Many of you are doing a good job of covering your ‘beats’ in your blogs. Excellent. And you are even remembering — usually — to link out as often as you can. But also remember to draw the reader in. You are building a readership; you want that reader to keep coming back to read you. You want them to set up an RSS feed for your blog. So don’t just tell me the news. Tell me the news in your voice. You don’t need to lay the opinions on thick to do that, either — you can link out to different views, and your own insights and analyses can be the glue that holds the blog together between links.
Jpm2000000pmMon, 05 Feb 2007 21:42:57 -050007 17, 2007
Jpm2000000pmMon, 05 Feb 2007 21:30:14 -050007 17, 2007
In class, we dig a little into who does what on a website. Bring any questions you might have about staffing structures, tasks and roles. Also, please bring a hard copy of your assignment from Thursday, which is to describe or map out the Web technologies you want to use in your story. If you haven’t already done it this way, please start putting that assignment together with the assignment from the class before, about defining your audience and your story. You are building an in-depth description of your story piece by piece.
Also, don’t forget blogging posts. Some of you haven’t blogged since before class last Thursday.
See you Tuesday at 6.
Jpm1000000pmTue, 23 Jan 2007 18:31:43 -050007 17, 2007
Jpm1000000pmSat, 20 Jan 2007 20:24:22 -050007 17, 2007
One more basic rule for now: please, no profanity. You won’t be able to use it in almost any professional job you have (OK, there are a few exceptions, but still), so we won’t use it here.
Later in the term, we will go further in-depth about what defines a blog.
You’re all on the blogroll (see right) now. I’ve asked a few of you to re-think your blog names, and/or come up with explainer text (so we lose the lame subheads). You should all add one another to your blog’s blogroll while you are writing your next post, before class Tuesday.
Nice start, everybody. In particular, note David’s MBTA Watch blog. I’m using his as a good example of giving the reader an immediate sense of what you plan to do with the blog, and why they should plan to come back and read your next post. Give the reader a reason! Link out a lot. Exude your sense of (humble) authority — don’t tell them you know what you’re talking about, readers will just intuitively know — and invite in their comment and involvement.
Jam1000000amThu, 18 Jan 2007 00:29:42 -050007 17, 2007
All stories posted to your blog must meet the following criteria:
- Entries — stories — must be at least 150 words long.
- Stories must include links pointing to outside sites.
- Stories must aim to include the user.
- Entries must have the comments mechanism turned on.
- Stories must include this blog and every fellow class member’s blog in your blogroll.
- Feel free to include multimedia — audio, video — in your blog.
- It is your choice whether to have your blog viewable and searchable by the outside world. I would recommend starting with a more private setting, then feel feel to open it up to the outside world as you get comfortable.
In addition, you are expected to:
- Post a minimum of 4 stories per week.
- Properly source all material and respect copyright.
Building a blog 