Weblogs: June 2006 Archive Page

Murphy is launching PayPerPost.com, which will automate such hookups between advertisers and bloggers and thus codify a new frontier of product placement. Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they'll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates. --Jon Fine --Polluting the Blogosphere (BusinessWeek)

If you believe the hype, blogs are as significant as the invention of the printing press for their ability to change the way the world will be seen. If on the other hand you believe the counter-hype, blogs are a self-indulgence which pander to dull people's misguided beliefs that they have something interesting to say.

Journalists have their own takes on blogs - broadcaster Mark Lawson, for one, says that "although the word blog suggests attitude and subversion, it's really just a hi-tech kind of diary and carries the identical risk of Pooterism".

Some believe that only journalists should really be allowed to write endlessly about themselves. Others believe blogs soar to beautiful new interactive heights. A third group don't understand blogs, but are terrified of being left behind. --Giles Wilson --Down with blogs... so here's another (BBC)

An unusually broad, inclusive assessment of blogs, recognizing that the kind of blog that the pundit blog -- the kind of blog that journalists are most intersted in, and therefore the kind of blog that gets most coverage in the mainstream media -- is only part of the picture.

That "Pooterism" is a reference to Charles Pooter, a literary character whose fictional Diary of a Nobody lampooned middle-class self-importance and obliviousness.

Thanks for the link, Rosemary.

Teenagers, in particular, provide a moving target for Internet researchers, remarks psychologist Kaveri Subrahmanyam of California State University in Los Angeles. "By the time you publish research on one type of Internet use, such as blogging, teenagers have moved on to something new, such as myspace," she says, with a resigned chuckle. --Bruce Bower --Growing Up Online: Young people jump headfirst into the Internet's world (Science News Online)

Another quote: "Still, text-heavy online sites seem to have provided reading experience that translated into higher reading scores and grades, the researchers suggest. Although participants remained below-average readers at the end of the study, their improvement showed promise, according to Jackson and her colleagues."

--Weblog: een doe-het-zelf medium -- Chronologische ordening in de informatiechaos?

I'm assuming the language of this site is Dutch.

At the bottom is a list of over 100 early articles about blogging, most of them popular (rather than academic) and most of them in English. Just blogging it for future reference. Lots to learn here.

Do you have what it takes to create a LiveJournal? Well, ask yourself this question: Are you able to put words together? Not in complete, grammatical sentences, mind you. Are you able to take a word and another word and place them one after each other? Then you're set! --Lore Sjöberg --You and Your LiveJournal and You (Wired)

By the way, if you're reading this and you think you've escaped being the target of this satire because you've already moved on from LiveJournal to FaceBook, then You're Missing The Point.

The story, "University Police Monitoring Facebook," hit the street last Thursday. Many copies didn't stay long, and not because eager readers were snatching them up. Some time between about 8 and 10 a.m., Tropolitan staffers estimate, 1,500-2,000 of the 3,000 copies distributed vanished. (The papers that remained were those in highly trafficked areas, like the student center and the library.) --David Epstein --The Case of the Missing Papers (Inside Higher Ed)

A great narrative news story, with snappy writing.

Every student will soon be a blogger at the University of Pennsylvania's College of Arts and Sciences -- and the authors won't just be filling their pages with party anecdotes.

As part of summer registration, members of the class of 2010 are receiving from the college personalized "academic blog" pages, where they are asked to fill out what amounts to an online questionnaire. The students' first online journal entries will focus on their intellectual interests, academic concerns and educational experiences. Many bloggers will outline their strengths and weaknesses, and create a personal mission statement.

The academic blogs aren't meant for mass consumption. Only the student, an academic adviser and authorized university officials will be able to see the content. The idea is to formulate talking points for when freshmen first meet their faculty mentors in the fall. --Elia Powers --An Academic Blog for Students (Inside Higher Ed)

I wonder if the students will have the option to share their entries with each other.

I agree with what Steven D. Krause wrote in his comment... I wouldn't call this a blog. It's really just a private advising journal that happens to live online.

I know it sounds nerdy, but I jumped at the chance to tag along on my husband's business trip to Hartford, CT last weekend so that I could re-walk the 2 miles that Wallace Stevens used to walk to and from his home on Westerly Terrace to Hartford Accident & Indemnity each day. I took along my EL 267 text and read some of his work as I walked along through a slightly dicey section of town... --Brenda Christeleit --Baby Blackbird and Wallace Stevens (BrendaChristeleit)

A student who was in my American Lit class this past semester posted this to her academic blog.

While I fully realize that blogs aren't equally beloved by all students in my classes, what other instructional tool gives students a platform to share their thoughts even after the class is over?

Well done, Brenda.