JOMC 191.3 Blogging, We the Media and Virtual Communities

Fred Stutzman’s talk on Friday [slides here in PDF] just scratched the surface on what he’s learned by mining Facebook. His latest post to ibiblog tells us some interesting things about our new Freshman class. Included is a self-reported political profile, a bit about website use and location (they don’t rush to use www.unc.edu), telling relationship info, and more.

In a response to a posting on my blog, coturnix of NCSU is inspired to follow Fred’s research on political leanings but with info from the Wolfpack’s FaceBook site.

I accidentally hit the wrong button on Google while I was at work tonight and stumbled upon the Google Blog Search in addition to many other search options I didn’t know Google offered. Then I ran into this article about Yahoo’s version of the blog search. Here is the link to the article.

The article touches on Google’s shortcomings. Having never used the option I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I am currious as to what would make it a truly useful option. Anyone can have a blog, and most of the people I know who blog generally have more than one. Not to mention all the abandoned blogs that will inevitably come up in a search and create more sites to sift therough before finally finding the one you’re looking for.

The fact that Google even offered this service shows the growing interest in blogs. I think that if the blog search gains some poplularity it will serve as a step in the trend we’ve already discussed in class with news articles referencing blogs. It will make them much more easily accessible to journalists who are looking for blogs about a specific topic for a story or at least a lead on a story.

What do you guys think?

The Julie/Julia blog that we read about earlier in the semester has been made into a book that is reviewed in today’s New York Times Book Review. One criticism is that the book doesn’t do more (than the blog?) and that “Julie and Julia still has too much blog in its DNA.” Can a blog be a book? What does it take to change a blog to a book? One wag suggested that blog going to books be called “blooks.” Would you read of trust one of those? We do have books posing as diaries (Robinson Crusoe for example) and epistolary novels (many examples here) and even novels posing as a bit of both (Dracula for example).