Tag Archives: blogging

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at the first annual BlogHer Food. For those of you who remember my BlogHer ’09 posts from July, you might be surprised I so willingly attended. I was surprised myself, but curiosity got the better of me, and I’m glad it did.

Continuing the motif, I was also surprised that I enjoyed myself so thoroughly. I had intended on staying through my session, which was before lunch, and then heading out to explore San Francisco. I ended up remaining at the conference for the entire day. I found the sessions, while geared towards recipe-oriented food bloggers, were still relevant for review and wine blogs as well. The whole attitude of the day was different from what I expected, and I was thrilled. It was the perfect size (I believe it was around 300 people) and the programming struck just the right note.

My panel focused on blogging best practices. Not only was I on a panel with an impressive group of women, we actually talked about blogging. It was refreshing. I also attended a session on photography basics, as well as a fantastic session on protecting your work and copyright. I learned something in every session I attended. I’m a terrible conference attendee, and often my attention easily wanders, so BlogHer Food’s programming impressed me.

In fact, the only complaint I heard from anyone (myself included) was about the lunch. It was a hyper Rocco diSpirito and Bertolli. Yep, they served a bunch of food bloggers thawed Bertolli. This isn’t a food blog, but when the people at the table are complaining that the ravioli alfredo was more reminiscent of biscuits and gravy, you know there’s a problem.

Perhaps it was because we were all coalescing around a common topic – the love of food and wine – but I found the entire environment to be a lot more friendly than my previous BlogHer experiences. I hunted down folks I knew, people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and even met several impressive authors who were more than friendly. I gladly attended a party in the evening, looking forward to seeing some people again. I discovered that food bloggers are food bloggers, no matter their genre. Recipe bloggers were interested in hearing from review bloggers (and wine bloggers!) and I was interested to talk to the recipe folks. It was just such a different experience – for me – than the larger BlogHer conference I attended in July.

Finally, while there was swag, it was both excellent and controlled. I believe there were only five sponsors in the expo/demo area (Healthy Choice, Campbell’s, Pur, Cuisinart, and Pillsbury) as well as the Bertolli lunch and the California Milk-sponsored breakfast. I have no complaints with the goodies with which I came home. The organization even set up an easy and obvious area to donate unwanted foodstuffs from the goodie bags to a local shelter.

Even if I don’t speak next year, I’ll gladly return to BlogHer Food. Among other things, it was just great to be in a room with other people who all whip out their cameras to take a photo of their food. Camaraderie wins every time.

Update: Live blogs from the sessions are now available.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

According to Mashable, popular blogging site Tumblr is launching two new features today: hashtag and Facebook integration.

Their use of hashtags will happen in “Tag Channels,” which allow bloggers to tag their content that turns up in the most popular place on the web right now: real-time search. Tumblr is getting into the real-time search area. Their search includes a sliding filter that lets you narrow down results.

Additionally, Tumblr is releasing Facebook integration that ensures all of your posts – no matter what media or format – will post correctly and prettily to Facebook.

By Julie Blaustein

Girls in Tech Attendees and Venture Beat's Camille Ricketts

Girls in Tech hosted another sold out evening at the MySpace trendy offices in San Francisco. The event, coined Journalism 2.0 Round Table included a crowd of about 100 eager gals and a few guys too. They were there to learn more about the ever-evolving world of journalism. Brian Solis, Principal of Future Works PR and blogger at PR 2.0, set the tone to the evening by talking with The Wall Street Journal‘s Kara Swisher about PR and how its evolved in the last decade. If you weren’t aware, Brian has recently published the much anticipated, ‘Putting the Public back in Public Relations‘. When Kara asked Brian, “What do you need to be in PR?” Brian responded, “You need to start rethinking whatever it is that you know.” Perhaps suggesting that if you want to know about PR, its all in the book. Brian also mentioned that if you want to learn more about PR, check out the Conversation Prism, the Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing.

The impressive panel included former SF Chronicle Tech Editor Deborah Gage, ZdNet’s Jennifer Leggio, Ubergizmo Editor Eliane Fiolet, VentureBeat‘s Camille Ricketts and Techie Diva’s Gina Hughes and did not disappoint the audience with its lively discussion. Topics discussed were about blogging and how its changed the face of journalism, how citizen journalism and how it is impacting traditional journalism, and also the impact of being a woman in the male-dominated world of tech.

Kara kept the conversation moving rapid-fire, without missing a beat; even making some pretty amusing remarks. When talking about how women can find themselves in this male dominated techie world, the panel had all experienced discrimination and blatant sexism at some points in their career. Gina of TechieDiva shared how while at Yahoo! her professional picture that was waist up and seemed to focus on her breasts, solicited many unwanted comments. She would have preferred more professional comments. ZdNet’s Jennifer Leggio felt there was a belief that she wasn’t all that Techie because she worked in the marketing department and as a result she felt compelled to always be on the defensive to prove them wrong.

Some Great Advice about becoming and being a blogger:

• Just Blog! If you are passionate about it, then you will be successful. Do not worry if you don’t have any experience, it will come.
• If you have an opportunity to do a free internship, Do it!
• Always say YES to any task presented to you. Kara Started delivering mail to folks that she has come to manage.
• Follow your Instincts. If you have this crazy dream to start a blog, Do it!
• Do not burn any bridges – you never know when that person will be the Hiring Manager
• Be Knowledgeable. If you need to learn more, take classes, network, get involved
• Utilize as many tools as possible in addition to your blogging platform to stay connected with your audience – Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, iPhones, Blackberry’s, etc
• Link to higher ranking blog sites to help build up your own traffic. If possible, become part of a site’s Blog Roll
• Accept that Traditional Journalism is being replace by Journalism 2.0 – the big difference is you can get things done more quickly and at times may have even more more resources

Kara Swisher of Wall Street Journal and Brian Solis of Future Works

Former SF Chronicle's Deborah Gage , Venture Beat's Camille Ricketts and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal

The Sold Out Girls in Tech Audience Listens Closely to the Panel.

Panelists Ubergizmo's Editor Elaine Fiolet, ZdNet's Jennifer Leggio and Gina of Techie Diva

I just got back from BlogHer  ’09, a conference which astounded and disappointed me all at once. Amongst other things, I was floored at the number of attendees who wanted “pay for post.”

I pride myself on my blogging ethics. As a wine blogger, I receive a lot of samples and a lot of complimentary meals. I also have a disclaimer and sample policy on my blog and I make sure that whenever I receive something for free, I tell my readers. Giving me something for free does not guarantee a positive review. If an winery advertises on my site, I won’t review their wines. As a tech blogger, I also occasionally receive technology to review and when I’m done, I give it back. I do not have a multitude of phones and gadgets sitting around for which I didn’t pay.

Perhaps that is why I was so disappointed to hear so many people at the event wanting pay for post. To be clear, pay for post is a sponsored post. In my own life, perhaps a winery would offer to pay me to positively review their wine. Locally, we had a group of people who received free meals, were not clear about it, and in return for the free meal blogged a positive review. Pay for post. It’s no different from a magazine giving great product reviews to a major advertiser without full disclosure. Truly, I don’t get it. In my mind, pay for post compromises your credibility. Why would you want to do that?

BlogHer was rather heavy on the “Mommy Bloggers,” which is a whole other post in itself. Remember, Mommy Bloggers, like tech bloggers, are key influencers and are being offered a lot of household and baby products for free or pay for post. But several of the Mommy Bloggers have created Blog with Integrity, in response to the proposed FTC Guidelines and, as I witnessed, some of the greed existing in their own community (as well as others). Blog With Integrity is really just a badge you put on your web site. Launched on July 22 (the day before BlogHer), the site has already extracted pledges from 453 bloggers. According to the women who created the site,

After a spring and early summer of polarizing debates about blogger compensation, sponsored posts and product reviews, an alarming increase in ethical lapses and idea theft, and a growing backlash against poor blogger relations practices, we believed it was time to refocus on integrity.
The Blog with Integrity pledge recognizes that there’s no single right way to blog and more than enough room in the world for different approaches.
What matters is the relationship with our readers. Meeting our commitment to them and to our community. Clear disclosure of our interests so they can evaluate our words. Treating others with respect. Taking responsibility for our words and actions.

All you need to do to sign up is enter your name and blog URL on a contact form and place the badge on your web site. The “code of conduct” is simple and to the point – and isn’t heavy handed like a blogger code of conduct that came out in past years.

What do you think – do bloggers need a written code of ethics, no matter how simple?

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Source

The blog is now an old entity in the new Internet, the one that is forever evolving and moving forward at breakneck speed. We’re about to see the launch of Wolfram Alpha, the search engine that promises to search the Internet with a brain and offer results that are useful at first glance, unlike the huge lists we have to trawl through to find a semblance of what we’re looking for in the first place. But there’s a reason why the humble blog is still relevant in any setting, be it the present or the future, and that’s because it exists solely for the reader.

A blog is an outpouring of ideas and information that exists to satisfy two needs – the need to express in a blog writer, and the need for information and recreation in a reader. There are various reasons why people read blogs – some of them may search for one blog in particular because they know the author, others may stumble upon one in a random search operation and subscribe to its RSS feed after finding it to their liking, and yet others may be looking for certain information which they find to be factually correct and aesthetically presented in a particular blog. But there are probably just a handful of reasons for people to dislike blogs and shun them – because they are not interesting and because they have been written badly.

While it’s hard to make yourself interesting to a virtually unknown reader or capture the attention of all the people who stop by your blog, you can do something to improve the quality of the content on your blog. Good writing is important to draw repeat visitors because:

- People prefer information that is presented clearly and concisely.

- They are turned off by explicit grammatical and semantic mistakes.

- The quality of the content you provide is diluted if the language you use is not up to scratch.

- Spelling and grammatical mistakes can have disastrous consequences if they are misunderstood.

- If you fill your page with keywords just so you gain a higher ranking on Google and its ilk,
you’re not going to have any repeat visitors.

- Your content must be what the reader is looking for (according to their searches) or they’re likely to feel cheated.

- Your content must be easy to browse through and read at a glance.

If your blog is not doing as well as you expect it to, perhaps it’s time to go back and check the basics. Rather than spend time on the fancy accessories like page design and font selection, rather than obsess over the ads you want to place on your page, it’s best to conduct an analysis of your writing and try to inject the qualities that it lacks. Because, when it boils down to it, a blog is just the power of the written word.

This post was contributed by Kimberly Peterson, who writes about the health care administration. She welcomes your feedback at KimPeterson2006 at gmail.com