I went to journalism school, which just might make me a “better” blogger. Here’s why I think so.

First of all, I learned to write in the “inverted pyramid” style, which says “start with a lead that exposes the most important elements of the story first, and then work down the page to aspects of the story that are of decreasing importance.” It’s a simple way to organize my writing.

I also learned how to properly use attribution, something which, when done wrong (by my standards) drives me crazy and is borderline dishonesty and/or theft. When I reference someone else’s blog, or an article, I’m very thorough and conscientious about clearly pointing out where the information came from. A typical attribution I might write would look something like this:

Tom Goldstein, writing in the August 21 San Francisco Chronicle, quotes Scott Rosenberg’s Book Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters:

“blogging could be journalism any time the person writing a blog chose to act like a journalist - recording and reacting to the events of the day, asking questions and seeking answers, checking facts and fixing errors.”

It might be a little pedantic, but heck, with that much information, you could find the source of the article I quoted without the link. And by the way, Rosenberg is on to something. There are plenty of bloggers who don’t act like journalists, but should.

As far as I’m concerned, for a blogger to “act like a journalist” is for the blogger to apply a few basic principles to blogging, like research, fact checking, correcting errors, using some kind of consistent style of presentation, distinguishing fact from opinion, and so on.

What else did I learn in journalism school? Keep paragraphs short for readability. There’s no magic number of words or sentences, but if your paragraphs look too dense, break ‘em up.

Emulate the pros. Some great bloggers to learn from are Dave Winer, and Tom Foremski, the first professional journalist/blogger.

Use a style guide. I don’t always follow it, but I do my best to write to Associated Press (AP) style. A style guide will tell you things like “write out numbers that are less than 10, and use numerals after that.” A little consistency is awesome.

Find your own unique voice. I’ve found mine, but I’m not sure it’s the right one. I can be a little too sarcastic, and (You might have noticed), I get all parenthetic. It’s my way of representing online the way I really talk. I tend to wander and introduce tangents, parallels and diversions, hopefully returning to the original thread. But I digress.

Write about something new, but if you can’t, find a new way to write about something that already exists. I recently wrote a column for Talent Zoo titled “Famous Dead People Weigh In On Social Media.” I quoted McLuhan, Einstein, Edith Wharton and others and used their quotes to make various points about the state of social media. I’m not saying this was an act of genius. And I didn’t write about anything “new,” but I did write about something in a new way.

Read voraciously. I mentioned emulating the pros, which I try to do, but I also read constantly. I have a book in bed and another in the bathroom. I read in the bathtub. If there’s nothing else to read I’ll read the ingredients on a toothpaste tube. I have a reading compulsion, and much of it happens offline.

So there’s a bit of what I learned in journalism school. I hope you find it helpful. I went to a state school, so if I was going to charge for this it wouldn’t be much, so you can have it, gratis.

Tags: blogger, journalist, journalism, inverted pyramid, attribution, Tom Foremski, Dave Winer

Randy Cohen, “the Ethicist” for the New York Times, responding to an educator’s inquiry about Facebook ethics, wrote:

“…when these students gave her access to their Facebook pages, they waived their right to privacy. But that’s not how many kids see it. To them, Facebook and the like occupy some weird twilight zone between public and private information, rather like a diary left on the kitchen table.”

I’m not sure about the diary analogy. My daughter keeps a diary, but she’s at an age where I would not be shocked by its contents (and in fact, I wouldn’t look at it any way.) I believe we should get to know our children directly, and not by “hanging around with their friends” which might be a better Facebook analogy for parents.

And that’s the crux of it. Facebook updates (this varies with prvacy settings) are easily seen by friends, parents, educators and perhaps more importantly, law enforcement and potential employers. So no analogy other than “sending a full written report to the agency of your choice” really works here. Any other is clever, and perhaps stimulates conversation, but can lead to some serious online faux pas.

Tags: Facebook, privacy

When “pitching” social media marketing and communications initiatives to management, there is a tendency to overestimate the potential response rate based on the sheer number of people on the Internet. Internet World Stats, for example, estimates as of March 31, 2009, there are 1,596,270,108 people online worldwide. That’s right, over 1.5 billion! According to the same data, there are 251,290,489 people online in North America. It stands to reason, then, that a North American social media campaign reaching just one per cent of those online would have a response rate of over 2.5 million people.

Therein lies the fallacy. We are accustomed to thinking of three per cent and four per cent as “small” (think profit margin, interest on a loan, or return on an investment.) But one per cent of a really big number is a really big number. And just because there are millions of people online does not ensure a million responses to our campaigns.

Remember, before there was an Internet, there were tens of millions of Americans and no aspect of any campaign (except maybe a Super Bowl commercial) even came close to reaching all of them. Simply because a marketing campaign is launched online does not guarantee a large number of respondents. Response rates are dictated by things like a compelling offer, targeting the right audience, and finding the right timing and medium, not by “throwing something against a wall of several hundred million people and hoping it sticks.”

Tags: Internet, statistics, unrealistic, estimates, social media, success

Technorati’s new Twittorati (launched July 7, and not last week as some sites are reporting) will feature tweets from what Technorati thinks are the top 100 bloggers. This gives Technorati its coveted “business model” (everyone wants to be the Digg of Twitter), but it has numerous shortcomings in terms of presenting users with useful and interesting content. First, it assumes that the tweets of the top bloggers are as interesting as the their blog posts, never mind whether the blog posts are that interesting. (Thanks to TechCrunch for the best headline on this topic “Twittorati Will Show You How Awesomely Fascinating Bloggers’ Lives Are (Or Not).”)

Second, for the 12 million people on Twitter, Twittorati reproduces the same links from the top bloggers like Guy Kawasaki and Ariana Huffington that users are already bombarded with through hundreds of Twitter RTs.

I have a great tool I use for following the top bloggers on Twitter. It’s called Twitter. And if I didn’t, I would set up Google Reader or a NetVibes page with Twitter and blog RSS feeds from only the top bloggers that interest me. Why would I need yet another aggregator that doesn’t give me any choices?

Finally, so much of the most interesting stuff is coming from newer bloggers, up-and-comers, people writing outside the core blogging standby subjects of IT, politics and entertainment. And how many blogs from outside the U.S. are on Twittorati? I’d venture to say “none.” So much for a diversity of voices, though I understand that is not the intent of Twittorati.

I’m super cynical, and not sure I get Twittorati, and what differentiates it. I wish Technorati the best with this. And I hope they keep indexing my Technorati tags correctly. I appreciate it.

Tags: Technorati, Twittorati