the Balkans forcing us to learn that Atlanta is not in danger...that indeed, there is another Georgia-and how events in that Georgia could affect life in our Georgia.
As it happens, I belong to an international blogging collective (the Blogpower community) with voices that happen to be especially well-placed and often powerful to boot...a combination that will be most helpful for today's exercise.
We are going to take a journey, Gentle Reader, all the way from India to Australia. We'll visit Canadian friends, then we have much to discuss in the UK...and we get to meet a friend in the Sudan-and just for fun, we'll toss in a few discussion questions based on Russian history.
Finally, through the miracle of Facebook, we'll meet an actual volunteer soldier from South Ossetia who will describe the Georgian attack on his city.
There's a lot to cover, so put on your travel hat, grab your virtual passport, and let's hit the road.
Written by Kia Franklin, DMI's Civil Justice Fellow.
Even as we recover from the heavy blow of losing the legislative fight against FISA protections for spying telecoms, we should remember that the battle for what Obama (ironic, eh?) calls our "progressive future" is far from finished, and that blogging can be a powerful weapon of choice for those on the frontlines.
In his video-address to the Austin NN Convention, Barack Obama commended the progressive blogosphere for its ability to work effectively around the important issues. Observing the promise of using online platforms to build the progressive movement, he said:
"This is one of those moments in our history when we have a chance to create a real grassroots movement and lay the groundwork for a lasting progressive future."
In order to lay the groundwork effectively, progressives have to be able to articulate what we believe in and what our blueprint will be for change to achieve those ideals.
I organized a NN panel on tort "reform" and civil justice to talk about why our civil court system should be a top priority to progressive bloggers and blog readers, especially in the aftermath of the grueling FISA fight. I also wrote a companion memo for those interested in continuing this conversation beyond the convention.
Quick, name your favorite blogger for U.S. News and World Report. Having trouble? How about your favorite blogger at The Atlantic. Easier?
Historically, these two magazines have taken somewhat different approaches. U.S. News and World Report is a weekly magazine focusing on hard news. The Atlantic is a monthly magazine (now 10 issues a year) also covering news but with more features. In the early part of this decade U.S. News had a print circulation more than 4 times that of The Atlantic. Although somewhat different in their print strategies both publications faced the same challenges as they moved online.
Initially and for most of this decade, USNews.com maintained an edge over TheAtlantic.com, although the margin was closer to 3-to-1 instead of 4-to-1. But in the spring of 2007 the traffic gap narrowed and in the last year TheAtlantic.com has opened up a lead (at least according to the freely accessible Alexa.com).
The spring and summer of 2007 also happens to be the time period when TheAtlantic made Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Yglesias, Marc Ambinder and others offers they couldn't refuse (or at least didn't refuse). Meanwhile USNews.com has maintained a more traditional approach. They do have blogs, or at least pages that look like blogs such as that of Michael Barone. But Barone's blog has at best about one post a day which makes it one of the more active blogs at USNews.com.
Coincidence that TheAtlantic.com made it's traffic move when it took the blogging phenomenon seriously? I doubt it. And there are some simple things (even without hiring Chris or Matt) that U.S. News or other magazines could do to improve their positioning. Publishers can contact me directly for that advice. :)
I followed the Texas County Conventions on Saturday to see if the results would match the 38-29 caucus delegate projection from March 4 (at this point it looks like Obama will lose a delegate to make it 37-30). There were several ways to follow this online. The most detailed coverage I found was produced by the blog Burnt Orange Report which initiated a system to receive reports from around the state and tabulate results throughout the day. Another source was the Trailblazers blog of the Dallas Morning News. Here, several reporters were blogging live from the scene of county conventions in the Dallas area. Over the course of a long day it became apparent they were lacking some enthusiasm for the assignment. Here are some quotes from the DMN blog:
“For the record, I wouldn't be a delegate if you paid me. Lord, these people must loooooove their candidates.”
“She could have stayed and dined on sausage. Lord knows there's plenty being made today.”
“I'm going to miss the tipoff of the UCLA-Xavier game.”
“The Tabulations committee is still counting delegates, they're still accepting applications for the at-large delegates (OMG, really?!?!?!?!? We haven't been here since 7:30 a.m.?!).”
“Apparently, volleyball practice or whatever it was that was kicking us out at 6 pm has been cancelled. SUPER. We'll be here all night.”
“I'm about to kill a gallon of beer tonight.”
At one point the bloggers over at Burnt Orange took notice of this and posted the following:
"The DMN blog has 4-5 writers constantly complaining about how they can't wait to go home -- this is the same DMN that wrote an editorial complaining that the caucus process took too long on March 4. You know, because we're not doing anything important, like, oh, I don't know -- choosing the next President. (Slaps forehead)."
This exchange highlights some of the differences between bloggers and reporters working for traditional media outlets. To be fair, reporting live from the scene (apparently it was very hot at some locations and cold at others) for 10-12 hours is a different experience than blogging it from your house. But from the readers perspective, the enthusiasm you get from the blog coverage of politics is part of the appeal compared to coverage that is neutral in tone, or in this case a bit hostile at times.
There are other reasons for differences. Those at Burnt Orange are doing it because they really care about politics and enjoy being active in it. Reporters may enjoy parts of it, but it is still a job. And some don't enjoy it at all: it's a weekend assignment they may not covet. Again, to be fair to newspaper reporters, most of them are working in an environment which has been downsized, where they must now write blog posts in addition to the stories which used to represent their full assignment. And it is a profession that does not pay all that well (although the publishers have had huge profit margins for decades).
According to Wikipedia, the Dallas morning news laid off 150 employees a little over 3 years ago and bought out another 100+ two years later. Newer hires come in the door knowing that news routines have changed and they are expected to do more (as an aside, just today it was announced that Newsweek was buying out more than a 100 staffers).
Another problem facing traditional journalists who are trying to blog is the nature of blogging. Readers expect a certain style of writing, more first person, less formality, and use of opinion. How do tradional reporters accomplish this? To be enthusiastic about a candidate or even a Democratic event would violate their code of "objectivity." What's safe for them, apparently, is to complain about how hot it is or how disorganized it is. These are just "facts."
In the long run, which type of coverage will readers gravitate toward? For Democrats in Texas, I suspect the Burnt Orange Report is becoming a destination site for political information. Thirty years from now they'll be the "traditional" media.
I used to do search engine optimization (SEO) marketing for a living, and just recently started up consulting again. Not, as I always point out right up front, the URL misdirection and link spam kind. No. The kind where you create human-readable content geared towards providing the information your audience is looking for.
I got started in 2001, worked at it part-time to pay for my first couple years of undergrad, and quit in 2005 to go back to school full time. I started blogging in 2002, and at some point, I realized that all the hard-won markers of success for my clients' web sites came to me easily on my own blog, even if it wasn't getting blogger A List traffic. No one can ever tell me that there isn't value in what we do, even if few of us get paid for it.
In a way, this post has been six and a bit years in the writing. (Has it really been that long? Oh. Well.) I wasn't sure if there'd be an audience for this topic in the political blogosphere before, but considering the frustration I've been hearing from so many bloggers about what seems to be a plateau in traffic that once grew with regularity, we may have reached the limits of natural audience growth. So maybe it's time for something more.
Over at HuffingtonPost Gareth Porter recently called on bloggers to do more than respond to news.
He uses the example of war on Iran....
The truth is that a ruthless administration has the tools necessary to manipulate public opinion and the opinions of the political elite. Progressive bloggers can barely keep with each new perverse twist in the administration's use of disinformation, before they have moved on to their next propaganda ploy. The political deck is stacked against those who hope to stop aggressive moves by revealing the truth about them one by one. That is why I have concluded that progressive bloggers should go beyond their present reactive role and work on the longer-term aim of creating a new way of understanding the problem of aggressive wars. Without a consensus on a new analysis of the problem, there will never be a political movement that can bring about change on the issue.
I think this raises an important issue. How can bloggers go beyond responding and complaining? I think Open Left is already trying to do so with their Bush Dog effort.
We've heard so much about 'smart crowds'. How can bloggers plan and coordinate actions? How can bloggers start thinking and acting long term? How can we work to be more proactive? How do we bring about blogging 2.0?
STATE BLOGS
