- Image via Wikipedia
The idea that we can all be members of the press (using blogging software and issuing regular ‘news’ about our activities) is no longer a novelty, just as with blip.fm we can all be DJs. Not just content providers, bloggers are mini editors-in-chief, taking charge of the entire content of the weblog. Like a traditional organ of the media, a blog allows its owner to add advertising and to publish readers’ letters in the form of comments. What it does, in addition to this, is promote the blogger’s own business or products.
Part of the resemblance to good old-fashioned journalism is the time-stamped nature of the entries. Bloggers find themselves under pressure, therefore, as there is no faking. One cannot report retrospectively on events without it being obvious that the news is old already.
Famous blogs include Julie Powell’s. It became the foundation for the movie Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep. Celebrities from reality-show household name Kim Kardashian and TV actor Alec Baldwin, to movie director Kevin Smith are noted for their gripping blogs which are tributes both to their writing skills and their time-management.
Surely the best-known success story in the blogosphere is the Huffington Post, founded by Arianna Huffington. It’s a politically savvy collection of bang-up-to-the-minute and often revelatory blog entries, most penned by prominent guest writers.
Commercial or business blogs, carefully handled, can function as a sales-generating tool all on their own. Home industries can get great mileage from their own blogs. Just as prolific are the anti-corporate blogs like Wal-Mart Watch. The blogs of survivors of disasters attract large numbers of readers as do those of individuals struggling with illness. Non-bloggers can only feel awe in the face of the perseverance that such blogs represent. Meanwhile, the humdrum blogger scribbles on, grateful for followers, and publishing his or her own collection of musings, with mastery of the software being the least of their worries, stamina the far greater one.
