(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10)
Loading ...Beyond HTML: Implementing Web 2.0 and Blogging
I am a long time reader of dv techtalk, an investment site for technical analysts. Imagine to my surprise when I read that the site will be moving beyond HTML, javascripts, and flash. In fact, the site will implement some of the concepts that were posted here on blogging idol:
- Integration of RSS feeds such that the daily reports
- Wordpress Blog
Original:
http://market-minute.dvtechtalk.com/
Revised:
http://www.timingthemarket.ca/techtalk/
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(4 votes, average: 9.75 out of 10) Loading ...Second Life after Blogging Idol?
Everyone, this has been quite an active week for Blogging Idol! With the fanfare (mostly amongst us contestants of course) quieting down, I wonder if any of you are interested in continuing blogging here. I would envision only a few of us would be regularly posting, but would still aim to increase the number of blogger participation.
First, some household items would be:
1) to grow on the awareness of blogging here, this area needs a visible banner from the IT Computer world home page
2) remove the vote fan registration panel but replace it with a blogging account registration
3) Think of ways to improve the tagging, and topics section
4) Consider either/both re-branding and refocusing blogidol to be clear it is no longer a contest (next year!). Maybe re-badge bloging idol to be along the lines of a “think tank,” “public voice,” “readers voice” area where bloggers might be published on print and online
5) Rewards can go out to those who are published (from item 4)
6) Leadership/Moderator: this site still needs leadership (Shane, of course…Don?): leaders have the fun in proposing topics/controversial subjects of the day facing the Canadian IT industry
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...6 Degrees of Blogging Idol
What was your reaction from friends when you told them you were on blogging idol? Did you have trouble explaining what blogging was about to people who never heard about blogs?
In the majority of cases, I found it challenging to explain in layman’s term what the contest blog was about. For those who wrote introspectively about blogging and social networking, it was in some ways an attempt to provide a static and solid definition for these “catch phrases.” It would seem that only the concepts and the framework can be defined rigidly. The non-technical implementation (save the intermittent crashes experienced over the past few days on www.blogidol.ca) of these concepts are fluid. This implementation is in reference to the content and the topics. The content has to be relevant not only for us participants, but those who visit to read what we have to say. In the same way technology doesn’t drive business needs, content delivered through any IT delivery model needs to stay relevant. The delivery model is inter-connecting all other content faster than ever. The current and future challenge is still going to be delivering relevant regardless of the technology.
On that mindset, from a business analysis perspective, who do you envision our audience on blogidol to be? Who would you want your target audience to be? How would you grow the fan base/audience? On the technology side, if blogidol was a proof of concept for IT World Canada, what technology model would you choose to deliver the content more effectively?
Side note: I tried to access blogidol on a blackberry. It was….challenging but possible.
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(2 votes, average: 9 out of 10) Loading ...Getting to the Final Stretch of Blogging Idol
Contestants, we at the end-stretch of the Blogging Idol contest!
Blog Idol Changes its Contestants
To answer Don’s most recent question, this contest has gotten me to read Shane’s regular blogs and to browse the content of the online content of Computer World.
My Favorite Blogs
I tend to draw solution ideas and mind sets around progress from other areas unrelated to the field of I.T. The Online Photographer is a big name in the photography world.
Side question: what printed computer publications do you read? My list includes:
- Computer World
- Eweek
- Intelligent Enterprise
- CIO Canada
Do you have time to read all of your publications? For me, the contest topics complimented the articles from the above publications.
To Blog or not to Blog
In response to Don’s last entry, I have been blogging off and on at www.xanga.com for the past 5 years. My initial rationale was to improve the way I communicated with an online audience. In that time, I learnt taht the audience most liked blogs that included photos. Random “how-to” topics in areas like computer tweaking were popular, and vacation blogging was well-received. Are you ready to start your own blgo?
Be warned! Web traffic for blog sites can only increase if you:
1) Interact with other bloggers through comments
2) Ongoing, regular updates
Here are some sites to consider for hosting your blog:
https://www.blogger.com/start
http://www.livejournal.com/
http://spaces.live.com/default.aspx
It is unfortunate that blogging isn’t billable if your site isn’t at the top 1% of the host’s bloggers. It needs to generate massive traffic, be ad-supported, and must generate click-thru.
Here’s a theoretical question for everyone: if editors at IT World Canada offered you a freelance job to blog, would you do it?
Finally, if the trend of “surfing A.D.D.” continues, or one simply doesn’t have the time to blog, one might want to consider twitter instead. It might even make for a good software developer’s blog:
“Great, Bugs!”
“Not another System Crash!”
“Whoops BSOD - what to do?”
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(3 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...The Real Threat to Journalism
The industry once thought that blogging would somehow replace journalism. It turns out the threat to journalism is something bigger. It is apparent through the posting and feedback activity from this contest this past week that there are unique values to blogging. The unique value is virtual interaction. The interaction from readers through comments has generated further discussions. Blogging is therefore a modernized version of group message forums, but without moderator intervention or fixed subjects.
Visit http://blogto.com/ to see what I mean.
Does blogging have value internally, in an organization? I am not aware of how it would be, unless someone could shed some experiences on how a blogging culture could be successfully implemented in an organization. In the IT department, time is probably best spent resolving bugs, issues, and having face-to-face meetings to generate both leadership and interaction among staff.
The real threat to journalism is:
Not blogging, it’s Google. I was reading a recent article in Business Week about Google. It is a massive company with valuations far greater than some major newspaper companies in the U.S. Simply load http://www.google.com/news. Just how much did the company have to pay for this content? High profitability is realized when revenue through advertising exceeds the cost of providing content. When the cost of content is zero, someone has to pay: the journalists who are paid by their companies. If you add Youtube to this argument, it’s apparent that the threat of this profitable business model will extend to original video content providers.
New Toys:
Are you an early adapter? If you bought lined up to get the iPhone last year, would you have been annoyed that Apple dropped its prices by $100 shortly thereafter? Would you be even more shocked at the pace of technology toy depreciation with the announcement of the iPhone v2.0? This past week, the pricing for the iPhone was announced: $199 for an 8GB model and $299 for 16GB. How fast can you say “Ebay iPhone v1.0 and iTouch?” Too bad Canadians have only one mobile provider to rely on. Care to make a prediction on what the monthly rate will be? Will there be an unlimited plan? Stay tuned. In the U.S. plans include unlimited data usage. With Rogers we can only hope to get something as good, even though they have no one to compete with (is Blackberry a competitor?)
What’s on your New Toys, New Software Shopping List for June?
I am going to stick with web surfing on the desktop PC. I’m excited from this back week about the new version of the Opera Browser http://www.opera.com/.
2) Firefox 3.0
3) The Apple iPhone
4) Asus EEE 900
5) MSI Wind
The above list reads more like a personal shopping list than a corporate one. After all, toys and corporate priorities mix like oil and water. A hypothetical IT priorities project list might be:
1) Desktop virtualization
Challenge: increasing disk access speed times to make virtualization less sluggish
2) Windows Refresh
Challenge: Skipping Vista and waiting for Vista
3) Integrated database management and business intelligence:
Challenge: reducing a corporation’s reliance on Microsoft Access and Excel spreadsheets for corporate data management
4) Data Security
Challenge: USB memory sticks!
5) Web 2.0
Challenge: see getting past item #3 first 
Does your organization have any of those items on its priorities list? If so, feel free to comment.
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(2 votes, average: 6.5 out of 10) Loading ...Martin Waxman: A degree in blogging
If you want some good blogging tips, take a glance at this post from Toronto P.R. veteran Martin Waxman (an old acquaintance of mine, actually) who provides some coverage of a blogging-related conference in Naples. Among his key takeaways:
“You may not have a lot of readers but blogging provides you with ‘long-term search relevance’. People find you.”
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Train for Blogging Idol by reading the top IT bloggers in Canada
As part of our contest kick-off I decided to compile a purely subjective list of the bloggers who are already out there and doing an amazing job. Read the 10 best technology bloggers in Canada to get an overview of their diverse backgrounds and sample posts from each blogger.
As a bonus, a local firm called Aide RSS has created a merged/filtered feed of the top 10 so you can stay connected to these bloggers on a regular basis. Enjoy.
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