I'm currently taking a 5-week online course in Social Media through MN State Univ., Mankato. The first week we researched blogs, and I chose to follow up on some of the content referred to in the textbook we are reading. Here's what I found:
BLOG NAME:
John Blossom’s Content Nation.
http://www.contentnation.com/news
Blossom’s Shore Communications, Inc. also hosts the 2007 Codie Award winning blog Contentblogger. http://contentblogger.shore.com/
WHY READ THIS BLOG? After reading The Social Media Bible chapters, I returned to John Blossom’s interview in Chapt. 4: “Everyone’s a Publisher” on pp 82-85. Blossom sorts bloggers into those who are “just playing around” and those who “want to really influence other people’s thinking.” He speaks of the social media publishing phenomenon as one that really can change the world because it has the potential to wrest control of information away from governments and institutions and place it in the hands of individuals who can now transmit information globally and speedily. He talks about the role of social media to empower small economies and businesses, and points out how people making handmade goods in Third World countries can use social media to raise financing. Self-publishing in itself is empowering, he says. In a nutshell, people + social media opportunities could make the world a more equitable place. I liked Blossom’s interview.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT CONTENT NATION. Well, first, Blossom is established and respected in the field of communications content and technology analysis, so I know I can trust his authority. I guess industry people read these blogs—business and communications people, engineers, publishers, and social media specialists—and I’m pretty sure I can look up who’s reading Blossoms blog, because Blossom analyzes and publishes that on his blog, too. Blossom writes about how people and businesses use and can use social media, and he reports and comments on major influential Web events and phenomena, and the changes they might effect in the world. For example, he’s recently posted analysis of and commentary on Web 2.0; commentary on how social media have influenced events in Iran; and commentary on how one guy has garnered huge numbers of followers on Twitter. He touches on a variety of topics. Both Content Nation and Contentblogger are clearly presented, with good graphics and writing. Both use illustrations, photos, and embedded video related to the topics. And, I was able to find the RSS icon and subscribe easily.
WHAT I DISLIKE ABOUT CONTENT NATION. I appreciate opportunities for people to post comments and participate on Blossom’s blog. I can understand the importance of comment posting since Blossom suggests blogging ought to be a group endeavor. After all, social media, according to Blossom and others, including Safko and Scoble (Naked Conversations author), is interactive by its very nature. It’s all about information exchange, knowledge building, and wielding influence, which in much of the world does result in making money. Okay, here’s what is really annoying on Blossom’s blog Content Nation. In the comments sections people are posting very long lists of links to commercial goods—everything ranging from computer equipment to handbags. And, some links look like absolute nonsense and are cluttering up the blog space. I can’t figure out what’s going on with this and why a pro like Blossom wouldn’t want to stop this or hasn’t figured out how to stop this. If anybody understands this, please explain it.
(My instructor promptly responded and explained this is spam. There are spam blockers but apparently Blossom hasn't used one on ContentNation. My instructor also noted, importantly, that Blossom's last entry to this blog was several months ago, so the blog is not active. She rightly suggested that ContentNation appears to be a promotional device for the book of the same name.)
WHAT I DISLIKE ABOUT CONTENTBLOGGER. I’m intimidated by a lot of technical stuff, since I’m hands-on and taught-myself-what-I-know about computers and the Web, and that’s not much. Contentblogger.com, hosted by Blossom’s Shore Communications, Inc., focuses on technical development analysis. I can relate better to Blossom’s commentaries in Content Nation. That’s hardly a blog issue though.
ON USING RSS. I signed up for Google Reader some time ago. I can’t even remember how long ago. When I returned the other day I found 1000 unread updates, most of which appeared to be from Huffington Post. I had also subscribed to the Star Tribune, the Mankato Free Press, Minnesota 2020, and a literary agent’s blog. I had abandoned Google Reader though, and when I want to read news I just go to a newspaper online.
I didn’t really even understand the purpose or function of Google Reader before. I was just experimenting with my Google account. Now that I understand what Google Reader is, I’m giving it another whirl. The Social Media course and my own desire to ramp up my blogging are giving me cause to search for, explore, subscribe to, and finally actually read more blogs.
Google Reader is efficient, on the one hand, because it collects what I’m potentially interested in so I can access it all in one place. By subscribing to blogs I am making a sort-of executive decision that those blogs can send me whatever they post. But, of course, I can sift through the lists and quickly determine what I’ll read. It’s one way to approach managing a tiny fraction of the information that’s out on the Web. It will give me a chance to follow certain blogs over time, rather than reading blogs on a catch as catch can basis. If I determine after following a blog for awhile that it’s not for me, I can unsubscribe.
I can foresee that this kind of management tool can be an opportunity to participate in a blogging community, if I want to. It’s a way of channeling the blogs, and there’s apparently an endless supply of them! Now I am also using the Google Reader folders to categorize blogs. That kind of organizational tool enables me, again, to access blogs more efficiently and at the same time, helps me direct the flow of information.
I generally feel completely overwhelmed by the Web—pretty much the same way I feel standing before an ocean—and learning to use Google Reader is like learning to improve a swimming stroke.
