Just what is a blog, anyway?

To blog or not to blog is no longer the question.
The question now: What is a blog?

Capturing the blogging beast is no small matter, not when everybody from the lonely scribe in Paducah to me-too mass media in Manhattan is trying to get arms and minds around the virtual blob now encroaching online. Nor is the act of definition without consequences, as individuals and corporations make plans (and even multimillion dollar acquisitions) based upon the momentum behind something they can no more easily define than a Rorschach splotch.

The Chiness 11 commandments of the Internet to be applied in the Arab world in the very next future

Arab regimes import from China. This time, they will import the 11 commandments of the Internet.
Arab bloggers should learn from chinese bloggers how to evade these commandments.
Arab bloggers, it is time to start learning Chinese.

Digital Reach" - The Official WSIS Commemorative Publication for Tunis

In preparation for the Tunis Summit, Tudor Rose, a commercial publisher, and ITU are jointly producing a publication entitled Digital Reach, which will be published in November 2005. The book will focus on the key elements of building an inclusive, development-oriented Information Society, on implementation of the WSIS Plan of Action and follow-up beyond Tunis. Contributing authors will be invited from among all stakeholders of WSIS.

الأمم المتحدة تدافع عن استضافة تونس لقمة المعلومات

دافعت الأمم المتحدة أمس عن قرار استضافة تونس للقمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات في نوفمبر/ تشرين الثاني المقبل وذلك في وقت تصاعدت فيه الانتقادات لحكومة الرئيس زين العابدين بن علي بعدم احترام حرية الصحافة والتنكيل بالصحفيين والمعارضين السياسيين وهو ما تنفيه تونس.

وقال ستيفن دوجاريتش المتحدث باسم الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة إن القمة قد تساعد في الضغط على الرئيس بن علي مشيرا إلى أن مثل هذه المؤتمرات تكون ذات نتائج إيجابية على الشعوب المستضيفة لأنها تفتح بلدهم أمام العالم الخارجي ما يشجع الحكومات على الوفاء بالمعايير الدولية.

وكانت السلطات التونسية رفضت ما وصفته بمزاعم جماعة صحفية دولية حول الحريات قبل قمة مجتمع المعلومات التي تستضيفها.

وكانت إيفيكس -التي تضم 14 منظمة غير حكومية من بينها الاتحاد الدولي للصحفيين- قالت في تقرير صدر في جنيف يوم الاثنين إن الوضع تدهور خلال الشهور القليلة الماضية وإن الحكومة تميل إلى خنق المعارضة وإن تونس ليست مكانا مناسبا لعقد قمة عالمية تابعة للأمم المتحدة.

وتشير إيفيكس إلى منع السلطات التونسية انعقاد مؤتمر نقابة الصحفيين التي لا تحظى باعتراف رسمي من السلطات وإلى صدور حكم بتعليق عقد مؤتمر لرابطة حقوق الإنسان التونسية مطلع الشهر الجاري.

وكانت تونس ألغت خلال الأشهر الأخيرة إجراء الإيداع القانوني بالنسبة للمنشورات والصحف لدى المصالح الحكومية في خطوة أشيد بها واعتبرت علامة بناءة لفك ما تقول المعارضة إنه رقابة مباشرة على الصحافة.



ومن المقرر أن تكون مواضيع حرية المعلومة والوصول إلى شبكة الإنترنت وتقليص الفجوة الرقمية بين شعوب العالم من أبرز قضايا القمة التي ترفض المعارضة التونسية مشاركة رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي أرييل شارون فيها.

Arab-Americans and the Internet

The Arabic media reaches three-quarters of all Arab-Americans. Television is the preferred medium. Internet access among Arab-Americans is higher than it is for any other ethnic group studied. Three-quarters of all Arab-American adults have access to the Internet and a majority of them visit Arabic websites.

الجزيرة نت يكسر حاجز النصف مليون زائر يوميا :Al-Jazeera.Net and Arab Bloggers

What if Al-Jazeera.Net integrates blogging features?
Al-Jazeera.Net should consider the possibilites of new generation technologies of the Internet.
If Arab bloggers can syndicate its content, I think it will experience an increase in the number of hits.
Technologies of Collaboration are in vogue.
Al-Jazeera.net and Arab bloggers can collaborate.

Blogjahiz : nouvelle plate-forme de blog marocaine

La société marocaine Arcanes Technologies vient de mettre en ligne une nouvelle plate-forme de blogs gratuite. Baptisée « Blogjahiz », cette solution de blogging est basée sur le logiciel libre Dotclear. Les détails.
[via Jankari.org]

Reader for European Public Space

Interesting articles and links for the workshop in Helsinki
To prepare for the workshop " European Public Space" for young journalists of quality newspapers from all over Europe, this reader is composed. Interesting articles are classified by the three main themes of the workshop. Narratives, European public sphere and trust.

Legal Guide for Bloggers

Whether you're a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you've been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post.

Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don't want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that's under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.

The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you're doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn't help - in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven't yet decided how it applies to bloggers.

But here's the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn't use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That's why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.

To be clear, this guide isn't a substitute for, nor does it constitute, legal advice. Only an attorney who knows the details of your particular situation can provide the kind of advice you need if you're being threatened with a lawsuit. The goal here is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.

Please note that this guide applies to people living in the US. We don't have the expertise or resources to speak to other countries' legal traditions, but we'd like to work with those who do. If you know of a similar guide for your own jurisdiction or feel inspired to research and write one, please let us know. We can link to it here.

Google: the tale that's wagging the blog?

It might usually be a bad idea for a reporter to become part of the story, but Google News is making headlines amid suggestions the service is already influencing the news agenda.
By Rhys Blakely, Times Online

Create your own blog, remain anonymous and get round censorship !

Reporters Without Borders today publishes a Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents (in English, French, Chinese, Arabic and Persian), in which experts and bloggers from all over the world advise Internet users, especially those in repressive countries, how to set up their own blogs and get them known, while preserving their personal anonymity.

How open source gave power to the people

Open source
The sedentary art of software development and the extreme sports of kitesurfing, sailplaning and canyoning would appear to have little in common.

However, both are examples of a new force that could eventually affect a far broader range of companies and industries: the power of users to shape how products are developed.

By Richard Waters


see also: the Rise of Open Source Politics

Kursbuch Internet und Politik 2004/2005 (Arbeitstitel)

Das Kursbuch Internet und Politik präsentiert seit 2001 in bewährter Weise Beiträge aus Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft zu aktuellen Themen und Grundsatzfragen netzgestützter politischer Kommunikation und Willensbildung. Dieser Band des Kursbuches bietet einen Gang durch interessante aktuelle Dimensionen politischer Internetnutzung in verschiedenen Weltregionen. Außerdem gibt es verständliche Einblicke in die wissenschaftliche Debatte und Rezensionen interessanter Neuerscheinungen.

Aus dem Inhalt:
Aktueller Internet-Atlas für Deutschland - Entwicklung der Internet-und-Politik-Debatte - Digitaler Wahlkampf in Nordrhein-Westfalen - Rechtsextreme Propaganda im WWW - Netzgestützte politische Partizipation in Japan und Süd-Korea - Netzgestützte amerikanische Public Diplomacy - Leistungsfähigkeit von Online-Umfragen

Mit Beiträgen von Alexander Siedschlag, Wolfgang Fischer, Heike Kellermann, Christoph Busch, Isa Ducke, Eun-Jeung Lee, Mohammad Ibahrine, Claudia Rinke, Henning Hehemann, Nicole Sommer, Dorothea Winckler u.a.

Über den/die Autor(en):
Dr. habil. Alexander Siedschlag ist Universitätsprofessor am Institut für Politikwissenschaft an der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck.

The Internet in Morocco

Plus de 3,7 millions d’internautes et un taux de pénétration de 0,4 de la population. Tels sont les deux principaux indicateurs qui ressortent de la dernière enquête menée par le cabinet IDATE pour le compte de l’ANRT sur l’état des lieux d’internet au Maroc. Les détails

Socialtext recognized as "Best of the Web"

Les Blogs: Soziale Software, Firmen-Wikis und bezahlte Blogger

Ross Mayfields Unternehmen Socialtext entwickelt Wiki-Software für den Unternehmenseinsatz. Mayfield orientiert sich dabei an der populären und freien Online-Enzyklopädie Wikipedia: "Wenn man sich Wikipedia anschaut, erkennt man, dass ein unglaublicher Grad an Zusammenarbeit durch den Einsatz recht einfacher Werkzeuge entsteht", erklärte er auf dem Kongress "Les Blogs" in Paris. Auf Unternehmensebene könne dies zu neuen Wegen der Produktivität führen. Der Einsatz von Wikis sei dabei nahezu überall möglich: "Ob zur Dokumentation, als Projektplaner oder als Wissensspeicher." Mayfield glaubt, die gigantischen Enterprise-Dokumentenmanagementsysteme in Großunternehmen würden von den Mitarbeitern kaum eingesetzt, da sie zu kompliziert sind. "Social Software ist dagegen so simpel, dass die Leute sie gerne nutzen. Warum sollten sie es nicht innerhalb eines Unternehmens tun?"
Anzeige

Euan Semple von der britischen BBC gibt ihm Recht. Der auf der Insel zärtlich "Tantchen" genannte Sender nutzt seit sechs Monaten unternehmensintern Wikis. "Das wächst unglaublich schnell", berichtet Semple, "man findet dort inzwischen enorm viele Projektunterlagen, Einsatzpläne oder Brainstorming-Notizen." Vorher hatte der Sender eine komplizierte interne Webstruktur im Einsatz, die nach Aussage von Semple "fast niemand genutzt hat". Die Wikis seien hingegen schon nach zwei Tagen äußerst beliebt gewesen: "Die Leute fühlen sich wohl mit diesen kleinen Programmen." Die BBC setzt im Intranet neuerdings auch rund 70 Blogs ein. Semple: "Wir hatten vorher Webmaster, welche die kompliziertesten Organisations- und Team-Plattformen aufgesetzt haben. Seit wir Blogs nutzen, brauchen wir die fast gar nicht mehr." Ross Mayfield versucht, großen Firmen auch den Einsatz von RSS nahe zu legen. Seine Erfahrungen: "Man darf den Mitarbeitern während der Einführung nie erzählen, wie das eigentlich funktioniert. Das Beste ist, man sagt ihnen, es sei eine Art E-Mail -- nur ohne Spam. Dann lieben sie RSS."

In den USA versuchen mittlerweile mehrere Unternehmen, ganze Netzwerke von Berufsbloggern heranzuzüchten. Gaby Darbyshire von Gawker Media erklärt den Unterschied zu den klassischen Medienmodellen: "Abgesehen von den Honoraren für die Blogger und ein wenig Hosting-Gebühren hat man quasi keine Kosten. Das ist der große Unterschied zur Zeitungs- oder Magazinindustrie." Für die Blogger gebe es -- außer der Talentfrage -- praktisch keine Einstiegshürde. Allerdings müsse man sie motivieren, denn: "Gute Autoren schreiben nicht nur auf Grund des Geldes gerne für Mainstream-Medien, sondern auch fürs Renommee". Jason McCabe Calacanis betreibt mit Weblogs Inc. ein ähnliches Geschäftsmodell. Er ist sicher, dass die Kombination aus Blogger und Leserkommentaren sogar viel effektiver funktioniert als eine klassische Redaktion: "Wer schon einmal etwas Falsches gebloggt hat und direkt danach 30 verschiedene Richtigstellungen in den Kommentaren findet, weiß, was das für ein unglaubliches Gefühl ist." Auch den Korrekturprozess würden Blogger -- im Gegensatz zu Printmedien -- wesentlich transparenter gestalten: "Die falsche Information streichen wir durch und schreiben die richtige darunter. Dann kann jeder die Veränderung nachvollziehen."

Jochen Wegner, Wissenschaftsredakteur des Focus, zeichnet ein pessimistisches Bild der deutschen Bloglandschaft: "Deutschland ist definitiv Entwicklungsland in Sachen Blogs." Zur Untermauerung dieser These stellte er die Versorgung mit Breitbandanschlüssen und die Anzahl der Weblogs unterschiedlicher Länder gegenüber. Wegner: "Das ist recht fair, denn Bloggen ist ein Breitband-Phänomen." Legt man diese Zahlen zu Grunde, findet man Deutschland nicht nur weit hinter den USA und Japan, selbst China hat einen mehr als deutlichen Vorsprung. Aber Wegner hat noch weitere Thesen für die deutsche Blog-Verweigerung parat:

* Es gebe nicht ein einziges wirkliches "Impact-Blog",
* keine ernsthaft betriebenen professionellen Blogs
* und sehr wenig qualitative Blogs.
* Ferner seien die Eliten in Deutschland technologiefeindlich,
* die Menschen würden sich sehr an Reputation orientieren,
* in Deutschland existiere keine Kultur der Rhetorik,
* und schließlich gebe es kein öffentliches Verständnis für Blogs oder wenigstens für die Idee des "Freedom of Speech".
[Via: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/58992]

Blogs, social software and their impact in the Middle East and China

Blogs, social software and their impact in the Middle East and China

* panelists: Yat Siu and Hossein Derakhshan
* Adriana Cronin-Lukas: Blogging for freedom

Morocco: Internet Making Censorship Obsolete

While satellite television often attracts the lion's share of analysis about new media and their effect on prospects for democratization in the Middle East and North Africa, another technology may already have had at least as large an impact: the Internet. In Morocco, where the regime has severely constrained, controlled, or silenced independent print media through direct and indirect censorship, the Internet has become an important instrument for unrestricted flows of information, which in turn are leading to the emergence of a more vibrant public sphere.

Internet-based political activism in Morocco is still nascent, but is growing at a fast pace and is likely to play an increasingly important role in accelerating political pluralism. The Moroccan regime is not ignorant of the power of the Internet and is attempting to stifle its effectiveness via legal constraints such as the 2003 anti-terrorism law as well as technical methods such as filtering and blocking websites. But such methods ultimately are ineffective; even when a website is shut down, there are still e-mail list serves and BLOGS to take up the cause.

Arab Bloggers and Freedom of Press in the Arab World

TelQuel Fights Back - And You Can Help
This blog was one of the first to break the story about the Moroccan courts' crackdown on groundbreaking weekly magazine TelQuel

[Quick backgrounder: In March, TelQuel publishes cover story detailing King Muhammad VI's enormous salary. In August, a Moroccan judge hits TelQuel with a massive $112,000 fine for a supposedly unrelated case of defamation. The case is a sham and the judge ruled against TelQuel without even allowing the magazine's lawyer to speak. Editor Ahmed Benchemsi (right) now faces jail time if he does not pay the fine.]

After a few weeks of silence, a new issue of TelQuel is out - and it aims straight at the regime for attempting to quash freedom of the press. First, editor-in-chief Benchemsi pens a summary of the affair called "A Mockery of Justice", which runs with a cute accompanying cartoon (right).

Second, the magazine has launched a new website ("soutientelquel.com"- support TelQuel) with a support petition demanding freedom of the press and a transparent judicial process. Up only two days, the petition already has over 1,500 signatures.

Take a minute to support a daring but threatened Middle Eastern publication, a magazine committed to civil rights and self-critical introspection (name another magazine from the region to publish cover stories on homosexuality, reinterpreting the Quran, and the local dictator's salary). Sign the petition here. (For those who don't speak French, following the "continuation" link below for a translation.)


"In a rushed slander court case, the Editor of TelQuel Ahmed R. Benchemsi and his deputy Karim Boukhari were condemned - without even allowing their lawyer to speak - to two months in prison if they do not pay a 1,050,000 dirham [$112,000] fine. The two journalists are appealing.

"This prison sentence and this exorbitant fine constitute, without any doubt, a 'warning' by the authorities directed at TelQuel, which has been 'punished' for its editorial independence. The authorities have launched a new method for muzzling the press: choking it progressively through disproportionate fines, meted out via sham court cases. Though just TelQuel today, it is the entire Moroccan free press that is threatened tomorrow.

"We the undersigned forcefully denounce any attack, even indirect, on freedom of the press, and we demand justice for TelQuel via a transparent and fair legal process."


SIGN HERE (first name, last name, profession, city). Or use this Google translation to sign.

BRAVO_Haitham Sabbah of Sabbah's Blog

The_Social_Media_Group

The Social Media Group (SMG) est une société éditrice de portail de contenu B2B et grand public classé par thème ou par industrie. Il regroupe des communautés d’auteurs et de lecteurs autour de centres d'intérêts communs en leur offrant une plateforme interactive de discussion et d'échange d'information autour de ces thématiques.

SMG offre une approche différente des médias traditionnels. L'information traitée est indépendante et sujet à contestation ou commentaire par le lecteur qui se retrouve au coeur du débat et contribue à l'élaboration du contenu. Il offre aussi la possibilité à un auteur de blog de rejoindre le réseau SMG et d'étendre l'offre à de nouvelles thématiques.

En tant que portail, SMG offre un gain de temps considérable tant aux professionnels qu’aux lecteurs grand public. Par le biais de ses flux RSS SMG permet la présélection de sources d'information critiques dans leur métiers ou leurs centres d’intérêt sur un lecteur de flux RSS, leur donnant un accès en temps réel à cette information.

Le Social Media Group développe 7 blogs qui couvrent 5 thématiques grand public et une thématique B2B - voir 'réseau blogs' colonne de droite

Enfin, le Social Media Group propose également une activité de conseil pour les organisations au travers de l’analyse de la communication, de services professionnels de blogging, de management et de diffusion de la connaissance.

Life Goes Mobile in the Arab World

دبي، الإمارات العربية المتحدة – حلّت شركة نوكيا، الشركة الرائدة عالمياً في قطاع الاتصالات النقالة، في المرتبة السادسة عالمياً في التصنيف السنوي الذي تقوم به كل من مجلة BusinessWeek ومؤسسة Interbrand لتصنيف الماركات الأعلى قيمة في العالم لعام 2005. وقد فاقت قيمة نوكيا المقدرة ضمن هذا التصنيف 26.4 مليار دولار أمريكي، مرتفعة بذلك بمقدار 10% عن تقييم العام الماضي، ومتقدمة مرتبتين عن المرتبة التي حلت بها في تصنيف 2004.

وقد وصِف الصانع الفنلندي للهواتف النقالة، الذي يبني رؤيته على مبدأ“Life Goes Mobile” في العدد الأول من أغسطس من مجلة BusinessWeek على أنه "يسعى إلى تحدي جهاز (iPod) الذي تنتجه شركة آبل بينما تجتمع وظائف الهواتف النقالة ومشغلات MP3 في جهاز واحد."

تونس تستعد لاحتضان القمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات

لطفي حجي-تونس
تبدأ في مدينة جنيف السويسرية غدا أعمال الاجتماع التحضيري الثالث والأخير للقمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات التي ستحتضنها تونس في الفترة من 16 إلى 18 نوفمبر/ تشرين الثاني المقبل بمشاركة وفود رسمية وممثلين عن منظمات غير حكومية عالمية وتونسية ستتولى ضبط المسائل العالقة التي لم تحسم في الاجتماعين السابقين.

Top Ten Things You Can Do To Get Blogged

Our primary goal here at TechCrunch is to profile new web 2.0 companies. Finding and experiencing what new companies have to offer is exciting for us. It what gets us up in the morning. We are honestly deeply passionate about this stuff.

From Blogger To Journalist?

Roland Piquepaille Becomes An Official ZDNet Blog Editor.
Roland Piquepaille is now one of the few bloggers of ZDNet, itself part of CNET, which is the largest publishing company about technology in the world.

Arab Blog Tool Advances Freedom in the ARABLAND

Arab Blog Tool Advances Freedom in Middle East
Spirit of America and client iUpload bring “Viral Freedom” through Blogs to the Arab World. What a compelling and remarkable use of blogs. Now writers sitting in pajamas in the region can make an impact on the advancement of democracy. I'd like to see traditional journalists say their voice is not a serious and important one. Read on.

iUpload’s Blog Platform developed the Arabic Blogging Tool, and Spirit of America is funding the development effort, that will make Internet publishing and free expression in the Middle East easier and more accessible than ever before.

The Arabic blogging tool is available at no cost and Spirit of America will host Arabic blogs for free for those working to advance freedom and democracy in the Arab world. iUpload’s blogging software is being used in this important effort.

The Iraqi non-governmental organization Friends of Democracy is working with Spirit of America in using iUpload’s blogging tool to help pro-democracy groups and individuals create blogs and publish and share their thoughts on the Internet.

iUpload Personal Publisher is a platform for building branded, self-service, blog communities and can be developed for any company or community. In this case, iUpload has created an Arabic “skin” for Spirit of America, which can now offer people in the Arab region a place to communicate and share their ideas. This combined effort will create communities, providing people with an easy to way to contribute content, photos, thoughts and ideas through a network of blogs.

Every blog developed with the Arabic blogging tool will highlight the groups, individuals and news that advance freedom and democracy in Iraq. Each blog will therefore spread information encouraging freedom in the region and will make it easier for the supporters of democracy to exchange information and work together.

Now, this is an incredible example of the 'true' power of blogs.

Vloggers get political in Norway

A video-blogger from Bergen in Norway is turning his camcorder on politicians, ahead of Norwegian parliamentary elections on Monday.

Web of Influence

Every day, millions of online diarists, or “bloggers,” share their opinions with a global audience. Drawing upon the content of the international media and the World Wide Web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda-setting power on issues ranging from human rights in China to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What began as a hobby is evolving into a new medium that is changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike

The Rise of Open-Source Politics

Never before had the top-down world of presidential campaigning been opened to a bottom-up, laterally networked community of ordinary voters.

Six degrees of interconnection

When we talk about 'distance', we are usually referring to the separation between places or objects in physical space. There’s a good reason for this association: in pretty much all of science and engineering, as well as in everyday problems like deciding where to live in relation to work, the notion of physical distance makes complete sense.

That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe's Law to the Power of Community Building

Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet, is known for pointing out that the total value of a communications network grows with the square of the number of devices or people it connects. This scaling law, along with Moore's Law, is widely credited as the stimulus that has driven the stunning growth of Internet connectivity. Because Metcalfe's law implies value grows faster than does the (linear) number of a network's access points, merely interconnecting two independent networks creates value that substantially exceeds the original value of the unconnected networks. Thus the growth of Internet connectivity, and the openness of the Internet, are driven by an inexorable economic logic, just as the interconnection of the telephone network was forced by AT&T's long distance strategy. This strategy created huge and increasing value to AT&T customers, based on the same (then unnamed) law of increasing returns to scale at the beginning of the 20th century. In the same way, the global interconnection of networks we call the Internet has created huge and increasing value to all its participants.

The physics of the Web

Statistical mechanics is offering new insights into the structure and dynamics of the Internet, the World Wide Web and other complex interacting systems.

Blogs: powerful people, or people power?

In fact, it is only when those in tradtional media start to see blogging in their own framework of power (large audiences and revenues) that they start to sit up and take note of the phenomena as a whole.

Weblogs and the Public Sphere

Andrew Ó Baoill, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In this essay I assess the potential impact of weblogs on the public sphere, using a model based on the work of Jürgen Habermas to provide an ideal against which we can measure the efficacy of weblogs as a public space. Specifically, I posit that inclusivity of access, a disregard for external rank, and the potential for rational debate of any topic until consensus is achieved are necessary criterion for meeting Habermas's model of an idealized public sphere. I assess the current standing of weblogs and suggest developments that could improve the ability of weblogs to meet this ideal. There are a number of structural impediments in the current implementation of weblogs-both in terms of production and reception-that seriously damage any claim of the blogosphere to be a strong public sphere. The time commitment required if one is to build reputation and integrate oneself into online debate serves to skew the distribution of those involved in blogging, and in particular of those who gain prominence within the blogosphere with academics, journalists and certain other professionals over-represented. The influence of personal networks and of an A-list of bloggers in shaping who gains future attention is problematic, as is an inability of current generations of reading and ranking technologies, such as search engines, to take account of negative appraisals of sites to which one links. Geographically-bound issues are less likely to gain ground than those with a general appeal. Future generations of reading, searching and aggregation technologies must address these problems if weblogs are to continue to develop as sites of public debate.

The Blogging Phenomenon: An Overview and Theoretical Consideration

This is an excellent theoretical consideration on BLOGGING.

Joichi Ito (Technorati.com): "Les blogs se rapprochent de l'idée d'une vraie presse"

A votre avis, "la blogsphère" est un nouveau pouvoir face à la politique et aux médias?

Je pense que c'est très important pour les citoyens d'avoir une voix. Certes, voter est un acte important mais avoir la possibilité de s'exprimer librement l'est tout autant. La vision est différente si l'on habite dans des pays développés ou des pays en voie de développement où la libre expression n'existe pas forcément. Il suffit de regarder le cas de l'Iran. Les weblogs se rapprochen de plus en plus de l'idée que les gens se font d'une vraie presse dans un contexte de démocratie. Je vois vraiement apparaître un fossé dans ce sens. Dans les médias traditionnels comme la télévision, je vois davantage de business de contenus que de traitements réellement journalistiques.

Personnellement, votre consommation de l'information a changé avec le développement des blogs ?

Je lis régulièrement deux journaux : le Japan Times et le Herald Tribune. Je lis les articles, ce qui sert ensuite à alimenter et enrichir mon blog. Ma consommation de média est devenue plus internationale puisqu'il m'arrive de lire une vingtaine de journaux en ligne en simultané, compte tenu des liens qui se développent entre weblogs. Mais je n'aurais jamais consulté ces sources d'informations sans cela.

Traditional media eagerly eye blogs to boost revenues

03 May 2005 08:33

Traditional media such as newspapers and radios are casting an increasingly covetous eye over the growing number of internet blogs, hoping to cash in on a slice of the action

Read ful article:
http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=236850&%3barea=%2finsight%2finsight_online%2f

Blogs and Social Software

Arab Bloggers: If you have interest, check this



Les Blogs thanks and feedback
LesBlogsCoverage
notes, audio recordings, video interviews, media coverage
What should I do better next time
Schedule
8h - Registration
9h - 9h15 Opening remarks - Loïc Le Meur
9h15 - 9h45 Keynote: Joi Ito
9h45 - 10h30 Where are we going ?
Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart
Meg Hourihan, consultant & co-founder, Blogger.com
Caterina Fake, Flickr
Charlie Schick, Nokia



10h30 - 10h45 networking break



10h45 - 11h45 Corporate blogging, external communication
Andrew Carton, Treonauts (is this what a brand should do ?)
Halley Suitt, Worthwhile Magazine
Paolo Valdemarin, Evectors, Italy
Darren Barefoot, InsideBlogging and Capulet Communications, Canada
11h45 - 12h30 Corporate blogging and wikis, internal communication
Lee Bryant, Headshift
Euan Semple, the BBC
Ross Mayfield, SocialText



12h30 - 14h lunch



14h - 15h30 Nanopublishing and vertical blogging, moderated by Dominique Busso, VNUNet
Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker media
Jason McCabe Calacanis, WeblogsInc
Julio Alonso, Weblogs SL
Christophe Labédan, The Social Media Group
Ludovico Magnocavallo, Blogo.it
Stowe Boyd, Corante
15h30 - 15h45 The blog readers and the blog advertising market
presentation of the Blogads survey by Miklos Gaspar, Blogads.
15h45 - 17h00 Traditional media innovates and strikes back, moderated by Jeff Clavier - SoftTech VC & Buzznet, Inc
Yann Chapellon, Le Monde
Neil McIntosh, The Guardian
Jochen Wegner, Focus Magazine
Pierre Bellanger, Skyrock, 1.5 million weblogs on skyblog



17h00 - 17h30 networking break



17h30 - 18h00: Yossi Vardi, founder of ICQ
18h00 - 18h45 Blogs, social software and their impact in the Middle East and China
Yat Siu, Outblaze, China
Hossein Derakhshan, hoder.com - "Bio"
18h45 - 19h15 Open Thought: Doc Searls - Senior Editor, Linux Journal
19h15 Closing remarks



20h00 - Six Apart VNUNet and NOKIA nightcap at THE ALCAZAR. (only for the registered participants of the day at the Senate, thanks).



Restaurant l'Alcazar
62 rue Mazarine
75006 Paris
tel +33 1 53 10 19 99

Flooding Stops Presses and Broadcasts, So Journalists Turn to the Web

With their offices and presses flooded, news media outlets in New Orleans mostly abandoned newsprint and television broadcasts yesterday and set up shop on the Web.

blogs offer Katrina insight

The web has once again proved its worth as a news source as blogs offered a vivid description of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Read full article

What is a Weblog?

Please note: I am not the author.

The Author is Anthony V Parcero Jul 11, 04

According to Dave Winer, author of what many consider one of the first successful weblogs on the Internet (Scripting News), a weblog — or "blog" — can be characterized as a Web site which:
"points to articles elsewhere on the Web, often with comments, and to on-site articles. A Weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there's also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc." (Dave Winer, The History of Weblogs)
Originally started by programmers and Web designers who worked full-time in the fledgling Internet industry of the mid-nineties, the first blogs showcased the research, coding, and organizational skills of their authors. Often hand-written and featuring short commentaries which linked users to other Web sites, these blogs were designed to help people filter out the increasing amount of detritus on the Web. Immersed in Web culture and possessing site-design skills, these early blogs became the center of ever-growing communities of fellow bloggers and their readership. The social interactions and connections associated with blogging differentiate it from other forms of content on the Web and the framework they established is still in use today.
At their heart, all blogs are based on the relationships formed by an author's use of regularly-updated, pithy commentary and elaborate cross-linking. Starting in 1991 with Tim Berners-Lee and the first Web site, the promise of the Internet was that anyone could have a voice through which they could communicate and connect (via hyperlinks) with others. By transforming the traditional roles of active writers and passive readers into one of participatory peers who can actively and freely express themselves, blogs provide a venue for open self-expression free from the crippling effects of our media-saturated culture.
No matter what their format or focus, all blogs organize their date- and time-stamped content in reverse chronological order so that the newest content appears most prominently on the Web site's home page. As new content is added to a site, older posts are archived to a static Web address (called a "permalink") which other blogs can precisely refer to and comment upon. Due to the fact that anyone with Internet-access can start a blog, it is the individuality of the commentary (and they're associated links) that distinguishes blogs from more traditional electronic clipping services and news media. Based on short, informal, and richly-hyperlinked content that is frequently updated, the blog "post" is free from the traditional, formal constraints of the printed-page. Thus, blog posts represent self-contained topical units which are characterized by a conversational (and sometimes controversial) tone that distinguishes them from more formal essays or articles.
Sometimes as short as one sentence or, more often, running for several paragraphs, the totality of the posts which make up a blog form an accurate representation of the personality of their author (or authors). Thanks to tools like Blogger, online journals and diaries are now the most dominant form of of blogs on the Internet. Due to the fact that many of these sites are tightly integrated into the daily lives of the author(s) and their audience, an online ecosystem called the blogosphere has emerged.
Thanks to constant improvements in the underlying technologies — along with the enormous proliferation of blogs following the launch of Blogger in 1999 — many Web sites and tools have sprung up to help authors create, maintain, search, and analyze various aspects of the Internet and the blogosphere. Using different metrics to analyzing the content of blogs, sites such as Technorati and Blogstreet focus on aggregating and tracking the popularity and influence of specific blogs. Through the use of full-text searches across posts, Blogpulse extends upon simple aggregation to provide users with the ability to track current trends, key people, and key phrases within the blogosphere. No longer passive recipients of information, individuals have embraced the freedom inherent in the framework, commonality, and organization of blogs in order to position themselves as key influencers at the center of a communications revolution many of us are still working to understand.


Read full article

Global PR Blog

The first edition of the Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is now over. During one week, 35 practioners published more than 60 articles and interviews on the impact of personal publishing on Public Relations. Enjoy the reading - and stay tuned for version 2.0.