Denver Blogging and New Media Group

At our Aug. 2 meeting, we talked about getting the blog going by throwing out topics (preferably controversial ones!) once per week and asking group members to share their thoughts.

So what are some topics you’d like to have the group discuss? I have a few ideas:

• Are “citizen journalists” really journalists?
• Can newspapers survive the Internet, or will they become obsolete?
• In the Internet world, where the primary business model has users getting content for free, how do professional content-creators make a living?
• If you blog about your life, are there things you do differently so you’ll have interesting things to write about? (I’m stealing this one from Constance.)
• Does anyone actually read blogs?
• Are the blogs written by presidential candidates’ campaign staff great new resources that give readers a closer view into candidates’ personalities and positions than they’ve ever had before, or are they just incredibly irritating? Or, maybe both.

Please add your comments and tell us what issus have been nagging at you. I’ll use this list to send out little weekly prods to remind us all to read the blog and write on the blog. (We’ll try it and see how it goes. If you start feeling like you’re getting too many emails, let me know and we’ll rethink the process.)

Kate

A new report from the Bivings Group surveys how newspapers are using Web 2.0 features (such as blogs, RSS feeds, and reader comments on stories), which I thought might be particularly interesting for those of you from journalism backgrounds. The results seem to show that newspapers are using these new technologies a lot more–and more intelligently–than they were a year ago.

You can read a quick summary of the findings, or read the full report (this is a PDF file).

Any thoughts? I didn’t think it was too surprising–it just reminded me how absolutely vital it is to get comfortable with new technology if you want to have a career in communications.

Kate

I created a blog a few months ago called Curried Channa and Fishes, a name that represented a dish I like. I did it on blogspot, a free blog service from Google. It was fun for a while, just playing around with the color schemes and titles and created links and such. But it was really just an online diary that, after a while, bored me.

I decided I would rather do a blog that actually was useful to people, rather than my day-to-day. So, I created one that deals with black culture in Denver. I wanted it to be a place that black people who are new to Denver could go to for resources.

This was a much better idea because it allowed me to focus. I had a theme, rather than meandering thoughts. I was able to decide what categories of links I wanted to add to the site. For example, I decided I wanted to have categories for best places to eat; education resources with links to the state’s school districts and universities; links to metro area movies; links to every newspaper in Colorado, but also the most popular ones, etc.

I highlighted events and websites that cater to black culture, but since a lot of black newcomers are looking for the same thing as everyone else (shopping, events, news), I had links for those, too.

I also learned how to pull stuff of YouTube. I basically searched for videos in Denver and I’d download them on to the site. It made it more fun than just a bunch of words and links. I learned how to take digital fotos to put on my site, and I pretty much put events on their with links to other sites with more info.

I also found a site called www.denverevolution.org that lists a calendar of events every day in Denver. People can click on my blog for current happenings, and it takes them to the denverevolotion site. I learned to create hyperlinks throughout my short write-ups, so that people could click on the words for me. Like if I mentioned my friend on Match.com, I created a hyperlink so the could just click on Match, or if I mentioned a movie, they could click on the movie name to get to the site.

One really cool thing I discovered was Stat Counter. It’s a website that allows you to put a counter on your blog to tell you not only how many times your page was downloaded, but the number of repeat visitors you had (versus how many times you downloaded your own site) and where those people were based. It actually pulled up a map that shows that people from Thailand, Aurora or London looked at your page, how long they were their and how they got there (what search word they used).

On my site, I did use another name, and I left off info about myself, though I allowed for comments.

Karen

Hi all,

We’re meeting this Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Denver Press Club. The DPC is at 13th and Glenarm.

What topics would you like to discuss? What would you like to learn more about, or what challenges have you run into relating to new media? I’ve put together a short list of possible discussion ideas based on what I’ve heard from people since the last meeting. If there’s a topic you’d like to suggest, please add it to this post as a comment.

• Any recent meetings, seminars, or workshops we’ve attended.
• Creating a list of key topics that we discuss, including a little explanatory information. We could add this list to the blog, and we could share it with CPW members and others as a reference.
• Writers reference sites that we’ve found useful, and any other interesting sites we’ve found.
• Which of us have our own websites?
• Iphones
• Internet security
• Dealing with rude, obnoxious comments
• How much of your personal life can you let into a professional website? And if you have a personal blog, can you link from it to your and others’ professional sites?
• Useful Web tools we’ve found or read about.
  • Google Reader
  • Google Analytics
  • StatCounter
  • Squidoo
  • Technorati

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Kate

Hi all,

Ann forwarded a notice of a Denver Press Club forum that will be at lunchtime tomorrow–July 24th. It’s short notice, but it’s really relevant to the issues we want to talk about. If anyone could make it there, it would be great if they’d share their notes with us afterward, either via the blog or at our next meeting on August 2.

Here are the details:

——–

Tuesday, July 24, noon. DPC members are invited to a free forum on the impact of online media on public policy and local politics.Featured speakers include John Andrews, former Colorado Senate president; Bobby Clark, Progress Now Action deputy director; Dan Haley, Denver Post editorial page editor; and Wendy Norris, Colorado Confidential managing editor.

The panel will examine the impact that online media– Weblogs as well as some of the newer online news sites — are having on public policy discussion in Colorado. It also will look at how the Colorado blogosphere has been received and utilized by policymakers and journalists in traditional media in the past legislative session and election cycle. The format will encourage audience participation.

——-

(Just a reminder–if you’re a CPW member, you’re eligible for DPC member benefits.)

Kate

I think finding the right tone for a blog can be tricky. You want to be friendly and personable, but also professional. In my case–and probably the case of most people writing professional blogs–the danger is tending to go too formal.

The MyCapitolWeb.com blog recommends the “mom test.” Write your posts like you’re writing a letter to your mom, and that will give you the right voice and tone.

Now, I don’t know if the way I would talk to my mother about, say, monitoring social media or whatever other professional topic I want to discuss is the best way to talk to other professionals in my field. But reading that blog post made me think about personas, which is an idea I’ve toyed with before but never used. It’s a tactic that marketing copywriters use. Rather than trying to imagine an abstract audience (”okay, so I’m writing to 20- to 30 year old single women, so what voice should I use?”), you create one or more imaginary people, give them each a name, a back story. Some places actually find a picture for each person, and hang them on the wall. That way, instead of trying to write to a generalized group, you’re just writing to “Julie,” who you know all about and whose picture is hanging on the wall.

The idea intrigues me, because one of the hallmarks of good Web writing is that it should be personal and conversational, which can be tricky to accomplish when you’re writing an article about, say, a professor’s archaeological discovery in Tunisia or something along those lines. So I’ve wanted to try personas, but it’s hard to get coworkers to buy in to taking the time to create imaginary people. So when and if I start my own blog, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to imagine a couple of other Web-writing professionals, names and all, and try writing to them. I think, like that blog post says, that might help me not to freeze up at the thought of writing a post.

I saw another interesting post on that blog–it says that when you start a new blog, you should send out notices inviting people to visit it. (I might suggest waiting a couple/few weeks until you have a nice set of posts there.) That’s a good idea. (So long as you pick people who would actually be interested in the blog, and don’t just spam everyone in your address book.)

Hello, colleagues -

I mentioned in our introductions that I’m the Library Director at the American Alpine Club. I thought you might want to see the new blog I set up for the library. I’m using it to promote new books and DVDs in addition to other interesting goings-on at the library. My plan is to do one new post per day.

In an earlier discussion, Kate mentioned RSS and other feed readers. I love Google Reader because it’s web-based and you don’t have to download anything. I just attached a Google Analytics tool to my blog. With a little tinkering with the HTML, you’ll soon have a mind-blowing number of reports and data about who’s reading your blog, how they found you, how people interact with your blog, and so on. Kinda scary what you can learn about your readers…maybe information privacy could be a possible discussion topic(?)

Gary Landeck 

Ann sent me a note about topics she’d like to discuss in future group meetings:

“It would be nice to have someone keep a list of key topics with a little information about them, so maybe we could share it with other CPW members. (Maybe at the next meeting, I could help with that.)

“I might like information on dictionary, encyclopedia or other writer’s reference sites which people have found to be very useful. We could also ask which people have their own web sites. If anyone gets an I-phone, I’d love to see that or hear about it. Maybe a speaker could talk about internet security sometime.”

I think that’s a great idea. Let’s keep a running list of ideas for future meetings. Whenever you think of something you’d like us to discuss in a future meeting (or even better, if you think of someone we could invite as a guest speaker), add it as a comment on this post.

Thanks to Ann for the excellent suggestions!

Kate

For the next CPW bloggers’ group, I wondered if we could discuss YouTube, MySpace and those kinds of internet sites. Some of us older people probably don’t use them, but should learn about them, how they can be used, etc., etc.

Hate to admit it, but I’m an old fart. I signed up for a Colorado Museum group on meetups.com, but feel like I’m one of the older ones on that site. I think it’s a very interesting social networking thing.

Ann

[Note from Kate: What other websites or new media phenomena would you like to learn more about? Add a comment and let us know. I for one would like to learn about Technorati, which I've heard discussed a lot, and Digg.com.]

I read a blog post by Angela Booth about how she plans, writes and edits her blog posts: .

Again, she’s the person who sells e-books about how you can get rich quick by blogging (I forwarded on one of her newsletters a while back), so she’s motivated to make writing sound like it’s a snap. But, she does seem to be very good at producing a high volume of text, which is definitely not my forte.

And her model for creating blog posts appeals to me. I’d been thinking about handcrafting each post from scratch, and it seemed like such a daunting task. But what if, say on Saturday, my job is to think up the subjects for the next week’s post(s) (I’m thinking 1-3 per week), and any key points I know I’ll want to make. Then on Sunday, my job would be pounding out some sort of rough draft, without editing myself as I go (which is what makes writing take FOREVER for me). Then on Monday, I edit what I wrote on Sunday. And voila–a week’s worth of posts.

It’s a little like making 50 chairs one at a time vs. making 200 legs, then 50 seats, etc. It makes the process sound more manageable to me. Plus, looking at the posts on three separate days means I’ll see them from a fresh perspective and can stop them from being too myopic. It’ll probably make for better posts.