JOMC 191.3 Blogging, We the Media and Virtual Communities

Two stories in one! In a story in the Business section of Friday’s News and Observer, Jack Hagel reports that blogs report that Google is looking for office space in the RTP area. Hagel with the help of Jonathan Cox and David Ranii reports on the rumor, the blogs and other circumstantial evidence that make you wonder if the story will ever rise above gossip. Is this good reporting or is it a sign of a newspaper dropping to the iffy reporting of bloggers?

Looks like AOL is going to face some difficult decisions.

With their user base falling due to cheaper, faster service providers, it seems that AOL has turned to advertising to boost revenue. This means ads on AOL hosted blogs and online journals.

Sounds like a good idea?

Problem is, AOL’s devoted base that remains doesn’t like these ads, saying it infringes on their desire for privacy and personalization of their home pages.

This leaves AOL in a sticky situation. They have to make money, but they don’t want to alienate their customers even more than they already have. But it seems like they don’t want to listen. Their response?

“The decision to implement banner advertising on AOL Journals is consistent with our business and advertising practices,” AOL spokeswoman Kathie Brockman said in an e-mail.

AOL better work to find a way to reach a common middle ground acceptable to both parties. Their business plan is failing as it is.

I think it’s a great idea that the Daily Tar Heel decided to profile blogs on the front page of Wednesdays paper. (Although it was quite possibly the least read paper of the year due to the break) Pointing out that UNC gives every student free webspace is a great idea since so few students I’ve talked to even know this existed. Best thing was, they even quoted our own Professor Jones:

“Blogs are their own steroids, they can be just as good or bad as anything.” — Journalism professor Paul Jones (I also direct ibiblio.org, a digital archive run jointly by UNC-CH and the Center for the Public Domain.)

However, it needs to be pointed out that they really didn’t go indepth on anything and the story was kind of a filler. But they tried. A for effort.

We’ve used Orange Politics as an example in class, and we’ve made reference to other government-related blogs, but now the CIA is involved. As a part of their efforts to prevent another Sept. 11-like attack, they’ve revamped and reopened a branch that is designed to sift through all the information available on the internet and look for clues. A similar group existed many years ago, but was drastically cut because the need was no longer clear. In addition to looking for information, they have a few blogs of their own available within a government network. If you want to read more about it, check out the Sunday edition of the News and Observer.

http://www.newsobserver.com/110/story/371519.html