Comments on: One Blog to Pool them All

By: Jess Isler

Jess Isler — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:16:22 +0000

Oh dear… too funny.

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:49:22 +0000

I confess, to my great shame, to using a rhyming dictionary in its composition.

By: Jess Isler

Jess Isler — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:48:17 +0000

Good post title, by the way!

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:20:39 +0000

Increasingly, blogs are moving to the format where multiple authors post about their own, and often divergent opinions on news and events. Here are the top 10 blogs subscribed to through Technorati (admittedly, a selection biased toward technology-oriented people):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://mashable.com/
http://www.engadget.com/
http://gizmodo.com/
http://www.boingboing.net/
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
http://lifehacker.com/
http://arstechnica.com/
http://www.tmz.com/

Of those, only boingboing, the official google blog and TMZ publish under a single (or close to single) author.

Students follow the same basic model with multiple authorship on blogs:
http://midd-blog.com/
http://www.ephblog.com/

Both of which have had one or more past and present authors who were particularly controversial. In my personal opinion, those authors and those posts are what make a blog actually interesting to read. Were it just a series of press release style committee approved posts with no particular flavor or personal style, I probably wouldn’t subscribe to the LIS blog.

If style and content are a bit of a shocker to some… GOOD! Let them be shocked. There’s no better way to start a discussion than to put your own feelings, uncensored out there and see what people think. In fact, I think that was the advice given to us by Fred at the start of this team building process. You’ll notice after reading that post on my blog, and the comments, that I got good feedback on that post, revised my opinion of the project and will be working to develop something that will satisfy a broader set of people.

By: Jess Isler

Jess Isler — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:16:24 +0000

I understand your concern Barbara, but I think that it may be those differences in voice, content, style, tone, et al., that will make the one blog idea a real success (or at least part of why it will be a success). Actually, I think we should encourage LIS writers to “come as you are”, and not to water-down their submissions. I also suspect that having these different voices will be one way to combat the potential stagnation of an overly formal newsletter form (like LISt, etc.)

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:53:27 +0000

Note – my comment “be there” was written before I saw Elin’s suggestion not to meet!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:23:35 +0000

Having read the latest on go/ian, I’m wondering where the blogs that aren’t necessarily private but belong to individuals fit in. There’s Alex, Mike Roy, Chris, Ian. Having not spent time in the blogosphere I’m not familiar with the conventions! Style and content could be a bit of a shocker to users who are being strongly encouraged to enter this world for the first time. But the nature of the beast is to allow thinking out loud & we don’t want to even try to define content. Doubtless I’ll be elaborating on this theme at our meeting – be there!!