But I think humour says it better than I could, for which I'm indebted to Cookham's Dave Walker who also writes for the Church Times blog.
Succinct and to the point.
-
More Why it matters...
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Why it matters... voting
It would be easy to roll out a lengthy diatribe on this, talking about how it's your taxes, your life and your future which is at stake. Or I could mention how millions of people have fought and died for the privilege which many people still don't have.
But I think humour says it better than I could, for which I'm indebted to Cookham's Dave Walker who also writes for the Church Times blog.
Succinct and to the point.
-
More Why it matters...
But I think humour says it better than I could, for which I'm indebted to Cookham's Dave Walker who also writes for the Church Times blog.
Succinct and to the point.
-
More Why it matters...
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
A State Of Neglect - organising the 5,000
So much for being in beta, here's The Beta Band:
Most of the readers arrive at Reading List's network of sites for a variety of different reasons - some come for the aggregated stories created by the, ahem, masterminds behind the organisation, others come to peruse the state of local commentary, while further groups may be attracted by the sourced information or other reasons.
So it sometimes weighs heavily that the editors may appear not be working our utmost to provide for visitors desires and demands.
Admittedly over recent weeks time online has become limited for a variety of reasons, but it has become clear that the 'new politics' where coalition has become the order of the day has changed the journalistic mindset required to approach blogging.
Almost overnight the profitable seam of stories to be written by exploiting the gaps between partisans who were in confrontation with each other dried up. The established narratives of who could be expected to attack whom and on what grounds has inexorably shifted: Labour is no longer in power, Conservatives and LibDems are now collaborating, Greens have penetrated the institutional mechanisms of officialdom.
The result has been a complete shakeup of who is conversing with whom for what reason.
And if you add into the mix the election that is now getting lost in the dust as it passes into the rear-view mirror any local bloggertariat dominated by the political opinioneers obviously has less to say for itself as well as less reason to say it.
Although the monitoring team has still been keeping our ear to the ground to discover where the movement is happening, we've also been taking this opportunity to do all the 'back office' stuff which is vital to how we work.
Recently Reading List reached the point where we could list over 5,000 locally-based or oriented blogs.
This requires some maintenance. So the more regular readers may be interested to know that we've been continuing to make steady, if slow, progress to organise them into an understandable system.
Over the course of the summer I hope to have the initial stage completed to a stage where we're happy to release access to each of the directories - not only will this provide access to a fuller list of many of the sources blogs we monitor and use, but we hope it will also become a better general resource.
Most of the readers arrive at Reading List's network of sites for a variety of different reasons - some come for the aggregated stories created by the, ahem, masterminds behind the organisation, others come to peruse the state of local commentary, while further groups may be attracted by the sourced information or other reasons.
So it sometimes weighs heavily that the editors may appear not be working our utmost to provide for visitors desires and demands.
Admittedly over recent weeks time online has become limited for a variety of reasons, but it has become clear that the 'new politics' where coalition has become the order of the day has changed the journalistic mindset required to approach blogging.
Almost overnight the profitable seam of stories to be written by exploiting the gaps between partisans who were in confrontation with each other dried up. The established narratives of who could be expected to attack whom and on what grounds has inexorably shifted: Labour is no longer in power, Conservatives and LibDems are now collaborating, Greens have penetrated the institutional mechanisms of officialdom.
The result has been a complete shakeup of who is conversing with whom for what reason.
And if you add into the mix the election that is now getting lost in the dust as it passes into the rear-view mirror any local bloggertariat dominated by the political opinioneers obviously has less to say for itself as well as less reason to say it.
Although the monitoring team has still been keeping our ear to the ground to discover where the movement is happening, we've also been taking this opportunity to do all the 'back office' stuff which is vital to how we work.
Recently Reading List reached the point where we could list over 5,000 locally-based or oriented blogs.
This requires some maintenance. So the more regular readers may be interested to know that we've been continuing to make steady, if slow, progress to organise them into an understandable system.
Over the course of the summer I hope to have the initial stage completed to a stage where we're happy to release access to each of the directories - not only will this provide access to a fuller list of many of the sources blogs we monitor and use, but we hope it will also become a better general resource.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
An Online Bill Of Rights
Jeff Jarvis sets out his 9 articles to be included in a putative online Bill of Rights.
They are:
Now I know there is a lot of debate online about the validity of state intervention, and even of the legitimacy of the state itself (Thatcherism vs New Labour principles), but it cannot be overstated how cyberspace is changing the way we interact - not only with the state and other people, but within our own lives too.
The representative democracy that has been in force for the past few centuries is facing a huge challenge from the simple ability to sit down at a computer terminal and do for ourselves what we've previously depended on other people to do: when we wanted to learn something there came wikipedia; when we wanted to find something, google was at hand; when we wanted to connect with others there was facebook; when we wanted to talk to people there was twitter.
Political institutions are increasingly under threat as these new technologies are unearthing bad practises and spreading the details, but this wonderous pioneering phase of the technological evolution we see before us remains only a phase.
The mass of valuable information is dispersed so widely that the time wasted weeding it out from among the piles of opinion and the signposts which (may or may not) direct us to where we want to go is almost too much for even the sharpest wizard in the school. Just like a sat-nav makes life easier it creates a form of co-dependency where we are forced to trust the advice even if it is heading us into an abyss. The ability to orientate ourselves with maps and environmental awareness is being lost: the commuter has become a slave to the radio travel update.
So an e-rights bill is not only essential in assuring against the abuse of convenience, but it also provides a new role for the state in securing our rights as their guarantor.
As I read around it becomes pretty clear that this has far-reaching and profound impact. For example Ben Goldacre's ongoing battle to establish a higher standard on linkage at BBC online [1, 2]. Online Journalism Blog covers the debate [pt1, pt2, pt3].
The BBC holds an important position here at the central of the maelstrom as the only real institution with the capability to lead by example. So it's interesting to read their response with the development of a new policy in communication with readers.
I was particularly struck by the comment: "Our role as an archive and resource is becoming as important to many of you as the more traditional role of reporting the latest news headlines."
Locally to me here we have the BBC Monitoring site in Caversham, which provides an invisible backbone to the corporation. This has enabled it to understand the context of what's going on and thereby gives it's journalists the ability to ask better questions of the people in authoratitive positions who are interviewed by its' journalists and write more relevant copy.
As more citizen journalists begin to chip away at the stern facade of recalitrant authority in their own small ways (such as I do for my Reading List) it is becomes increasingly clear that the people who contextualise rather than simply opinionate begin to position themselves at the head of a new online heirarchy.
I can tell simply by the growing number of people who are searching my archive to discover who has said what in the run up to the current election that my site is not simply a space where readers want to know that the story of today is, but that more want to find out what has been said on particular issues close to their hearts.
So the blogosphere is maturing to become a place where the weblogue is beginning to curate collected knowledge and the curators of that knowledge are showing they have greater staying power than the angry chatterers requiring immediate responses (who are largely migrating away from blogs anyway).
Media loves to hype up the influence of different media forms on elections, but it seems to me as the blogosphere gradually organises itself that its deeper influence is only set to grow.
But this influence depends entirely upon the ability to abide by a set of principles covering the provision of accurate and well-informed information. So, whether or not any online Bill of Rights gains official recognition, the blogger who hopes to continue to grow their audience must abide by some self-imposed standards.
-
Update: Neville Hobson draws some focus to the benchmark set regarding blogging standards of accuracy following the PPC's upholding of a complaint against The Spectator columnist, Rod Liddle's unsustantiated claims on crime levels in London.
-
Cross-posted from Not Yet Out Of The Woods
They are:
- We have the right to connect.
- We have the right to speak.
- We have the right to speak in our languages.
- We have the right to assemble.
- We have the right to act.
- We have the right to control our data.
- We have the right to our own identity.
- What is public is a public good.
- The internet shall be built and operated openly.
Now I know there is a lot of debate online about the validity of state intervention, and even of the legitimacy of the state itself (Thatcherism vs New Labour principles), but it cannot be overstated how cyberspace is changing the way we interact - not only with the state and other people, but within our own lives too.
The representative democracy that has been in force for the past few centuries is facing a huge challenge from the simple ability to sit down at a computer terminal and do for ourselves what we've previously depended on other people to do: when we wanted to learn something there came wikipedia; when we wanted to find something, google was at hand; when we wanted to connect with others there was facebook; when we wanted to talk to people there was twitter.
Political institutions are increasingly under threat as these new technologies are unearthing bad practises and spreading the details, but this wonderous pioneering phase of the technological evolution we see before us remains only a phase.
The mass of valuable information is dispersed so widely that the time wasted weeding it out from among the piles of opinion and the signposts which (may or may not) direct us to where we want to go is almost too much for even the sharpest wizard in the school. Just like a sat-nav makes life easier it creates a form of co-dependency where we are forced to trust the advice even if it is heading us into an abyss. The ability to orientate ourselves with maps and environmental awareness is being lost: the commuter has become a slave to the radio travel update.
So an e-rights bill is not only essential in assuring against the abuse of convenience, but it also provides a new role for the state in securing our rights as their guarantor.
As I read around it becomes pretty clear that this has far-reaching and profound impact. For example Ben Goldacre's ongoing battle to establish a higher standard on linkage at BBC online [1, 2]. Online Journalism Blog covers the debate [pt1, pt2, pt3].
The BBC holds an important position here at the central of the maelstrom as the only real institution with the capability to lead by example. So it's interesting to read their response with the development of a new policy in communication with readers.
I was particularly struck by the comment: "Our role as an archive and resource is becoming as important to many of you as the more traditional role of reporting the latest news headlines."
Locally to me here we have the BBC Monitoring site in Caversham, which provides an invisible backbone to the corporation. This has enabled it to understand the context of what's going on and thereby gives it's journalists the ability to ask better questions of the people in authoratitive positions who are interviewed by its' journalists and write more relevant copy.
As more citizen journalists begin to chip away at the stern facade of recalitrant authority in their own small ways (such as I do for my Reading List) it is becomes increasingly clear that the people who contextualise rather than simply opinionate begin to position themselves at the head of a new online heirarchy.
I can tell simply by the growing number of people who are searching my archive to discover who has said what in the run up to the current election that my site is not simply a space where readers want to know that the story of today is, but that more want to find out what has been said on particular issues close to their hearts.
So the blogosphere is maturing to become a place where the weblogue is beginning to curate collected knowledge and the curators of that knowledge are showing they have greater staying power than the angry chatterers requiring immediate responses (who are largely migrating away from blogs anyway).
Media loves to hype up the influence of different media forms on elections, but it seems to me as the blogosphere gradually organises itself that its deeper influence is only set to grow.
But this influence depends entirely upon the ability to abide by a set of principles covering the provision of accurate and well-informed information. So, whether or not any online Bill of Rights gains official recognition, the blogger who hopes to continue to grow their audience must abide by some self-imposed standards.
-
Update: Neville Hobson draws some focus to the benchmark set regarding blogging standards of accuracy following the PPC's upholding of a complaint against The Spectator columnist, Rod Liddle's unsustantiated claims on crime levels in London.
-
Cross-posted from Not Yet Out Of The Woods
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
5,000 and counting!
And so I continue to trawl through the local blogosphere using the variety of techniques and tools I've picked up on my travels.
But today it's worth shouting about this milestone that I've reached - I have today discovered my 5,000th identifiably Berkshire blog!
Although some are more active than others and there are some which defy description I have to admit I'm quite proud of this statistic.
Now all I have to do is continue trying to categorize them all!
But today it's worth shouting about this milestone that I've reached - I have today discovered my 5,000th identifiably Berkshire blog!
Although some are more active than others and there are some which defy description I have to admit I'm quite proud of this statistic.
Now all I have to do is continue trying to categorize them all!
Blog advertising and Google's economic stimulus
Online advertising is defying the economic downturn as it rose 10.2% during the final quarter of last year.
A closer look at the figures shows Google to be leading the field and pulling away as it recorded 'another blowout month'.
Blogging appears to be one of the prime means by which the company is pushing turnover, as the proliferating online independent media gives the behemoth from Mountain View an unprecedented volume of space to sell - which, added to its' popular AdSense and AdWords advertising agent, gives millions of individual hosts the means to be complicit in their success.
My Reading List network is exactly one such source.
So when I recieved through my door a £75 introductory AdWords campaign it was immediately clear to me that Google can - and is - effectively leveraging both sides of the equation to enable it to gain a jump on the opposition.
I was asked a while back what benefit advertising brings to my site, given that the relatively small number of visitors I recieve doesn't amount to any kind of realistic income. So I have to admit that earning money wasn't my primary motive for starting blogging, and nor was it my primary motive for enabling advertising on my sites.
When I outgrew a single blog the simple analytics tool that comes with the package (though fine for most of my needs) became a bit too cumbersome to give a quick comparison of each of my pages, so after some initial experimentation I quickly discovered the advert tracking centre was an excellent complement which could help me better understand visitor behaviour.
Add to this the modest sums accumulating in my name and it gives me a reward incentive with which I can toast myself as and when I recieve it.
Over the longer term, however, any lasting blog project will benefit from having started early - particularly as the economic rollercoaster takes a turn and starts rising again.
So maybe, just maybe, if I can continue growing my readership and online authority any income will amount to more than one can of beans!
A closer look at the figures shows Google to be leading the field and pulling away as it recorded 'another blowout month'.
Blogging appears to be one of the prime means by which the company is pushing turnover, as the proliferating online independent media gives the behemoth from Mountain View an unprecedented volume of space to sell - which, added to its' popular AdSense and AdWords advertising agent, gives millions of individual hosts the means to be complicit in their success.
My Reading List network is exactly one such source.
So when I recieved through my door a £75 introductory AdWords campaign it was immediately clear to me that Google can - and is - effectively leveraging both sides of the equation to enable it to gain a jump on the opposition.
I was asked a while back what benefit advertising brings to my site, given that the relatively small number of visitors I recieve doesn't amount to any kind of realistic income. So I have to admit that earning money wasn't my primary motive for starting blogging, and nor was it my primary motive for enabling advertising on my sites.
When I outgrew a single blog the simple analytics tool that comes with the package (though fine for most of my needs) became a bit too cumbersome to give a quick comparison of each of my pages, so after some initial experimentation I quickly discovered the advert tracking centre was an excellent complement which could help me better understand visitor behaviour.
Add to this the modest sums accumulating in my name and it gives me a reward incentive with which I can toast myself as and when I recieve it.
Over the longer term, however, any lasting blog project will benefit from having started early - particularly as the economic rollercoaster takes a turn and starts rising again.
So maybe, just maybe, if I can continue growing my readership and online authority any income will amount to more than one can of beans!
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Contact Oranjepan
Feedback of any form is valuable - and highly appreciated by the team here in the network treetops!
So if you have anything you wish to get off your chest please do... better out than in, I always say!
All comments, criticisms, questions and suggestions are read and responded to where appropriate - there are a variety of ways you can get in contact:
So for whatever reason (except spam marketers) please do...
So if you have anything you wish to get off your chest please do... better out than in, I always say!
All comments, criticisms, questions and suggestions are read and responded to where appropriate - there are a variety of ways you can get in contact:
- You can comment on any blog post
- You can reach me via Twitter: @Oranjepan
- You can contact me via Facebook: Oran Jepan
- Or of you want a more direct and private contact, please email me: oranjepan@hotmail.co.uk
So for whatever reason (except spam marketers) please do...
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Review 2009: Berkshire Blog of the Year Awards
The Reading List Top Of The Berkshire Blogs has gone from strength to strength since I started compiling the chart in May 2009.
It started out with 16 blog titles listed by wikio and grew to 152 by the years end. In the meantime 35 blogs had also dropped off the list as they became inactive by December.
As I gradually started discovering more active titles it became more difficult to find space on my main site to house the chart, but it also began to become apparent that tracking the movement of the different blogs would give an indication of the shifting patterns of opinion across the county - and that this would make a valuable story in its' own right.
So here is a collection of links to the charts and analyses I made during the period.
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009 - analysis
October 2009 - analysis
November 2009 - analysis
December 2009 - analysis
Overall there has been some interesting fluctuations with the better blogs rising towards the top of the chart and those that were consistently good consolidating their positions.
=
Berkshire Blogs of the Year 2009
Of particular note was Mark Reckons which rose from #3 (68th nationally) to be unrivalled as Berkshire's Top Blog, sitting pretty at 16th nationally.
Bracknell Blog made some impressive gains to move from #8 (567th) to #5 (182nd), but the award for most successful blog for 2009 must undoubtedly go to Mr London Street which made its' full debut in September at #22 (1,002nd) before climbing to #14 (583rd), becoming a 'blog of note' and increasing the number of public followers from 162 to almost 1,000 (at the time of writing) with a highly entertaining and often touching collection of personal story-telling.
Awards:
Most successful Berkshire blog:
- Mr London Street
Most influential Berkshire blog:
- Mark Reckons
Commended:
- Bracknell Blog
=
Berkshire Blogger of the Year 2009
This is a more difficult category to decide upon, with a wide variety of styles and types of blog writing to choose between.
Political writing has been at the forefront of blog content in the past year, with Daisy Benson's Redlands LibDems and John Redwood's eponymously-titled Diary standing out for consistency, and deserving honorable mentions.
In the professional sphere Nigel Morgan deserves praise for Creating Reputations, while Graham Jones's blog and NevilleHobson.com consistently set standards in multi-media inter-connectivity. Elsewhere Dave Walker's both serious and light-hearted efforts at religious blogging for the Church Times and his Cartoon Church are regularly excellent.
But because blogging is about more than just writing, for the breadth and scale of their work it comes down to a clear choice between Mark Thompson (for Mark Reckons, his guest contributions on a variety of sites and co-producing the House of Comments weekly podcast) and Alistair Coleman (for transcending his Scaryduck site to create a whole network of satirical, scabrous commentary - including Glum Councillors, Angry People in Local Newspapers, Death Pool and numerous others).
In the end I felt it unfair to choose between them (and also because the decision is at the discretion of the judges) it was necessary to inaugurate two separate awards.
Awards:
Best single blog post:
- Mark Thompson
(for Has our electoral system contributed to the MPs expenses scandal?)
Best overall contribution to blogging:
- Alistair Coleman
(for Scaryduck network)
Commended:
- Neville Hobson, Dave Walker
Well it's only a bit of fun really, so go and bask in the reflected glory!
Or better yet, show your support by visiting the links... and enjoy!
-
Review 2009
It started out with 16 blog titles listed by wikio and grew to 152 by the years end. In the meantime 35 blogs had also dropped off the list as they became inactive by December.
As I gradually started discovering more active titles it became more difficult to find space on my main site to house the chart, but it also began to become apparent that tracking the movement of the different blogs would give an indication of the shifting patterns of opinion across the county - and that this would make a valuable story in its' own right.
So here is a collection of links to the charts and analyses I made during the period.
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009 - analysis
October 2009 - analysis
November 2009 - analysis
December 2009 - analysis
Overall there has been some interesting fluctuations with the better blogs rising towards the top of the chart and those that were consistently good consolidating their positions.
=
Berkshire Blogs of the Year 2009
Of particular note was Mark Reckons which rose from #3 (68th nationally) to be unrivalled as Berkshire's Top Blog, sitting pretty at 16th nationally.
Bracknell Blog made some impressive gains to move from #8 (567th) to #5 (182nd), but the award for most successful blog for 2009 must undoubtedly go to Mr London Street which made its' full debut in September at #22 (1,002nd) before climbing to #14 (583rd), becoming a 'blog of note' and increasing the number of public followers from 162 to almost 1,000 (at the time of writing) with a highly entertaining and often touching collection of personal story-telling.
Awards:
Most successful Berkshire blog:
- Mr London Street
Most influential Berkshire blog:
- Mark Reckons
Commended:
- Bracknell Blog
=
Berkshire Blogger of the Year 2009
This is a more difficult category to decide upon, with a wide variety of styles and types of blog writing to choose between.
Political writing has been at the forefront of blog content in the past year, with Daisy Benson's Redlands LibDems and John Redwood's eponymously-titled Diary standing out for consistency, and deserving honorable mentions.
In the professional sphere Nigel Morgan deserves praise for Creating Reputations, while Graham Jones's blog and NevilleHobson.com consistently set standards in multi-media inter-connectivity. Elsewhere Dave Walker's both serious and light-hearted efforts at religious blogging for the Church Times and his Cartoon Church are regularly excellent.
But because blogging is about more than just writing, for the breadth and scale of their work it comes down to a clear choice between Mark Thompson (for Mark Reckons, his guest contributions on a variety of sites and co-producing the House of Comments weekly podcast) and Alistair Coleman (for transcending his Scaryduck site to create a whole network of satirical, scabrous commentary - including Glum Councillors, Angry People in Local Newspapers, Death Pool and numerous others).
In the end I felt it unfair to choose between them (and also because the decision is at the discretion of the judges) it was necessary to inaugurate two separate awards.
Awards:
Best single blog post:
- Mark Thompson
(for Has our electoral system contributed to the MPs expenses scandal?)
Best overall contribution to blogging:
- Alistair Coleman
(for Scaryduck network)
Commended:
- Neville Hobson, Dave Walker
Well it's only a bit of fun really, so go and bask in the reflected glory!
Or better yet, show your support by visiting the links... and enjoy!
-
Review 2009
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