October 05, 2004

Explain a Blog to Someone's Grandma

I'm putting together a briefing for work about blogs. Beyond explaining what they are (and let me tell you, the nomenclature is weak). I'm trying to explain why they are such a driving force in online communication.

Somebody (Ship, perhaps) was telling me about a news article that was pulled from the news source's website. Bloggers had copied the text, so it was still available to those looking for it. I am looking for the details to use as an example of why a large corporation shouldn't ignore blogs.

Yes, it really is this exciting at work. Any other examples or musings on the unwieldy power of the blog (or forum, or message board) would be greatly appreciated, because that would decrease my work load and allow me to think about nimbus clouds.

Posted by SundayKofax at October 5, 2004 11:44 AM
Comments

Oh, yeah. It was an album review on Pitchfork for the Beastie Boys album To The 5 Boroughs which pissed off the group's publicity arm. A number of blogs archived the review before Pitchfork pulled it. A more thorough explanation, with links, is available here.

Kind of an osbcure example, but perhaps someone among us knows of a similar scenario that played out within a more prominent online news organization.

The most obvious and practical recent application of blogs would probably be their involvement in the Presidential race. There are countless articles out there (here's just one, at Salon) about how bloggers are reshaping the political discourse, scooping the "real" media, etc.

That's all I can think of for now. If you want me to write your paper for you, my going rate in college was $15/page, plus beer.

Posted by: Shippy at October 5, 2004 12:48 PM

Check the vegetable crisper.

Posted by: SundayKofax at October 5, 2004 01:46 PM

Huh. That's where I keep my $15, too.

Posted by: e lo at October 5, 2004 02:19 PM

the power of the blog/message board was pretty finely demonstrated by the blow-up 2 wks ago over the "hack a kryptonite with a bic pen barrel" ruckus. it started with a bike board and ended up everywhere, and just might cost kryptonite a lotta money in exchanges... see http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=66128&page=1&pp=25 for the beginning and build-up, and http://www.kryptonitelock.com/inetisscripts/abtinetis.exe/templateform@public?tn=urgent_update for the company response.

Posted by: robin.. at October 5, 2004 03:50 PM

The power of a blog/message board (or at least, the power to distract and annoy) was also pretty vividly illustrated just one week ago, when an anonymous douchebag's inflammatory posts managed to infuriate a group of intellectual pop-culture junkies in this here very space.

Posted by: Shippy at October 5, 2004 04:07 PM

less perambulatory is this e-dress for the beginning scuffle over u-lock, and all barrel locks:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=67493

Posted by: robin.. at October 5, 2004 04:08 PM

I thought the blog someone posted here from the guy in Iraq was a great example of how blogs/boards/the net can circumvent the traditional media outlets by putting the power to get your word out back the the public's hands.

Also Fark.com which started out as a guy just e-mailing funny/weird news stuff to his circle fo firends morphed into a website that gets over a million pageviews a week.

Posted by: Keester at October 6, 2004 10:32 AM

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail137.html
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,703479,00.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/index.php?p=570

Posted by: cowboyd at October 6, 2004 12:48 PM