Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Vanity Vs. Info

Info Blogs

http://travelaroundthe-world.blogspot.com/

This Blog was informing the reader about where to go in the world to find the best roller coasters. It was actually quite interesting. It gave you pictures of all the greatest roller coasters all around the world. It also gave you a video of someone riding the actual roller coaster for some of them. The person dedicated the site to what he believes are all the roller coasters someone needs to go to when traveling the world. He also gave his idea of the best hotels in those areas too. It was a pretty interesting and informational site on roller coasters.

http://forgivenesshelp.blogspot.com/

This blog I found very interesting because I can't imagine someone actually wanting to take the time to create a blog teaching people how to forgive but the person who wrote this blog obviously has a heart for forgiveness and wants to spread that. The blog is basically a guide line to teach someone how to forgive people. It gives you a list of things people could have done to you that you haven't been able to forgive. Then it gives you advice to choose the path of forgiveness rather then revenge. So once you have figured out that forgiveness is better it gives you a step by step list of how to forgive someone.

Vanity Blog

http://willysr.blogspot.com/

This blog was basically just a journal kept by a boy named Willy in Indonesia. He basically just wrote about whatever was on his mind or his opinions and views on things. He also informed the reader about his life and daily activities that went on. For example, He told a story about when he got stuck in a drivers license check while driving home one day. I guess that’s what they have in Indonesia; here we have drunk driver tests. In one blog entry he even talks about pumping into his old junior high teacher. This blog was basically a boy's opinion and his experiences that he feels the need to share with others.


For comparing and contrasting a Vanity blog with an Info blog I am going to use the site http://willysr.blogspot.com/ and http://travelaroundthe-world.blogspot.com/ . I'm comparing the site about the boy who lives in Indonesia and the site about roller coasters around the world. The similarities that these two blogs share are that they are both opinionated. The Vanity site is all about one boy's opinions and views on issues and what he deals with everyday. The Info site is someone giving their opinion about what they believe to be the best roller coasters in the world. The differences in these two sites is one is actually informational and you could obtain somewhat useful information where the other one is stories from a boy and his views on pointless things in my opinion. At least the site about the roller coasters I wanted to continue reading and was actually interested in the information in the blog. The boy Willy's blog to me was pointless. I don’t know Willy and his daily activities and his views mean nothing to me.

The Vanity blog there is no way this could have an impact on print journalism. This blog was pointless to read unless maybe you knew the person but otherwise it was someone voicing there opinion. The informational blog did have some great information but it was still someone's opinion and someone giving advice on where to go on vacation. Real journalism consists of real factual information that you can rely on.

I would say a good blog would be one just like the one on roller coasters (http://travelaroundthe-world.blogspot.com). This blog actually had a good point and decent information that many people would actual find helpful and would enjoy reading. The Vanity blog was more of a personal journal kept by someone about their life and no one really cares to read about what's going on in some random person's life. I personally don’t care.

The research that I did for this blog strongly supports my thesis. Blogging has not significantly impacted print journalism and it is never going to make a huge impact.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

E-Zine Vs. Blog

I went to the site CNN.com and read the article "Actor Heath Ledger dies at 28" for the e-zine. I then went to http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com and read the blog called The Death of Heath Ledger by Sewell Chan.

Mostly everyone knows by now because of our infamous media that Heath ledger was found dead on Tuesday. He was only 28 years old. He was found in his bed next to some bottles that contained sleeping pills and anti anxiety pills. His death is believed to have been caused by an overdose but it hasn’t been said for sure yet. It has been declared as an accidental death. Who really knows what was really found with him and how exaggerated the story was made by the media. In my political science class we were talking about Heath Ledgers death this morning and someone said there were rumors that he was found naked curled up with pills next to him, another rumor was that he was at Ashley Olsen's house. The media will seriously take any little rumor or story and run with it and turn it into whatever story they want no matter how damaging it could be to someone's reputation or name. The autopsy is still being taken place on Heath Ledgers body so hopefully within a few days we will know for sure the real cause of his death and get the real facts instead of all these rumors but who knows what fact from fiction is in our media today.

Both the e-zine and the blog were very professional. They both described basically the same thing and both gave the same facts which I'm very surprised. Most blogs that I come across are a lot more opinionated and lean more towards someone's ideas or beliefs then it does towards the real facts. It was very easy to find both of them. I just searched my topic in Google and it gave me news articles and it gave me blogs to look it. I would say the article from CNN was more credible just because I know it's an actual journalist writing the article but both the blog and the e-zine gave the same information. Our media today will run with almost any story if they think it will help sell papers or get more people to view their websites so it's hard to say that any news is credible today. For example, earlier today it was said on television and online in the news that Heath Ledger overdosed and was found in Ashley Olsen's apartment. The autopsy wasn’t done yet so that can't claim the cause of death yet and it was later confirmed that it was Heath Ledgers apartment. I would probably feel that an e-zine and a printed news source would have the same credibility but a blog doesn’t have the same credibility as either. It really also depends on the printed source because news weekly or the signal, or any type of newspaper would be more credible then a gossip magazine such as US Weekly or People.

The research I found supported by thesis. Blogs will never have the same credibility as a newspaper does. On a scale of 1-5 I would give it a 4. It somewhat supports my thesis.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Entrepreneurial Blog

http://www.arielgore.com/

http://webdesign.about.com/cs/weblogs/a/aa061603a.htm

http://bloggingforbusinessbook.com/blogging_for_business/shameless_promotion/index.html

Blogging is definitely a good way to promote a business. So many different people and businesses use blogging to let people know all sorts of things about themselves or there business. The first website I found basically was this woman who was a writer and wanted a way to communicate with her readers and also on her blog she let her readers know when she would be reading her poetry and other writings out loud at different places. She was advertising through her blog. The second and third websites talked about how people use blogging to help their business. It is an easy way to keep in touch with your readers or your fans or whoever might be interested in whatever you have to say. It’s a quick way to respond to people, to advertise and let people know what to look for in the future. It’s all about marketing through a blog.

Entrepreneurs could market themselves by advertising in areas that their audience would be. Posting up flyers, advertising in different magazines, and in local newspapers are a few other ways they could advertise. Blogs are a very effective and quick and easy way to advertise. You can update it daily and it’s free and everyone can look at it. You can respond to your audience quickly, post up new information, always keep people updated, and they are easy to read. You can put up news about what’s coming up and promotions and specials or coupons or anything that might possibly get people interested in you or your business. These blogs are very effective as long as the blogs are easy to find.

Blogging might be a great way to advertise or to use as marketing but this would never be the only source for marketing for someone. Blogging would be one of the many ways someone would market themselves or their business. The benefits are that it is a cheap and easy way to advertise but it might not be the most effective way. So I still support my thesis that blogging hasn’t impacted print journalism. Blogging might be growing and people might find many different reasons to form a blog but people are always going to need print journalism and someone’s online journal isn’t going to really affect the print journalism industry. Did the research material I found support or not support my original thesis? I rate it a 3. It didn’t support or not support my thesis.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Blogging

Hey everyone. My name is Amanda Duncan. I’m taking Journalism 100 online because taking an online class is convenient for me with my busy work schedule. Also, this class is one of the requirements that I need for my AA. I’ve taken online classes a few times before and always enjoyed them. I’m really looking forward to this class and this project as well. I’ve never had my own blog before or kept any type of journal or anything so this is new for me and I’m excited to see how it works.
Blogging has definitely grown a tremendous amount in the last few years and is very popular with so many different types of people. It has become a quick way to discuss different topics with anyone around the world almost instantly. It’s a place for people to voice their opinions and basically say whatever they want to say, it just so happens that it is posted up online for everyone to read. Journalism has been around way before blogging. In fact blogging is a form of journalism. Even some journalists have created there own blogs or have communicated with people through blogging. It is a convenient way to receive information, voice your own opinion about a subject, and get responses and feedback from people almost immediately.
I disagree with the statement that blogging has significantly impacted the print journalism industry. Blogs don’t necessarily have to tell the truth. Anyone can post up anything they want on a blog. How is someone supposed to know if it is fact or fiction? They are opinions people are posting up and people are responding back with their opinions. Real journalism involves researching and finding the facts. Even with blogging people are always going to refer to journalism for the real information. Magazines and newspapers go through so many steps before being given to the public so the information is made very interesting, its been researched, and were given the facts that went through a long process before being in the hands of the reader. A blog is not so secure. Blogging I'm sure has had some impact on journalism, like I said even some journalists have turned to blogging, but we will always need print journalism and blogging wont make that big of an impact.