In many marketing and communication seminars I attend, the first thing that is mentioned when discussing using web-based marketing is SEO. People spent a good portion of the meeting touting how much time they or their webmaster spends optimizing their sites for search. Yet, when they attempt to do a search live, their site doesn't come up on the first page of Google; often they don't come up at all.
The reason why of course, is because everyone else is optimizing their sites or worst paying for the 'right' to have their site come up first. You as a small business cannot compete with the bigger companies in purchasing services. No matter how dedicated you or your webmaster are, Walmart, McDonald's or whomever you wish to compete with will bury you.
However and this is key to any local or smaller business is that you have the ability to speak directly to your target audience. You have the flexibility to evolve to changes that are occurring in your community and offer personalized service to your community. This is something that larger companies cannot or will not do.
So how does that have to do with SEO and search in general? Google which is still the dominant force in search, is constantly changing how they rank importance. Gone are the day when you could 'hide' keywords on web pages and trick the crawler into listing your site.
First and foremost, a blog is anything you want it to be, from a journal of your daily events to the digital version of your great American novel. The blog is the latest example of what I consider to be attempts at the democratization of free speech by using everyman tech.
The word blog is slang created from the term weblog; a format that uses a web page to collect a series of posts and links, that digitally mimic a traditional written 'log'. What is different about a blog and a traditional log, is that a blog can take advantage of the interactively of the internet. This gives it the ability to be multimedia savvy, as well as interactive.
You can post links to other web pages, insert audio, video and add photos. What makes it a true web 2.0 application is that it allows and encourages readers of the blog to contribute to it. The comments themselves can include links to other sites, blogs, audio, video, and photos. It is this cross-communication that makes a blog part of the Web 2.0 generation.
"But John, we already have free speech as part of our Constitution and it is a right..." You would be correct, in theory, but in practice is another thing. If we take a step back about 2 or 3 decades ago, we release how access to mass communication was limited to the very few. If you wanted to let your opinion be heard, how could the average person do it and this is key, retain control of their message?
A letter to the editor in the newspaper? Perhaps, but there was no guarantee it would be published or unaltered and of course your message was limited to the Newspaper's distribution limitations.You could, of course, use a mimeograph machine which was a low-cost method of making copies. Still, you have to have an effective means to reach the masses; how many places could you place your flyer at?
The next stage in mass communication history brought the Xerox machine into existence, which allowed for greater accessibility to produce copies, but suffered from the same distribution limitations of the mimeograph generation. You either had to mail them or find some way to physically get them into the hands of your target audience. Not an easy task, nor one that was sure to bring results. Things remained relatively stable for a generation or so, until the age of the affordable computer was born, relatively speaking of course.
This next generation of technology brought with it the potential to compete with the larger sources of information; it was the beginning of the Democratization of free speech. For the first time, average people had the ability to create content that looked professional and couldn't be dismissed as the chicken scratchings of housewives. It was the age of Desktop Publishing.
What desktop publishing provided was a means for the average person to have access to the technology that was previously the domain of a specialized few. It reduced the cost of creating and producing content to the degree that average people had the ability to create, produce and distribute their content. This content was primarily print: Newsletters, Newspapers, pamplets and many others. Later this included video, audio and the new medium; the internet. Using inexpensive computers, software, scanners and printers, the average person was finally able to create their content on their own terms.
However even with the advancements in technology, there was still a limitation on the ability to distribute to as many people as you desired. You still had to physically get it into the hands of the people.
This issue of distribution effectively ended with the birth of Web 1.0; the internet and its supporting technology. Email, BBS, various gateways such as America Online (AOL) and Compuserve opened the possibility for average people to communicate at a low cost and high volume.
Web 1.0 was another generational shift in the paradigm of how people communicate. People could now reach 100, 1000's eventually millions of people via email or websites, at a price that was affordable, but more importantly without the need of 'professionals'. The average user could fully create, control and distribute their content. They no longer had to rely on outside agencies such as printers, post office, and other delivery methods to have their message heard.
However the world of Web 1.0 was primarily one of content being provided, with little to no user interaction. That would slowly change and manifest itself in the form of Web 2.0.
In the world of Web 2.0, the focus is now on both the content provider and the client; they both share equally in the process of communication. Now it's time for an instructional video:
The reason why of course, is because everyone else is optimizing their sites or worst paying for the 'right' to have their site come up first. You as a small business cannot compete with the bigger companies in purchasing services. No matter how dedicated you or your webmaster are, Walmart, McDonald's or whomever you wish to compete with will bury you.
However and this is key to any local or smaller business is that you have the ability to speak directly to your target audience. You have the flexibility to evolve to changes that are occurring in your community and offer personalized service to your community. This is something that larger companies cannot or will not do.
So how does that have to do with SEO and search in general? Google which is still the dominant force in search, is constantly changing how they rank importance. Gone are the day when you could 'hide' keywords on web pages and trick the crawler into listing your site.
First and foremost, a blog is anything you want it to be, from a journal of your daily events to the digital version of your great American novel. The blog is the latest example of what I consider to be attempts at the democratization of free speech by using everyman tech.
The word blog is slang created from the term weblog; a format that uses a web page to collect a series of posts and links, that digitally mimic a traditional written 'log'. What is different about a blog and a traditional log, is that a blog can take advantage of the interactively of the internet. This gives it the ability to be multimedia savvy, as well as interactive.
You can post links to other web pages, insert audio, video and add photos. What makes it a true web 2.0 application is that it allows and encourages readers of the blog to contribute to it. The comments themselves can include links to other sites, blogs, audio, video, and photos. It is this cross-communication that makes a blog part of the Web 2.0 generation.
"But John, we already have free speech as part of our Constitution and it is a right..." You would be correct, in theory, but in practice is another thing. If we take a step back about 2 or 3 decades ago, we release how access to mass communication was limited to the very few. If you wanted to let your opinion be heard, how could the average person do it and this is key, retain control of their message?
A letter to the editor in the newspaper? Perhaps, but there was no guarantee it would be published or unaltered and of course your message was limited to the Newspaper's distribution limitations.You could, of course, use a mimeograph machine which was a low-cost method of making copies. Still, you have to have an effective means to reach the masses; how many places could you place your flyer at?
The next stage in mass communication history brought the Xerox machine into existence, which allowed for greater accessibility to produce copies, but suffered from the same distribution limitations of the mimeograph generation. You either had to mail them or find some way to physically get them into the hands of your target audience. Not an easy task, nor one that was sure to bring results. Things remained relatively stable for a generation or so, until the age of the affordable computer was born, relatively speaking of course.
This next generation of technology brought with it the potential to compete with the larger sources of information; it was the beginning of the Democratization of free speech. For the first time, average people had the ability to create content that looked professional and couldn't be dismissed as the chicken scratchings of housewives. It was the age of Desktop Publishing.
What desktop publishing provided was a means for the average person to have access to the technology that was previously the domain of a specialized few. It reduced the cost of creating and producing content to the degree that average people had the ability to create, produce and distribute their content. This content was primarily print: Newsletters, Newspapers, pamplets and many others. Later this included video, audio and the new medium; the internet. Using inexpensive computers, software, scanners and printers, the average person was finally able to create their content on their own terms.
However even with the advancements in technology, there was still a limitation on the ability to distribute to as many people as you desired. You still had to physically get it into the hands of the people.
This issue of distribution effectively ended with the birth of Web 1.0; the internet and its supporting technology. Email, BBS, various gateways such as America Online (AOL) and Compuserve opened the possibility for average people to communicate at a low cost and high volume.
Web 1.0 was another generational shift in the paradigm of how people communicate. People could now reach 100, 1000's eventually millions of people via email or websites, at a price that was affordable, but more importantly without the need of 'professionals'. The average user could fully create, control and distribute their content. They no longer had to rely on outside agencies such as printers, post office, and other delivery methods to have their message heard.
However the world of Web 1.0 was primarily one of content being provided, with little to no user interaction. That would slowly change and manifest itself in the form of Web 2.0.
In the world of Web 2.0, the focus is now on both the content provider and the client; they both share equally in the process of communication. Now it's time for an instructional video:
As we can see, the blog has the ability to be many things to many people. There are more than one type of blogs, such as photoblogs, videoblogs, amongst others. Podcasting can be considered a type blog and as of 16 February 2011[update], there were over 156 million public blogs in existence.(BlogPulse 11)
The entire connected community of blogs is called the blogosphere. This new 'universe' exists due to the inter-connectivity of the internet, which blogs have inherited. In reinforces the belief and the goal to have all content connected and accessible, allowing for the free flow of ideas.
One of the groups that can take advantage of the somewhat collaborative nature of the blog is the educational community.
The blog in the educational community can serve many functions. It can serve as a means for students to share information with each other. Either in the form of a support system for students, allowing them to share information with one another, an informal current events platform or in the form of a traditional journal, chronicling their day to day interests.
However whichever format is used, the blog allows the student the one thing that traditional writing doesn't, the ability to have constant and consistent interactive feedback from their peers and educators. It allows the student blogger the ability to find other students that have similar interests as they do. Also unlike the social networking sites, the blogger controls who and who cannot comment on their content. The risk of being bullied is less when not only are you the editor, but you also own the 'newspaper'.
It was noted: The present study concerns the content of MySpace blogs and whether it differs from the blog style found on sites specifically designed for blogging. A content analysis of MySpace blogs was conducted to investigate trends in purpose, format, and style and to compare these across sex and age categories. Most blogs were written in a positive tone, and the main motivations for blogging appeared to be writing a diary and as an emotional outlet. Findings also indicate that while there were no significant sex differences, blog purpose and style differed across age groups; for example, bloggers over 50 were more likely to use the blog as an emotional outlet with a negative tone. Bloggers between 18 and 29 predominantly used a semiformal language style, whereas bloggers over 30 were equally as likely to use a semiformal or formal style. Results suggest that MySpace blogs are not dissimilar from other forms of blogging because they provide an important outlet for emotion and self-expression. (Fullwood 09)
The article notes that blogging can offer an outlet for emotion and self-expression, this in many ways can be great for students who lack self-esteem. Another impact is that it could bring students, staff and teachers together in a safe environment that could promote a higher level of understanding. In fact any medium that allows for greater and more concise communication should be encouraged.
The blog could be used by educators to fill in the finer points of a lesson, that required more depth than could be allowed in the regular school day. Once again the interactively could help the educator by allowing them to reinforce links and connections, by using the power of the internet.
However that freedom comes with a price. Students, but especially teachers must be careful about what they write. One of the side effects of Web 2.0, is the ability for everything you write to be searched for, examined and analyzed; unfortunately there is a potential for it to be used against you.
The characteristics of pharmacist blogs were examined. Methods. Internet search engines, blog aggregators, and blog rolls were used to identify pharmacist blogs. Six categories were developed to evaluate blogs, including practice-based topics, identifying information, positive language, critical language, professionalism, and miscellaneous. The most recent five posts on each pharmacist blog were reviewed. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the results. Results. A total of 117 blogs were identified, 44 of which were designated as pharmacist blogs. No blogs contained patient-identifying information. Anonymity was maintained by 68.2% of bloggers. Bloggers practiced in community (43.1%) and noncommunity (43.1%) settings. Pharmacists most commonly used positive language to describe the profession (32%), other health care professionals (25%), and patients (25%). The highest rates of critical language were found in descriptions of patients (57%) and other health care professionals (44%). Almost half of pharmacist blogs contained explicit or unprofessional language. Overall, community practitioner blogs were substantially more likely than noncommunity practitioner blogs to use unprofessional and critical language. Twenty-five percent of pharmacist bloggers also maintained a microblog (e.g., Twitter) account. Conclusion. A search using Internet search engines, blog aggregators, and blog rolls identified 117 blogs, 44 of which met the study criteria for designation as pharmacist blogs. The majority of pharmacist blogs included some type of discussion of pharmacologic therapies. Pharmacists most commonly used positive language to describe the profession, other health care professionals, and patients. The highest rates of critical language were found in descriptions of patients and other health care professionals.(Fullwood 09)
As noted, the pharmacists' blogs were examined for content and reviewed. This information could easily be used in matters of discipline, even if the pharmacist's blog was his personal thoughts and not part of the company. This could easily be applied to the educational community with serious damage to moral.
As with most technology, there is also a dark side. One of the problems with everyone having the ability to have a voice, is determining whose voice should be listened to. I have noticed in the past few years a reliance by News organizations on 'citizen' journalists for content. The problem is that these new breed of journalists often don't understand the legal and ethical issues involved in reporting. Issues such as fact-checking, bias confirmations, using citations and all the other safe guards we have in place to prevent innocent people from having their lives ruined by rumour are often not on their priority list.
It is noted that: Blogs are on a continuously ascending trend. In the beginning, the bloggers took information (news) from the traditional media and commented it in their posts, but now the reversed tendency has appeared: journalists use blogs as news sources. Blogs seem to gain ground in their competition against traditional media regarding information. This article proves that blogs, as a news source for offline journalists remain bounded to their logic. In order for a blog post to become news, it needs to have the characteristics of any news. Furthermore, regular people have little chance of introducing their blog in the news flux, proving that this new communication instrument failed, at least for the moment, in the democratization of the media zone. (Durach 10)
I disagree with the author on his stance that since regular people can't introduce their blog into the news flux, the communication medium is a failure. The whole purpose of the blog wasn't to replace the existing news media, but to allow additional voices the opportunity to have their voices heard without the filter of the news media. In that regard, the blog certainly has succeeded.
There are 156 million blogs in existence today, in a time were news organizations are fighting to stay on the air and relevant. The author notes that the positions are now reversed, instead of the blog being a log of the news events, the blog is now the generator of many newscasts. While it is true the a person who is blogging about this birds, may not make the news; his blogging supports the blogging network that makes it possible for someone else to make the news.
Further in the case of countries that don't have a true freedom of the press, the blog as well as other forms of social media, twitter, facebook and sms; allow those people the ability to have their voices heard, regardless of whether or not the mainstream news picks up the story; someone, some average Joe will and that's all that matters.
One of the first things we have seen an Authoritarian regime do is close down the newspapers, radio and television networks; that was standard operating procedure: Control the message. Free speech, freedom of the press is a threat to them; now they kill the internet and cellular service too. They ban search engines and try to control an ever more difficult to control evolution of technology driven democracies. What does that tell us?
It tells us that they consider Web 2.0 technology to be as much a threat to them as the traditional methods of communication. That to me is clearly an example of the democratization of the media zone; it scares the tyrants, as all attempts to wield democratic power does.
- Works Cited: "BlogPulse". The Nielsen Company. February 16, 2011. http://www.blogpulse.com/. Retrieved 2011-02-17. Durach, Flavia. "Blogs as Sources for Political News." Revista Romana de Comunicare si Relatii Publice 12.3 (2010): 33-46. SocINDEX with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.Fullwood, Chris, Natasha Sheehan, and Wendy Nicholls. "Blog Function Revisited: A Content Analysis of MySpace Blogs." CyberPsychology & Behavior 12.6 (2009): 685-689. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.Clauson, Kevin A., Justin Elkins, and Chilla E. Goncz. "Use of blogs by pharmacists." American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 67.23 (2010): 2043-2048. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
