Matt's Class Blog

This Is The End

2008-10-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

1. By participating in online journalism through blogging I feel as though my idea of journalism expanded. Until I saw the information on this project, I never really thought of blogging as journalism. After reading about the project, I thought about it and realized that blogging is a type of journalism. Throughout my research I have constantly been growing in my knowledge of both blogging and journalism. Before this project I had not thought of a blog as a form of research, a form of marketing, a type of sports column, or a businesses newsletter. Now I realize blogging can be all of that and more. Furthermore, I know realize blogging can be used for news and sometimes can be used more effectively than other formats for news.

2. I feel as though this project was absolutely a worthwhile assignment for this class because blogging is a powerful and highly used form of journalism that needs to be known about and few people really understand as journalism.

3. Looking through all of my research now at the end, my final thesis statement does not change. I do believe that blogging has affected the world of journalism. On the 1 through 5 rating scale given to us, I give my overall research a 5; I believe my research strongly supports my thesis that journalism is affected by blogging.

Vanity about missionaries & Information on the Dodgers

2008-09-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

1. For this week's assignment, find a vanity blog was particularly easy for me. When I read over the assignment for this week, I had just finished reading the most recent post of a vanity blog which a friend of mine writes. So, I am using my friend Amy Medina's blog which is located at: http://www.gilandamy.blogspot.com/. Amy is a missionary in Tanzania, East Africa, and serves with her husband, Gil, and she and Gil have two kids, Grace and Josiah. The blog simply gives information about Amy's life, how their ministry is going, how the kids are doing, simply day to day postings such as that about her life. However, this vanity blog is important because as missionaries, she and her husband mostly live off of donations Americans give them to do work. If there is someone who is thinking about donating, they can go to Amy's blog to find out more about her, her husband, or her kids, or about the ministry as a whole. Also, for people already donating, this blog, while still being a vanity blog by all accounts, can also operate as a newsletter to "investors" in Amy and her husband Gil's "business".

For the information, I went to a blog entitled: "Blue Notes - A Dodger Blog", which is a blog on the L.A. Times website and the bloggers are paid as sports journalists for the Los Angeles Times. This blog can be found at: http://sportsblogs.latimes.com/sports_baseball_dodgers/. This blog, as you might be able to tell from the title, is a sports blog, specifically about the Los Angeles Dodgers. Each game the Dodgers play gets a blog post about how the game goes. This is different in that, unlike most sports columns which simply have a summary of the game, this blog comes with opinions of both sides and the umpires' calls through out the game. Also, this blog uses more derogatory language than most sports columns (for example: while writing about last night's game against the San Francisco Giants, instead of writing the word "Giants" the team is referred only by the name "the hated ones"). This blog also has regular information about the team as it comes in. So there are also posts about who is on the injured list, who might join next season, personal stories about the players, who may or may not play in the post season, and stories as they come in. Overall, this is highly informational and gives more information than a normal news column and gives more opinions on each news story, but the bloggers are certainly journalists considering the fact that they are paid as journalists by a major newspaper.

2. I do feel that blogging supports both of these types of journalism more so than normal print media. A good vanity blog is simply a steady stream of information about someone's life and many people will be interested in reading something such as this. For example, the blog that I read normally about a friend who lives in another continent. However, to do a form of print journalism for this, Amy would need to mail off the print version from Africa to all the people reading here in the U.S. (which actually is done through the mission agency she and her husband work for) and that form does not have nearly as much information, because they have to compress what happens in a month into one page, so they talk more about work, and usually very little about their lives.

A good information blog gives information constantly on the subject. This is accomplished in the "Blue Notes" blog which gives for more information than the L.A. Times sports columns. There is constant news about the team, and constant analysis. To the point of there possibly being up to three posts per day. Realistically, having a print edition of a form of journalism such as this would not be possible, paper, ink, and delivery simply do not move that fast.

3. I would say that my research for this week did support my original thesis on blogging. I will be giving this research a rating of five, because I do believe that this information strongly supports my thesis. One can see how journalism is becoming faster, wider, and more effective because of blogging.

4. I do not wish to change my original thesis.

Blogs vs. eZines

2008-09-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Module #3

Blogs vs. eZines

1. For this part of the project I found a news related eZine and a news related blog. For the news related eZine I found is the eZine for "Newsweek" (http://www.newsweek.com/). As for a blog, I found the blog: Alive in Baghdad (http://www.aliveinbaghdad.org/).

2. The eZine for Newsweek is the online version of the popular print copy. The top story for the current eZine is about how Shara Palin is changing the political campaign. Other recent news covered is: Obama's connections to seniors, Wall street learning Asian business practices, Emmy awards, and if cell phones could possibly lead to male infertility. Each one of these stories has professional photographs that go along with them and those photos are shown through out the professionally looking page. As for the blog, it is a weekly videoblog produced by a team of American and Iraqi correspondents on the ground in Iraq. Including testimonies from individual Iraqis, footage of daily life and short news segments. Each blog also has a text version with the video, with the interviews written out, research being done on the culture, situations, and military listed, and a description of what the journalist saw while doing this report for the blog post.

3. The Newsweek site was far more professional. It was cleaner, had sharper images, and was displayed in a very high and professional format. The blog was not as well formated, had few graphics, and generally seemed more simply put together. As for effective, I found news stories more effectively on the eZine, it had a table of contents (the blog did not) which gave information on everything discussed in the eZine. The blog was easier to find on the internet and was also easier to read. They did not cover the same current events, the eZine is updated much more than the blog and the blog is essentially a local news blog for one town (Baghdad) while the eZine is a world news eZine. I do not feel a print version of any news report would be more credible than a blog or an eZine. The online versions are more updated for one thing, and secondly they both will use the same news sources. If anything, I find the online versions more credible because the information can be listed by eye witnesses, not just professionals who have to think of what about a news story will make them the most money.

4. I do not feel that there was a lot from my research that impacted my original thesis. However, of that I did see, that people from local eye witnesses to paid professionals can all give a news story, so one has to be consistent with another, I believe that supports my original thesis. On what information I saw, I will give a four: Somewhat supported my thesis.

5. Now with this section completed, no I do not believe I need to change my thesis.

Blogging as an Entrepreneur

2008-09-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

1. Entrepreneurial Blog I found:
http://www.matthuggins.com/

The entrepreneurial blog I found is lead by a man by the name Matt Huggins. Matt is an aspiring Internet entrepreneur. He has multiple projects, including facebook applications and his own dating website, though he uses the blog to discuss and promote and shares generally how all of his business is going as he is pursuing being an Internet entrepreneur.

Sites I found discussing blogging as a business promotion technique :
http://www.butlersheetmetal.com/tinbasherblog/

This is a blog for Butler Sheetmetal Ltd. UK. This is a small fabrication shop in North West England. This site gives information on products offered, on projects being worked on, gives a list of jobs offered by the shop, shows what kind of metals they use, and simply gives general information on how the business is progressing.

http://bursafranchise.com/

This site does not appear as a normal blog at first. The blog is used by the company Franchise Indonesia which is a directory company giving information on Franchise or Waralaba and Business Opportunity in Indonesia. Each blog post gives information about a business in their directory. The blog post will provide a name and logo of the company being mentioned, what is being looked for and what are the needs which need to be filled, and all of the contact information to pursue that opportunity. Very different from any other blog I have seen before, but highly effective for someone looking for a Franchise, or Waralaba, or business opportunity in Indonesia.

2. Other options entrepreneurs may have to market themselves would be: add spaces on websites their audience would be looking at or adds spaces in magazines their audience would be looking at. The blog is helpful for entrepreneurs because it is a way to provide constant information as to what is going on in the business of the entrepreneur. I do feel that blogs are an effective alternative to these methods because it provides so much information and it is so available to people.

3. Seeing as how I have seen more information suggesting that business is growing thanks to blogs, I would say that the research I have done supports by original thesis that blogs are effective. On the professor's scale of 1-5, I give my research a 5: Strongly support my thesis.

4. Of course, I do not see a reason to change my thesis at this point seeing as how I feel that my research up to this point is strengthening the argument.

Beginning

2008-09-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Matt Stromberg.

While doing research, I found out that the U.S. Air Force has began using blogs as a form of intelligence and research. So, blogs are dependable and accurate enough for the United States military to use them. As for the effectiveness of blogging, information gets across do to the fact that most people interested in a subject will look up a blog on the subject and the blog will provide a more steady stream of communication than a book or magazine on the subject. As for the reach of a blog, it is true that only sixteen percent of adults in America read blogs while thirty-nine percent watch cable news. However, those who read blogs generally are engaged in the topic more and read the blog more than cable news watchers watch the news. Furthermore, forty-one percent of print journalist read blogs at least once a week while fifty-five percent research blogs as a part of their research. While blogs have a smaller audience, blogs also have a more influential audience.

Looking at this research, as well as personal conversations and using blogs myself to keep up to date on information, I believe that print journalism has been significantly affected by blogging.