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torsdag 20 mars 2008

Blogs are a global revolution

Guess what, I blogged about this Monday, June 27, 2005. That's nearly three years ago. The Finnish printed media is writing more articles about social media, blogging and citizen journalism. This is a small country and we represent a small language group. Finland has about 14 000 bloggers.

Blogs are a global revolution with a previously undreamt of audience reach. The popularity of blogs, or web diaries, has boomed in the past year. About a quarter of US internet users say they read them.

Helge 20.3.2008: Finnish blogs aren't reaching big audiences. I do blog in English and Swedish as well but that means I'll be splitting my readerships.

To put that into perspective, the number of people who read blogs is almost half the size of the entire US talk-radio audience and about a quarter the number of those who ready daily papers. And that's just the US.

Helge 20.3.2008: I've no idea about the total readership for Finnish blogs.

During the Iraq war, many people around the world who were tuning in to updates from reporters on the frontlines were also reading daily blogs from a local calling himself Salaam Pax, writing during the assault on Baghdad.
  • These blogs by the Iraqi architecture student provided an insider's account into what was happening on the ground, and an interesting counterpoint to the official dispatches.

  • At its best, a blog is a form of personal journalism that opens the public up to a whole new role in the news business

Humans crave community, the sense of belonging that comes from associating with others. Online blogs and podcasting have allowed people to create and belong to communities around the world. But the development also raises the interesting question of who has a right to the microphone of public opinion.

Helge 20.3.2008: Social Media, Blogs, Jaiku and IRC made an impact during the Jokela School shooting. It looks like bad news and catastrophe information is traveling faster in the new media.

Blog audiences are wide and diverse, interested in everything from rock music to religion. Blogs tend to consist of short entries posted on a whim, and recently they have have been joined by those created using a mobile phone (moblogs), and those with video (vlogs) and audio (podcasting).

Helge 20.3.2008: The Finnish blogging audience is covering fashion, knitting, gossip and individual storytelling. The future of blogging in a small country is not so much in "how many readers" a blog has but how well the bloggers are networking and how they are using the blogs and microblogs as interconnectivity toolset.




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