Development
of blogs since 2004
The Top Blog of top blogs is Updated 2010
The URL internet
address of this Blog web page is:
https://www.angelfire.com/space/special4u/blogs.html
as mentioned on pages:
DENMARK
COMPUTERS
hja BLOG examples Franco
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SPECIAL 4u High speed SPECIAL
4u
A page presented by PAT at Special4u
in Copenhagen, Denmark, Jan 2007,
with Copyrights for the
copied, printed,
or reproduced articles,
texts, images,
pictures, icons, maps,
videos and
URL internet addresses as
mentioned below.
The Copyright owners of each of
the reproduced
articles are mentioned by name or
publisher.
For this page, Copyright © PAT, 2004, 2005.
After 2006, texts by PAT are free
from © if for
non-commercial and non-political
use.
This page is now often updated when readers
send relevant emails about it at wetry2@gmail.com
This
page covers how the evolution of blogs
can
be seen by the end of the 20th
century until
the
beginning of the 3rd
millennium and the start
of
citizen journalism
and “blog
democracy” with
Google YouTube Yahoo Dmoz My Fa flickr tw…
and
video hosting
services, video
sharing sites.
Some basic links to start networking
with blogs:
Rep MAPS Tra LED
Net 4u2 page 3
Networks Social software File
sharing...
You
can write and publish all sorts of blogs, and
there
are blogs about everything and anything.
Blog
communities BLOG examples
Just
take a look at some ideas below among billions:
About Blogs in more than
80 languages at Wikipedia
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog
Blog at Google
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=blog&search_type
Blog at YouTube
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=blogs&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&n=20&fl=0&x=wrt
Blogs at Yahoo
The world’s largest blog site at Alexa
Global internet usage at Wikipedia
List
of countries by number of Internet users
Some comparison of regions where an
approximate %
of the young and adult
population has access to internet and
the “blogosphere”:
long
before any computer, internet, blog
or
mobile phone existed, and
for some
places,
visited again after the emerging of
all
these new communication and information
media
and tools.
Click
on, tap on or touch (*)
to see some
of
these visited places.
(*) = Photos, press articles or documents
shot,
written, bought, sold or copied by PAT.
Le
Bourget visited by PAT 1965
http://spatial.forumdediscussions.com/salons-du-bourget-f70/salon-du-bourget-1965-t335.htm
http://spatial.forumdediscussions.com/salons-du-bourget-f70
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1965/1965%20-%201792.html
There came by then only occasional
meteorologists and far-out adventure freaks.
There are now plenty
of blogs about this
no longer isolated place where daily
observation of the climate was discussed
2009
in Copenhagen. Climate is changing
there much quicker than expected.
Falkland
Islands 100 % of the population
has access to the internet and many
Kelpers
have blogs.
Autumn
1981 British and US insider
informers
reported
a build-up for a clash on both sides:
Argentineans didn’t think the Brits could do it.
Some Kelpers
travelling in
it anyway! (*) (**) (***) (****)
Le
Bourget visited by PAT
1981
Falklands war 1982 (*)
In the mid 80s French freaks had been
reported
by Danes and Americans as being interested in
Thule. I identified
them as Dupond et Dupont.
By 2010
90 % of
access to the internet and many people
have blogs about everything.
Faroe Islands 77
% of the population
has access to the internet with as for
example the Toineau
blogs, Faroe
visit, Blogs...
Iceland 92 % of
the population has access to
the internet. An example of Icelandic site: Hugi
Norway
91 % (*) of the population has access
to the internet,
visited by PAT 1983-84,
1995-2005
Sweden 89
%
(*) of the
population has access
to the internet,
visited by PAT 1965-2010
96 %
of Swedish
girls age 19-20 use Fa in 2009
Most popular in Sweden 2009 are
Finland 86 % (*) of the population has access
to the internet,
visited by PAT 1980-81 1991-93
Netherlands 86 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT1967-2005
Denmark 84 % (*) of the population has access
to the internet,
visited by PAT1965-2006
Australia 80 %
New Zealand 80 %
Luxembourg 79 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1989-1991
Switzerland
76 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1960, 1967-1998
Andorra 71 %
Monaco 67 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1960,
1993
Liechtenstein
66 % (*) of the population
has access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1967,
1982, 1993
Guernsey 70 %
Jersey 31 %
San Marino
56 % (*) of the population
has access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1967
United Kingdom
76 % (*) of the population
has access to the internet,
visited with wife 1975
visited with daughter 1991
Ireland 67
% (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited with daughter 1991
Austria 72 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1960,
1967, 1993
Spain 72 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited with father and brother 1950,
with wife and daughter 1987,
as PAT 1993
Portugal 42 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1993
Belgium 70 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1964-2005
France 69 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1939-2005
Germany 66 % (*) of the population has
access to the internet,
visited by PAT 1960-2005
Italy 52 % (*) of the population has access
to the internet,
visited by PAT 1957,
2002, 2004
Malta 50 %
European Union 63 % (*)
1957-2009
Canada 75 %
United States
74 %
South Korea 77 %
Japan 75 %
Singapore 72 %
Hong Kong 69 %
Macao 46 %
Taiwan
66 %
Malaysia 66 %
Brunei 56 %
Antigua and Barbuda 76 %
Bermuda 75 %
Saint Lucia
69 %
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 63 %
Jamaica 55 %
Cayman
Islands 47 %
Bahamas
46 %
Barbados 66 %
Martinique 40 % (*)
visited with parents as a child 1945
Guadeloupe 23 % (*)
visited with parents as a child 1945
Trinidad 19 % (*)
visited with parents as a child 1945
Netherlands Antilles 0. 9 %
Saint
Martin - Sint Maarten (*) visited 1997
Airport Port-Harbour
Blogs Answers
Dominican Rep 31 % (*) visited by PAT 1997
Haïti 11 % (*) visited by PAT 1997
Special
report 2010 about the earthquake
Estonia 68 %
Latvia 61 %
Lithuania 59 %
Slovakia 65 %
Czech
Republic 59 % (*) visited
by PAT 1967
Hungary 59 % (*) visited by PAT 1967
Poland 52 % (*) visited by PAT
1966, 1969, 1980
Slovenia 65 % (*) visited by PAT 1967
Macedonia 52 %
Croatia 50 % (*) visited by PAT 1967
Serbia 45 % (*) visited by PAT 1967
Montenegro 44 %
Israel 73 %
Palestine 14%
UAE 70 %
Bahrain 55 %
Qatar 52 %
Niue 63 %
Tokelau 58 %
Iran 48 %
Turkey 35 % (*) visited by PAT 1967, 2003
Chile 50 %
Argentina 49 %
Brazil 34 %
Colombia 45 % (*)
Venezuela 28 % (*)
visited with parents and brother
as a child 1945-1949
Russia 32 %
China 26 %
Réunion 33 %
Mauritius 30 %
Morocco 32 % (*)
visited with parents and brother
as a child 1945
Tunisia 27 %
Algeria 12 % (*)
visited during military service 1961-1962
Egypt 16 % (*)
visited with daughter 2005
Kenya 9 %
Uganda 7 % (*) 1979
The whole world 26 %
List
of countries by number of Internet users
Sites
blogs gratuit en français sur Google
Some
examples of blogs about
http://www.sikora.fr/loisirs/sorties.htm
http://www.invitationsgratuites.com
Blogs can be found in the
Blogosphere
by
surfing on search engines and
websites
as:
Google YouTube Yahoo Dmoz My Fa flickr tw…
and through many of the Main search engines or at:
http://www.gmi.org/research/search.htm
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~checheln/geo/search.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~krev/SEngine.html
http://www.infomotions.com/pointers/searchengines.html
Examples
of sites for Blogs and Blog-tools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Blog in many languages at Wikipedia
https://www.angelfire.com/blog/hja/blogex.html
Many blog examples
http://www.blogaboutblogs.blogspot.com
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/cyberjournalists.php
http://www.blogsearchengine.com/blog
http://www.blogphiles.com/webring.shtml
http://www.smh.com.au/blogcentral/index.html
One
example of how The
Sydney Morning Herald
is
organizing some blogs in a “Blog Central”
More blogs from
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html
Blog at YouTube
Never
too late to do it right,
Blogs at Google
(about 3 billion answers!)
Some popular search combinations
about blog stuff:
International
Blogs International bloggers Multilingual
blogs
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogspot&aq=2&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogspot+templates&aq=2&oq=blogspot
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+templates&aq=9&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogging&aq=4&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogging&aq=4&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogthings&aq=6&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bloglines&aq=7&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+sites&aq=8&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+tv&aq=5&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+layouts&aq=6&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+labels&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+software&aq=7&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blog+backgrounds&aq=10&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogger+search&aq=10&oq=blog
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogger+widgets&aq=5&oq=blogger
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogging&aq=3&oq=blogg
For
too hot a blog, you might find a way around
that
will puzzle the besserwissers.
Send
a normal or completely anonymous email
to
wetry2@gmail.com,
and, depending on
what
it is about, you could see how possible it is
to
publish completely anonymously your too hot
stuff
or not.
Remember
that completely anonymously
is only
possible
in and from the countries where you can
buy
anonymously phone card start packages and
refill
phone cards.
Then,
with bluetooth technique,
you can proceed
publishing
anonymously.
You
must change often the phone number you get
with
each new phone card start package and move
around
a bit. And it is expensive, but possible and easy.
Otherwise,
different ways to publish anonymously
can
be achieved by following the info and proceedings
on
pages such as EXIO Surveillance
Proxy
- Gateway
The
“Gateway technique” requires a good
level of
computer
know-how and web practice.
Successful (never busted)
“hacking hackers”,
crackers,
of very large
organizations, companies, banks, Hollywood lobbies…,
using network,
hacker, hack+, virus, worm,
trojan, mobile virus,
bugs,
bots, botnets, zombies,
backdoor, cluster…
penetration
and other little-known
home-made hacking techniques, come
often from very small
groups building
themselves their home-
assembled
computers (English Deutsch Nederlands Français
Español Italiano Português 日本語 中文…), gaming a
lot, and
learning top programing **
at a young age, often very young.
-CHIL- -BRA-
-WIN- -NASA- -CIA-
-文言- -more- -EXIO-
The many non-busted
hackers are not known, and their preys,
especially banks, keep
usually their mouth shut about that.
PAT 2008 規格膠質的4U
頭版 updated 2009.
Dreamhack Gaming 4teens Save Flash
Free
mobile-cell apps More
apps “Video
comp” ViO
The Pirate Lists of BitTorrent trackers
Piracy Privateers Corsaires Flibustiers Buccaneers
Joanna de Montfort Jeanne
de Clisson (*) Lady Pirate
Legitimate
piracy flashback
Music
Fuck
the fuckers Hackers fuck suckers
Sophisticated designs Beautiful sites
Citizen
journalism Periodismo ciudadano
Jornalismo
comunitário 市民ジャーナリズム
Giornalismo partecipativo Graswurzel-Journalismus
Borgerjournalistik Borgerjournalistikk Journalisme citoyen
Social networking Communities Photo-Video
sharing
Francophonie Latin
America Newspapers online
Real Time World
Statistics Stats Statistics -%-
News Sports Image Icon Picture
Photo Video
Search + World
Radio TV BBC World Serv
World TV EBU
Eurovision Broadcast
Blog-Tracking
May Gain Ground
Among
From “Investor's Business Daily”:
At Yahoo! News, Tue
April 27, 2004
By Doug Tsuruoka
People
in black trench coats might soon be chasing blogs.
Blogs,
short for Web logs,
are personal online
journals. Individuals
post them on Web sites to report or
comment on news especially, but also on their
personal lives or most any subject.
Some
blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering
information and opinion.
As
a result, some analysts say
blogs
for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media
such as blogs have
come
in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and
others, even with the
knowledge
that the accuracy of
what's reported in some blogs is questionable.
Still,
a panel of folks who work in the
discussed
this month at a conference in
"News
and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another
conversation to
listen to and evaluate. They also
are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts," said
Jock
Gill, a former adviser on Internet media to President Clinton, in a later phone
interview, after he
spoke
on the panel.
Some
panel and conference participants, because of their profession, could not be
identified. But
another
who could is Robert Steele, another blog booster. The former
"absolutely"
that blogs are valid sources of intelligence and news, though he said
authenticating the
information
in blogs "leaves a lot to be desired."
Steele
is founder and CEO of consulting firm OSS.Net, which organized the conference.
The
conference
focused on public sources of intelligence. (
case,
open source is an intelligence term, not a reference to Linux and open source
software.)
The CIA and FBI haven't publicly
commented about use of blogs in their work, but many D.C. observers
believe both agencies monitor certain
blogs. At least one nation,
also
reportedly trying to block blogs. Several press reports earlier this year said
the government shut
two
blogging services and banned access to all Web logs by Chinese citizens.
Many journalists write blogs and use other blogs to help
find sources or verify facts and rumors.
Blogs
hail from just about any spot on the globe. They can provide first-hand insights into local
events
and thinking, even in parts of the
world where there's little official information.
One
example is the "Baghdad
Blogger."
In
March 2003, as
written
by a person who turned out to be 29-year-old Iraqi architect Salam Pax, though it's not certain
that is his real name.
Some
reporters followed his blog daily, which gave gritty insights into how the war
was shaking the lives
of
Iraqis.
The
military
officers read the blog.
Some
news organizations valued the blog.
Pax
in May 2003 to write a biweekly column on life in
Blogs
last year also provided information during the outbreak of severe acute
respiratory syndrome. In
reporters
were able to get a sense of what was happening through blogs, as well as from
e-mail and
cell
phone text messages sent to people outside
crackdown.
Gill
says blogs are a good way
to uncover news that regular media aren't covering or can't cover.
"Blogs may be the best and only
channel for such news stories," Gill said.
NGOs
Already Get Attention
Various
NGOs, for information on
political, economic and environmental issues. So tracking blogs isn't a big
step.
And there are software products and online services for this task.
While
blog postings are voluntary and available to anyone to read, some observers say
blog monitoring
by
governments or the media raises civil liberties and privacy issues. One such
critic is James Love,
director
of the Ralph Nader-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology.
"When
you're conducting surveillance where you have no expectation of illegal
activity, there has to be
some
threshold to justify such surveillance," Love said.
Some
point to other dangers in using blogs for intelligence or news. Blogs can be
used to spread lies or
disinformation.
It's hard to fact check a blog account of
an event in a remote area like
don't use their real names. Confirming
identities can be hard.
In
missed.
A blogger in
Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who was then in
The
report proved false, but it confused the media.
Determining blog accuracy is the crucial first
step to taking it further, warned Tim Witcher, who spoke at
the
conference. He's the former
"A blog only becomes news when we can be 100%
sure that it's true," he said.
Sat Jul 17, 2004, on Yahoo News, from Reuters. By Alberto Alerigi
ranging from cotton subsidies to the war in
as the one being fought on the Internet. Thousands of Brazilians
have become devotees of Orkut
(http://www.orkut.com), a popular new social-networking site from
Web search leader Google Inc. Orkut
allows members to organize themselves into online communities of
friends, and friends of friends, to
discuss everything from chess to sandwiches. But the rush of
Brazilians to join Orkut and rival social
networking sites has upset some online users, who complain of a
proliferation of messages posted in
Portuguese,
to air their gripes on this issue. The
Americans for the first time. The site says it has more than 769,000
members, making it one of the
largest and most popular of its type on the Internet. About 23.5
percent of the users are from the United
States, while another 41.2 percent are Brazilians. Iranians are a
distant third place at about 6 percent.
SELECTIVE MEMBERSHIP
Orkut, named after Google software engineer
Orkut Buyukkokten, made its debut in January and is still
in the testing stages. Part of its allure is its
exclusivity -- one can only join at the invitation of another
member. "Orkut maps one's social prestige,
and Brazilians are by nature gregarious," said Beth Saad, a
professor at the
one-fourth of Brazilians live in poverty, those
who can afford Internet access have become avid Web
surfers. In terms of time spent on the Internet,
Brazilians edged out the
second month in a row, according to
Ibope/NetRatings. The market researcher estimates that Internet
use for Brazilians averaged 13 hours and 51
minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans.
The number of Brazilian visitors to community
sites and online diaries rose 14.6 percent to 3.5 million in
May from January, Ibope/NetRatings said. Tammy
Soldaat, a Canadian, got a sample of Brazilian wrath
recently when she posted a message asking
whether her community site on body piercing should be
exclusive to people who speak English. Brazilian
Orkut users quickly labeled her a "nazi" and
"xenophobe." But perhaps none of the
battles has been so personal as the one being fought on the
Internet.
Thousands of Brazilians have become devotees of
Orkut (http://www.orkut.com), a popular new social-
networking site from Web search leader Google
Inc. Orkut allows members to organize themselves into
online communities of friends, and friends of
friends, to discuss everything from chess to sandwiches.
But the rush of Brazilians to join Orkut and
rival social networking sites has upset some online users,
who complain of a proliferation of messages
posted in Portuguese,
have even started communities specifically for
people to air their gripes on this issue. The
has at least 153 million Internet users,
compared with
dominated its membership roster in June,
outnumbering Americans for the first time. The site says it
has more than 769,000 members, making it one of
the largest and most popular of its type on the
Internet. About 23.5 percent of the users are
from the
Brazilians. Iranians are a distant third place
at about 6 percent.
"After that I understood why everyone is
complaining about these people, why they're being called the
'plague of Orkut,"' she said in a site
called "Crazy Brazilian Invasion." John Gibbs of
user goes to look at community listings to see
what's out there, he'll see a list populated with pretty
much all Portuguese communities," Gibbs
said. "This is highly frustrating since Orkut is not a Brazilian
service." But Mateus Reis, a publicist who
lives in
they want, in the language of their choosing.
"Since we can invite anyone we want at Orkut, and my
friends are Brazilians, it doesn't make sense
talking to them in English," Reis said in Portuguese. "I use
the language I know." His compatriot Pablo
Miyazawa has a more moderate view. "Brazilians have the
right to create anything they want in any
language they want," Miyazawa said. "The problem is to
invade forums with specific languages and write
in Portuguese. Brazilians are still learning how to
behave in the Net."
AN INTERNET FORCE
The Brazilians' ardor for the Internet extends
to other community-based sites, and Web entrepreneurs
are catching on to the potential business
opportunities. Lisa Kopp, spokeswoman for Orkut's competitor
Friendster (http://www.friendster.com), said
Brazilians are "an important group, with millions" of
participants among its 7 million users.
Meanwhile, Brazilians account for nearly 211,000 of the 453,600
users of Fotolog (http://www.fotolog.net), which
allows people to post a visual diary of their lives. The
site is negotiating with Internet providers in
Seifer, who founded Fotolog. But Saad, the
communications professor at
some of
think what will happen is what occurred when the
Web arrived in
boom of people creating sites and now the number
of active sites being used by Brazilians is a lot
smaller than those registered."
Traditional media eagerly eying blogs to boost
revenues, profile.
Yahoo News,
May, 2005. PARIS (AFP).
Traditional media such as
newspapers and radios are casting an increasingly covetous eye over the
growing number of
Internet blogs, hoping to cash in on a slice of the action.
With daily newspaper
circulation in decline, the highly critical and at-times irreverent world of
the
personal online journal
with its potential to attract millions of readers is looking more and more
attractive.
Media mogul Rupert
Murdoch even warned the American Society of Newspaper Editors last month that
the owners of traditional
media cannot afford to be complacent.
Young people "want
their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their
media,
instead of being
controlled by it. They want to question, to probe, to offer a different
angle," Murdoch
said.
"Where four out of
every five Americans in 1964 read a paper every day, today, only half do. Among
just younger readers, the
numbers are even worse.
"So unless we awaken
to these changes, and adapt quickly, we will as an industry, be relegated to
the
status of also-rans, or
worse, many of us will disappear altogether."
According to the
23 blogs were thought to
exist.
Now there are more than
31 million, and the figure is set to reach 53 million by the end of the year.
That is a huge global
community of people, all with something to say, for better or worse, on every
topic
under the sun.
In the
resigned after an army of
bloggers exposed shortcomings in his coverage, ignored by the more
traditional media.
The bloggers were also
instrumental in exposing problems in a story last September on the National
Guard record of US
President Bush by CBS's Dan Rather -- who retired from the evening news in
March of this year.
In
"Blogs allow readers
to retake control of the way in which they read information. They don't want to
read information in a
linear fashion, and they don't need to be told what they should read,"
Loic Le
Meur, vice president of
California-based web editor Six Apart, told AFP.
"Blogs are a
revolution, the revenge of the amateurs."
Already some newspapers
have moved towards trying to incorporate the bloggers' world within the
pages of their own
papers.
The Guardian newspaper in
blog filed during the
height of the 2003 war in
Salam Pax's vision of the
horrors of daily life was soon scoring 20,000 hits a day, and The Guardian
eventually recruited him
as a journalist.
In face of huge news
events such as the war in
is going on the
blogs," said sociologist Jean-Marie Charron.
As well as recruiting
would-be reporters, media outlets are also giving free rein to their
journalists to
launch their own blogs.
"While some
journalists have set up their own blog, others are publishing whole online
magazines," said
Six Apart, which
organised a meeting of 300 bloggers from 22 countries in
The initiative in
multiplying, the
Launched in December 2002,
"skyblog" from Skyrock radio targets the 12- to 24-year-olds, and now
counts some 1.9 million
blogs, with 5,000 to 10,000 new ones being created daily.
"It gives the new
generation a new means of expression, of freedom, of exchange of ideas,"
said
Skyblog boss Pierre
Bellanger.
Last year Skyrock's
electronic platform counted for some 20 percent of the radio's 25-million-euro
(32.35-million-dollar)
turnover.
According to Le Meur at
Six Apart, blogs can be a rich source of revenue in several ways, from
advertising to
sponsorship.
"Several brand names
are beginning to seek out those bloggers who are influential in their fields,
to pay
them and get them to test
products.
"Media see in this
an opportunity for this to evolve from a brand that diffuses information, to a
brand that
gives its readers their
say."
Le Monde Interactif (Le
Monde Interactive), the top French information site with more than 14 million
hits a month, launched
its blog network in 2004.
It now has about 2,200
bloggers. Setting up a blog is reserved for subscribers only -- currently some
60,000 -- but they can be
read by all.
"It's a fantastic
format for journalistic expression which allows an almost instantaneous
dialogue with
the reader" for a
major event, said director Yann Chapellon.
Thousands of people
turned to their blogs during the death last month of Pope John-Paul II to voice
their thoughts, with many
using the Internet to share their faith.
For the first time three
correspondents for Pelerin, a French Catholic magazine with a circulation of
300,000, wrote about the
funeral rites in blogs.
For deputy
editor-in-chief, Benoit de Sagazan, their blogs had a double advantage.
"They allowed up-
to-the-minute reports,
and also allowed the correspondents to tell lots of intimate details which
would
have been impossible to
publish on paper due to the lack of space.
"The blog allows a
more direct and spontaneous tone."
Corporations
Entering World of Blogs
By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 6 2005, 7:44 AM ET
When General Motors Corp. wanted to stop speculation this spring that it might
eliminate its Pontiac and Buick brands, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz took his case directly
to dealers and customers who were up in arms about the possibility. He wrote about it
on the company's blog.
"The media coverage on the auto industry of late has done much to paint an ugly portrait
of General Motors," began Lutz's entry on GM's FastLane Blog, which the company
launched in January.
The March 30 entry went on to say that widely reported remarks he made to analysts
the week before had been "taken out of context" and that the automaker would not
shed the brands.
A growing number of companies are stepping softly into the blogosphere, following
a path blazed by Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and others in the technology
field. The Internet journal format, they find, lets businesses expand their reach, generate
product buzz and encourage consumer loyalty — while bypassing traditional media.
"When we feel that we need to get a direct response out there, we've certainly got
this bully pulpit to some extent," said Michael Wiley, GM's director of new media.
"It's a place where we can talk directly to people unfiltered."
It's hard to quantify how many companies, executives and employees are blogging
but there are probably more than 100 official corporate blogs, with hundreds more
in the works, said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer for Intelliseek Inc.,
a company that analyzes and tracks blogs.
In addition to Lutz, other notable executives who pen public blogs include Richard
Edelman, president and chief executive of the global PR firm Edelman and Craig
Newmark, founder of the online swap meet Craigslist.org .
"I think that in two years ... we will look back and laugh that we treated this as such
a big deal," said Blackshaw, who said it's inevitable that companies will adapt to the
consumer-driven atmosphere of the Web.
Done well, corporate blogs can create good word-of-mouth among consumers who
aren't reading business pages or thumbing through trade magazines.
The FastLane Blog gets between 150,000 and 200,000 unique visits a month,
and Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz's blog gets 300,000 visits.
But bad blogging can easily backfire. Readers will pick up insincerity instantly.
"Don't go toward fake blogs. Don't launch character blogs. Use a blog for what it's for,
transparency," said Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz & Co.,
a New York PR firm. Rubel follows blog news on his blog, Micro Persuasion, and runs
his company's unit of the same name, advising clients on blogging and on podcasting, the
suddenly fashionable creation of downloadable person-to-person broadcasts.
He and other PR professionals can rattle off blogs gone wrong — usually "fake blogs"
that stir up the ire of bloggers by hiding the fact that they are really ad campaigns, such
as one McDonald's posted in advance of a Super Bowl campaign about a Lincoln-shaped
french fry.
Blogs that smack of press releases won't do the job, Rubel said. He tells clients to see
what's out there about their company or industry, then decide whether they want to
engage bloggers or even start their own blogs.
One executive praised for his no-holds-barred approach to blogging is Schwartz,
who started Jonathan's Blog about a year ago. Sun also encourages its employees
to blog, and about 2,000 do. For Schwartz, a blog was the natural way to reach out
to the developer community that Sun seeks to attract, a cynical audience that regularly
turns to blogs for information anyway. Schwartz often uses the format to criticize
analysts and rivals.
A post Schwartz wrote last August claiming Hewlett-Packard Co. had abandoned an HP
operating system, for example, resulted in a cease-and-desist letter from the company —
which Schwartz promptly referenced and linked to on his blog.
"At the end of the day, the job of any good leader at any corporation is to communicate,"
Schwartz said. "The hallmark of companies that will find blogs useful is the company
that cares about its perception ... and the integrity of its relationship with its customers."
Corporate blogs don't have to be controversial to work, though, as evidenced by the five
blogs operated by Stonyfield Farm, a
and ice cream.
The company's blogs include one for new parents to discuss baby issues and another
written by an organic dairy farmer. CEO Gary Hirshberg got the corporate blogging
bug while working on Democrat Howard Dean's presidential campaign.
"I had been early on struck by the power of blogging for the Dean campaign itself,
and as I watched other campaigns get into it, I realized this is completely applicable
to brands," Hirshberg said.
Aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. also uses a blog to promote its brand. Randy Baseler,
vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, made his first entry
in Randy's Journal on the day before rival Airbus unveiled its A380 superjumbo jet.
He has spent much time since contrasting the two companies' philosophies about
air travel. Companies that decide to enter the blogosphere should set up some rules,
Rubel said. Key is making sure bloggers don't reveal proprietary or financial
information — a lesson learned by former Google employee Mark Jen, who was
famously fired after gabbing about life at the company on his personal blog,
which was not sanctioned by Google.
Jen, now a software producer at Plaxo Inc., helped develop the information
management company's blogging policy. He says that as long as companies
are prepared to deal with the sometimes harsh comments left by visitors,
corporate blogs are a great tool for raising company profiles.
At GM, Lutz receives dozens of comments on each of his entries, ranging from
"I drive a Buick and have for years. I love the brand!" to "Yawn!! Buick. Uhhhhh,
does anybody buy Buick anymore?" Visitors also have alternately praised Lutz for
his candor and accused him of letting his PR department write the blog.
Wiley said opening the GM blog to comments was a source of concern, but officials
ultimately decided comments were key to having a two-way conversation with
customers. He said comments are edited only to remove profanity or personal attacks.
As for Lutz's entries, Wiley said that while he and an outside PR firm give Lutz
suggestions for topics and do light editing, the words and thoughts are Lutz's.
A main goal of the blog is to keep the 97-year-old automaker culturally relevant,
Wiley said. "GM isn't always considered to be on the forefront of cultural trends,"
he said. "By getting in at the forefront of a communication trend ... being a part of
that kind of gives you a fresh image."
On the Net:
FastLane Blog: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/
Randy's Journal: http://www.boeing.com/randy/
Micro Persuasion: http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/
Jonathan's Blog: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan
Stonyfield Farm blogs: http://www.stonyfield.com/weblog/
Examples of News Stories
United Airlines Approved for In-Flight Internet Service http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AvEWCiFgW9D_vbUxdeVOamlk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--/SIG=1522m3014/**http%3a//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/fc/Tech/internet_and_world_wide_web/news_stories/SIG=11sdofela/*http%3a//www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/technology/06united.html
Examples of Opinion &
Editorials
Bless Me, Blog, for I've Sinned http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=Apw22QpM4uAdFFTgaoqfw25k24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--/SIG=159i6dqp1/**http%3a//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/fc/Tech/internet_and_world_wide_web/opinion___editorials/SIG=11r9n3ad7/*http%3a//www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/arts/design/31boxe.html
at The New York Times (reg. req'd) May 31 2005
To Tag or Not to Tag, That Is the Question http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AqhGKeTaksoDFxMakKZZaENk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--/SIG=153fpoq5o/**http%3a//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/fc/Tech/internet_and_world_wide_web/opinion___editorials/SIG=11lv16ff9/*http%3a//www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1819102,00.asp May 27 2005
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