Gavin's Blog · Blogging

De traffic

18/4/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 4 comments

I note with some worry that Mr Mulley and Mr Major (not John) have seen their traffic hit the circa 1 million mark. My position as one of the most trafficked (1.3m) Irish blogs is fast diminishing.

Oh woe is me. What am I to do?

Coughlan in the UAE

27/3/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

The FF website isn’t exactly clear where she was though.

Does that mean she was in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, or both? Or does someone think Abu Dhabi is in Dubai?

The Blog Awards 2008

5/3/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

It was my third annual visit to the blog awards this year. And as ever it was nice to meet some of the faces behind blogs. Unfortunately there were many I wanted to meet, but didn’t.

I actually spent most of the night talking to Anthony and Michael Nugent. Joe, as ever, was great to chat to. Other than that there was a brief chat with Simon, Rymus, Sandy, Treasa, Annette, Bock, and er, that was about it. I did want to speak to more, but was negligent in my blog networking.

Congrats to the well deserved joint winners in my category, Limerick Blogger and Maman Poulet, both very much deserved. I did not expect to be nominated not to mind win - my blogging has been hit and miss at best over the last 12 months. And my mini-obsession with the Mahon Tribunal doesn’t help in keeping loyal readers happy.

What impressed me the most however was the turn out. For years I was ranting on about how eventually there would be 1,000’s of Irish bloggers, and now there are. I guess I spotted the trend early, back when there was a dozen or so Irish blogs, but it is fantastic to see such a vast range of topics and interests, even more categories to give awards under than I would ever have expected.

For my own part, it seems that my blogging prime, thus far, was in the period 2002 - 2004 before my return to university. Certainly in terms of both traffic (2,500k a day), comments (several per post) and posts (7 -8 per day), that was when I was fully committed. But that university thing is finally ending, thus allowing me more time to dedicate to things online (hopefully).

At the start it was just this blog, but of late it has branched out into other things.

The Mahon Tribunal wiki was started in December 2007, and has taken a huge amount of my time so far. I feel it is worth it though. Categorising and indexing all witnesses over five years has been time consuming. And there is still a tonne left to do. YouTube videos and Google Maps have also been added, hopefully making the very complex Tribunal easier to understand.

Then there’s the Resign, Mr Ahern Facebook group (2,200 strong), and the upcoming event (April 12, protest) which I have been remiss in organising of late. Added to that is digging into the RTE archives and ripping stuff onto YouTube. All time consuming. Oh and then there’s my full time job, my dissertation, my essays and my exams in May. And lectures that I usually miss.

So by June, most of this stuff will be sorted. And, hopefully, I can start ramping up my posts on here. Back to the good ol’ days you might say. I know from cookies and comments that many of my most loyal readers (some of you are here several years), have stuck with me, and still return several times a week. To you, I say thank you for your patience.

Here’s to a more consistent blogging future.

Defamation

20/2/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 4 comments

If I were to reconsider my decision to pull a post relating Monica Leech, would there be legal repurcussions following the decision of the court?

Maybe Eoin can enlighten me.

Blog awards

11/2/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

The shortlists are up. I have been nominated in the best news/current affairs blog category. Cheers to the person who nominated me :).

I guess I should do some link whoring or something to all the other nominees. I am a regular reader of many, so do check them out:

Best Blog Sponsored by PutPlace

Best Photo Blog Sponsored by Pix.ie

Best Arts and Culture Blog Sponsored by Poetry Ireland

Best Political Blog Sponsored by Digital Revolutionaries

Best Group Blog Sponsored by Salesjobs.ie

Best Personal Blog Sponsored by Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group

Best Use of Irish Language in a Blog Sponsored by Edgecast Media

Best Technology Blog Sponsored by Bitbuzz

Best Designed Blog Sponsored by BB Gardens

Best Sports and Recreation Blog Sponsored by Boards.ie

Best News/Current Affairs Blog

Best Specialist Blog Sponsored by iQ Content

Best Newcomer Sponsored by Edelman Dublin

Best Business Blog Sponsored by FirstPartners

Best Music Blog Sponsored by DownloadMusic.ie

Best Food and Drink Blog

Best Crafts Blog Sponsored by This Is Knit

Best Popculture Blog Sponsored by Weeno Media

Best Blog from a Journalist Sponsored by RedFly Marketing

Faking Facebook

7/2/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

What a curious thing. This week someone by the name of Simon Coveney, and using a picture of a TD of the same name, joined the Resign, Mr Ahern Facebook group. Interesting, I said to myself. I wonder if that could be the same guy. He did post about broadband over on Damien Mulley’s blog just last week, so it’s not impossible that he has just joined Facebook.

But being the nosey guy I am, I looked at his friends, whose friends I in turn looked at. Before I knew I had a smorgasbord of Irish celebs - many of whom keep their friends list public, but their profiles private. Either it’s a really big spoof, or they haven’t figured out that I can see their friends lists.

Coveney (or whoever setup the profile) has six friends.

Robbie Fox (Renards) (62 friends)
Declan Gill
Gerald Kean (Lawyer to the stars)
Gayle Killilea (Wife of Sean Dunne)
David McWilliams
Tara O’Leary

But dig a little deeper into the friends of friends, and all of a sudden there’s the entire Sunday Independent crowd. Hmm. I have deep suspicions. Many of the profiles on the face of it are fake, the photos look like promo shots rather than personal photos (though I can hardly talk)… maybe some are real, maybe some are fake, maybe they are all real.

Maybe someone should make a graphical representation of who knows who. Other profiles that I came across on my travels…

Leigh Arnold (Surgery soap?)
Izabela Chudzicka (Er know that name from somewhere)
Gordon D’Arcy (Rugby)
Barry Egan (Sindo)
Glenda Gilson
George Hook (Really? Looks too young)
Brian Ormond (Not locked down, looks legit)

Glenda Gilson’s profile (is it real?) has 189 friends, including:

Pauline McLynn (Mrs Doyle) (129 friends)(Friends with Graham Norton who cleverly turned off the setting of seeing his friends)
Gordon D’Arcy (No sign of Brian OD)
Andrea Roche
Brian Ormond

But what is interesting is seeing who mixes with who..

Barry Egan (20 friends) is friends with

Gavin Lambe Murphy (Who has 35 friends? That all?)
Paddy Casey (looks fake)
George Hook (the son?)
Robbie Fox

ARGH the list goes on…take a nose for yourself.

Update: Hmm. Within minutes of this post, Barry Egan asked to be my friend. Is this the work of Chancerdom, or Twenty perhaps?

Mahon wiki

2/2/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I just found out that the Mahon wiki is displaying incorrectly in IE6 and IE7, and can’t figure out why. Any suggestions?

Blog Awards - nomination

30/1/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

Some kind folk have nominated this blog in the best political blog category. I can’t say I deserve it, my blogging has been hit and miss of late, thanks to time consuming projects like finishing my BA, working in the Irish Examiner, working on the Mahon Tribunal wiki (yes I am still working on it). But the nomination is much appreciated…

Others nominated:

Irish Election
Slugger O’Toole
Cedar Lounge Revolution
Damien Blake
James Lawless
El Blogador
Mamanpoulet
Bock The Robber
That’s Ireland
1169 and Counting
Harry McGee
Gavin’s Blog
Seamus Ryan
O’Conall Street
Notes on the Front
Dominic Hannigan
Skin flicks
Political Verse
Organized Rage
Ciaran Cuffe
Dublin Opinion
Tuppenceworth
Balrog
Everything Ulster
Richard Delevan
AtlanticBlog
Eric Byrne

Anonymous releases full Tom Cruise video

25/1/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Anonymous are really going to town on Scientology. Good. But it’s likely won’t stay on YouTube for long.

What a freakin dumbass:

And Colbert with his take:

Dissertation topic

23/1/2008 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

1. History

2. Module:

Machiavelli’s World: Political Ideology from Renaissance to Revolution

This seminar will trace the development of modern political ideologies out of a variety of contexts in the early modern world. A wide range of key authors will be considered, from Machiavelli, Luther and Erasmus to Hobbes, Rousseau, Voltaire and Paine. Their texts will be used to examine topics such as the relationship of church and state, the role of morality in politics, ideologies of imperialism, the growth of natural and international law, the rise of the media in politics, and the idea of popular sovereignty.

3. 8,000 words maximum.

4. Ideas for title/topic for the period.

Any thoughts?

I was thinking of something to bring in blogging. I know it has been done in the past, but I am sure I could find a unique line on the development of media during the 18th century and the development of blogging in the 21st century.

Answers on a postcard please, to the comments section below.

Tribunal test podcast

5/1/2008 in Blogging, Irish Politics, Podcasts by Gavin Sheridan | 5 comments

Myself and my friend John Dennehy have put together a test version of a Mahon Tribunal podcast.

It’s about 30 mins long and weighs in at 39mb and represents Q1 - Q159, up to the yellow hair comments on Bertie Ahern’s controversial first day of evidence in December. We shaved about 10 minutes off the actual time it took to ask the questions.

Do bare in mind it is a test podcast, and we are looking for feedback. Comments and criticism are welcome. There are some small errors, but it is accurate overall.

You can listen to it here.

Facebook momentum

3/1/2008 in Blogging, Irish Politics by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

The Resign, Mr Ahern group continues to grow. Newstalk 106 have been in touch and asked if I could go on the Declan Carty show at around 11.15pm tonight. I should be on, subject to time slot changes.

1,073 members, and counting.

Happy new year

31/12/2007 in Blogging, Irish Politics by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

… to all out there in the blogosphere, to all my readers, and to everyone really. 1,000 strong against Ahern is now the official figure, what a great new year’s gift!

De Facebook group

30/12/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

The Resign, Mr Ahern Facebook group is close to its first 1,000 members. It has also been listed as one of the most popular groups both in the Ireland network page and the UCC network page.

Thanks to everyone for joining, and here’s to the next 1,000 members.

De Christmas

25/12/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

Happy Christmas to everyone out there… and especially to my readers. :-)

I received a copy of OS X Leopard, which is rather nice indeed…

Posting

10/12/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Posting will be light, I’m weighed down with assignments for university. All should be better at the end of the week.

1.3 million

2/12/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

This humble blog that I started back in the summer of 2002 passed the 1.3 million visitor mark recently. I am very pleased reaching this round figure, hehe.

I’d like to thank everyone for visiting over the years, and I hope to improve on my blogging and my level of output over the coming months. If you like what you read, please subscribe.

Technorati ranking

23/11/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I have long since fallen behind in ranking on Technorati, especially after they reviewed the way they rank blogs, prioritising freshness of links over volume. But of late there has been a resurgence, probably because I’ve started blogging daily again.

Taint keeps a list of Irish blogs by rank, and at the moment I’m somewhere near the bottom of the top 50. Not bad at all.

Since I have been off the radar for quite a while, I wonder how would I best shout out to newer bloggers, or indeed to long time bloggers who I may need to ping to ask for a link. Perhaps if I just created a single entry with a link to everyone on planet.journals.ie?

Adverts

5/11/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

As readers may have noticed I have Google Adsense on my blog. I have installed Donncha’s plugin for only showing irregular visitors who drop in via searches of the archives, but it does not appear to be working. Can anyone advise?

I expect that most regular readers hate seeing the ads, so I would like them to disappear for you guys!

Something odd with Google

14/9/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

For over a year when you typed Burj Dubai into Google, three images appeared at the top of the search. One of them was of a post I wrote, and of a graphic comparing the size of buildings. It generated a good bit of traffic.

Then, suddenly, the traffic stopped. The image remains, incidentally the *very* same image, even linked to my Flickr account, but now the traffic is clearly directed to another website. What slight of hand is being used here?

When I do a search for the image on my own blog, the Google preview shows up as a broken thumbnail, despite it linking to the same Flickr image.

Here is a link to the google search that leads to the guy who appears to have stolen my place on Google. Not sure how he did it.

Here is where Google used to point to when you did the same search. As you can see the linked image is from the same source, but showing as a broken link.

Help please.

Burj Dubai traffic

25/7/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

A recent surge in traffic was due to a picture I put on here being placed number one on Google.

Funny how the surge looks exactly like the building itself.

Anniversary

21/7/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 5 comments

This blog is now 5 years old. Jaysus.

Manhattan explosion

19/7/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

That’s an awful lot of steam. Transformer explosion apparently.

That actually looks like a frickin big explosion. No sign of terrorism yet.

Update: It looks like the crater is huge… and the noise sounds like a leaking main, could take a while to get this one under control.

One person died, at least 16 injured

The steam has now been stopped. The NY Times has some pretty amazing photos of the aftermath.

Licence to Roam was there, and has pics.
Kamal has photos too.

Ah, bloggin

13/7/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

Apologies for the lack of posting. A combination of laziness and tiredness is to blame.

However I have started tagging stuff on delicious, and hope to start using it on a much more regular basis. Just don’t want to find it replacing regular blogging either.

You can view my delicious feed here.

Summer exams

2/7/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 7 comments

I passed! Shocking, considering how poor my attendance was. John and Cian got their results too.

Cian returns

29/6/2007 in Blogging, China by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Cian has posted some pics from his recent adventures in China. So that’s what these young ‘uns do during their summer between college years - feck off to China for a month.

Wouldn’t have happened in my day.

Twenty’s competitor

6/6/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 4 comments

Rabodirect have fixed the spelling mistakes I pointed out some weeks ago. They have a placed a sticker over the old writing, though you can just make out the writing underneath.

Old spelling:

New spelling:

And my post was definitely picked up by Rabo staff, several referrals for ‘Rabodirect spelling’ turned up from Rabobank domains. Victory!

I have also noticed Rabo are offering money to customers who get their friends to sign up. The money comes from someone calling themselves Twenty.

Now I have to wonder why they didn’t hire the blogging prowess of one Twenty Major, himself referred to as twenty by many in the blogosphere.

Or would that be a bridge too far for Rabo?

China travels

6/6/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Fellow UCC student Cian is away visiting that communist paradise where up to 100,000 people open a stockbroking account per day. Now there’s a contradiction.

But where’s the pics Cian?

Pinging Irish bloggers

30/5/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 18 comments

Ok, now that I’m back I guess I should shout out to some old friends and ask that they send some people my way, or even add me to their blogrolls (again).

That would include (in no particular order) thinking out loud, Twenty, Damien, Winds and Breezes, Kevin, In Fact Ah, John Breslin, Keith, UI, Slugger, Bumpf, Free Stater, Irish Eagle, Palgano, Joe, Karlin, Reality, Midnight Court, Rick, Sarah, Tom, Tony, Bernie, Branedy, Donal, Eamonn, EirePreneur, Dossing, Rymus, Tom.

Theme 2

29/5/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I think I will test out a 3 column K2 theme and see how it goes.

Theme

29/5/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

First things first, does the theme need a refresh. I shall have a browse around.

Back

29/5/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I have returned, blogging will begin again in earnest (hopefully). Five year anniversary soon too!

Thestory.ie will continue, albeit restricted largely to finance and new media.

Paul Brady, Shamrock Shore, Longford 1978

24/5/2007 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

New site

14/11/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

I have started a new blog over here.

Bowing out… for now

8/8/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 11 comments

I was reading Dave Sifry’s latest state of the blogosphere report earlier, and something occurred to me.

It may be time to shut down this blog.

When I say shut down, I mean leave it online, but simply let it slide and move on to pastures new.

When I started blogging in 2002, the world was a far different place. I was the type of blogger who emailed dozens of other bloggers trying to get links, writing breaking news, motivated and excited about the power I had. And back then there were only a couple of hundred thousand blogs. It was before Technorati came along, back when everything was still quite innocent.

Part of me wants those days back, but I know they never will be. Blogging has exploded, and now there are 50 million voices publishing on every topic imaginable. And it was great to watch it happen, and great to be there from early on to see so many people put their thoughts and ideas online. It was crazy to watch the established media websites changing and morphing into a new world of dialogue with their readers. And I love that whenever something happens, there is always valuable insight and first hand reporting to be had from all over the world.

Where do I go from here?

My interest in blogging has not abated, but it has changed. I guess when you are blogging this long you become something of a self-taught expert in various technologies, be it search engine optimisation, blogging software, hosting, CSS, HTML, SQL and all the rest. And with that expertise comes a desire to use it, perhaps to evangelise the benefits of blogging to others, to teach people how to communicate well, or how to maximise their potential online. There’s a good bit to learn for new bloggers out there, and there’s alot to learn on the part of all the news organisations in Ireland, who have all failed to fully comprehend the shift that is occurring in how people digest news.

Of course the ideal situation would be to get paid to change the media dynamic in this country to make it more conversational than it currently is, mixing an interest in blogging and new media with a wish to change traditional media for the better. Both disciplines can learn from each other and it would be nice to be part of a process to make those changes.

But for now, I will be happy with tracking the development of blogging and how it may affect the media, specifically in Ireland. And I would also hope that with the increasing volume of blogs in Ireland, that the sense of community that has existed will still pervade, no matter how large the number of bloggers, or indeed their audience.

Blogging on a regular basis will cease on this address. But it does not mean I stop blogging, it will just be a change in direction.

I have a few ideas on how things can improve, and how things can change, and will be working in the background to bring these things about. Hopefully with time they will come to fruition.

I will be posting again, I’m just not sure when, or what about.

For now, it’s good night and good luck.

Update: Many thanks to Eamonn for his kind words, and even a poem!

Comments

8/8/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 1 comment

Comments are broken. Not sure how or why…

Reutersgate

6/8/2006 in Blogging, Middle East by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I was following the alleged staging of photos at Qana story, but this new scandal is much more straight forward. The picture was obviously photoshopped, Reuters has apparently apologised for the photo.

That’s some pretty bad photoshopping.

LGF has the expose.

More Reuters oddities here.[via Samizdata]

Quietest month

2/8/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 4 comments

I’ve just realised that July 2006 was my quietest month for posting since I started blogging, with a total of nine, yes NINE posts.

Whatever next?

A link

31/7/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Another UCC student joins the blogging fraternity. Click over to John Mortell’s blog.

What’s another year?

19/7/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

This blog is 4 years old today. I never thought when I started this blogging thing that it would last this long, but it has been a rewarding and beneficial experience.

Things have been quiet of late since I started working at the Irish Examiner, but I hope to get back into the swing of things shortly.

I guess I should go through the obligatory stat rundown, I do love stats!

2757 posts, 13,393 comments. 50,000 spam comments caught this year alone.
1.024 million visits.
1.53 million page views.
527 Technorati links.

Revamped

4/7/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

Rymus has revamped his photo blog and my it’s impressive. How long before he’s getting published in national papers? Not long I think given his skills.

Off

3/7/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I be ill. Foreign Affairs popped through the door today though, so at least I have some reading material.

Simpsons on Conan

30/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

It does feel weird to watch people do the voices without seeing the characters. I think the guy who does Homer will be on the Week in Politics on the BBC next Thursday night.

Fired

27/6/2006 in Blogging, Technology by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

The Comcast guy has been sacked. Poor guy.

Comment spam issues

24/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 5 comments

In the last few weeks I have noticed an increase in the amount of comment spam coming my way. Akismet catches most of them, now standing at over 37,000 comment spam caught. It increase by between 500 and 1000 a day.

Today I came across this. It appears to be a log for spammers, of whether their comment spam were successful or not. If you change the 1 in ‘log1′ in the address bar to 2 you see more pages of it.

More interestingly, if you go to here, it appears to be a form for actually sending spam. If you try to access the actual domain you get ‘directory listing denied’. You can send 1000s of comment spam per second…using various text formulas.

Evil spammers!

UCC and blogging

17/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

Damien links to the list of blogs on UCC’s servers. I have to agree with Damien, and I would love to see more students blogging, it would be an interesting way of interacting with other students and, indeed, lecturers.

Unfortunately I don’t think there was a specific decision made to start students blogging. UCC installed new mail software last year, and gradually made it the de facto software for all students early this year. A default feature of the software they installed, SurgeMail, is the ability to create blogs. Not great blogs either by any means, but blogs nonetheless. Despite the feature being available the takeup has been small, and many blogs were abandoned. So underwhelmed was I by the experience that I never blogged about it.

Again I have to agree with Damien and Donncha, install WPMU!

UCC should sit down and think seriously about getting itself a blog policy, and setting out on a deliberate path to encourage students to start a blog on day one of their student life. It would engender debate and skills in critical analysis, and give a greater sense of community among students online.

But did Bebo wipe out the chances of this happening?

Caption

13/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

Write your own caption.

I thought I’d seen it all…

11/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

It’s always been said that there are blogs about everything, every topic under the sun they say…

Probably for the first time I have come across a blog that covers a subject I had never in my wildest dreams imagined…

Cats that look like Hitler

1,000,000th visitor

11/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 9 comments

1,000,000 visits!

I know it doesn’t come from people who look at the latest entries, but the combined numbers of people who drop in somewhere on the blog, be it the latest entry, or the oldest one.

1423 days ago I started blogging, back when the blogosphere was a far different place. I never for a moment imagined that my blog would lead to so many things, meeting so many great people both in Ireland and around the world, amongst hundreds of other smaller things. Hundreds of debates, thousands of posts, thousands of links. The explosion of blogging in Ireland has been spectacular, and it was great to be there to watch it from the start.

Thanks to everyone who dropped in over the last 2,049,120 minutes! (I do love stats!)

1,000,000th visit recorded as:

Someone searching for “clipart + paris” on google.ch
From the city of Murten in Switzerland
Using Firefox on Windows 2000.

:-)

Enterprise versus Death Star

11/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

Finally the argument is settled.

And the winner is…

Greensdale on the blogosphere

10/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Incidentally, I found some of the links in the previous piece via Roy Greensdale’s blog. He has a comment piece in the Guardian today about delving into the world of the blogosphere. I might as well quote the whole piece, it’s worth it. I’ve added emphasis for good quotes.

I am at the bottom of a learning curve, a neophyte blogger nervously trying find my way around in a new world where everyone else who has been there for the past couple of years seems so at ease. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that I feel again like the trainee journalist of some 42 summers ago, continually worried about whether I am doing the right thing. Then again, I’m just as determined as I was then to learn, and to succeed.

Succeed? In a very real sense, that aim is no longer relevant, at least in the old sense. I realise that the meaning of “success” has changed, because one of the truly refreshing differences between the old journalism and the new is its democratic spirit.

Personal success in the old leisurely top-down form of journalism was, by its nature, individualistic. Success in the blogosphere, in the bottom-up form of journalism, is altogether more egalitarian.

It demands that we “professional journalists” understand that, whatever our knowledge, whatever our skills, we can no longer rest on our laurels. We must step down from the pulpit and move among the congregation. We can go on preaching, but we must accept that everyone else is a preacher too.

We have to admit to ourselves that we don’t know everything. We never did, of course, but we affected to do so. After all, we enjoyed the luxury of speaking through our daily megaphone and rarely, if ever, bothered to listen to the voices in the audience. Indeed, we were only faintly aware that there were other voices, and surely there were none worth hearing.

A characteristic all journalists seem to share is an overweening sense of certainty, a belief that we understand every problem (and usually know every solution). Now, in only my second week of blogging, which includes an intense reading of other peoples’ blogs, I can see the flaws in that autocratic attitude.

Perhaps my greatest insight is the realisation that technology - the form - does have a profound effect on content. It should have been obvious. Every previous development of communications, from print to telegraph, from telephone to radio and television, has had a dramatic effect on content.

So what change has the net wrought? Most obviously, it transforms journalism from a largely didactic activity, in both the selection of material and the manner of its transmission, into a conversation. The immediacy and the intimacy of the internet allows everyone to have a say.

I know that it’s easy to abuse the freedom by insulting, swearing, ranting and libelling. But my experience thus far has been altogether more positive. I have been challenged to explain myself better. My assumptions have been questioned. I have been forced to accept that my supposed expertise in journalism is not universally respected. Oh yes, and one particular discovery (doh!): there is no liberal consensus after all.

None of the people who have contributed their thoughts to my blog has been abusive, though doubtless by saying this I am offering a hostage to fortune. That’s freedom, folks, and I accept that there are downsides. Overall, however, I am buoyed by the tone and content of the conversations.

Talking is only one aspect of my blog. Its focus is to act as a kind of noticeboard, pointing people towards journalistic events and developments across the world (in net jargon, it’s called aggregation). Just as importantly, I want to publicise what’s happening across Britain, an ambition not yet realised.

Whenever I attend conferences involving regional newspapers I am told, often with great passion, that national newspaper journalists remain unaware of the fact that good and responsible journalism is alive and well in Britain’s cities, towns and villages. Fair enough. Come on then, regional and local editors, tell me about your campaigns, crusades and scoops.

O’Reilly versus Murdoch, are newspapers worth it?

10/6/2006 in Blogging, Media and Journalism by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

O’Reilly has again been trumpeting print newspapers this time calling them the “ultimate browser”.

The response of Independent News & Media, the owner of The Independent and The Independent On Sunday, to the march of new media had been measured and thoughtful, he said.

Sir Anthony said he believed we are in another period of wild stock-market overstatement for a certain class of media assets. Although this period would pass, in the meantime conventional media - terrestrial TV, cable, radio, newspapers and magazines - had been relegated in many investors’ minds to a “show me your model status”.

Speaking at the company’s annual meeting in Dublin, Sir Anthony said the multiplication of media devices which concentrate on the individual’s needs at any given point had made it much more difficult to aggregate large audiences.

In these circumstances, TV, newspapers and magazines, and to a degree radio, remained the best and the only way for mass audiences for goods and services to be created. However, the internet could yield an extraordinary opportunity to the newspaper industry on the production side in putting together its products at a much lower cost.

“If we exempt newsprint, the real cost of newspapers lies in putting them together - writing them, editing them, producing pages, getting them camera-ready, producing plates, printing, and finally in distribution,” Sir Anthony said.

Asked after the meeting whether he would sell his London-based titles, which are loss-making, he insisted: “No, absolutely not.”

Now this debate has been raging since before I started putting pixels online. What is the place of newspapers in a world where the Internet offers a far cheaper, and some would say more efficient means of distribution?

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, recently mounted a robust defence of journalism and of printed newspapers, dismissing reports that the death knell has sounded for “old media”. This is at the same time as the Guardian becomes the “first British national newspaper to offer a “web first” service that will see major news by foreign correspondents and business journalists put online before it appears in the paper.”

The Guardian has blazed the trail for blogging, all the way back to the first Guardian blog awards in 2002. The new commentisfree portal now boasts 50,000 reader comments and 2 million montly page impressions since launching in March. Rusbridger also says things like:

“What we’re doing, which no newspaper has ever done before, is to take your elite stable of columnists, who are paid, and pitch them into the same space as people who aren’t paid,” he said.

“What is professional journalism and what isn’t, and how do they share the same space? We’re making this up as we go along.”

Have a listen to Rusbridger speak at an RSA lecture here too.

So what is happening? I’m waiting to see, but I think O’Reilly has the wrong idea and is taking an unnecessarily defensive line with regard to new media. I will be posting more about this topic.

Archives screwed?

10/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

My archive page in K2 appears to be well and truly gone. I have tried various means of bringing it back, but she is darn stubborn. Any thoughts?

It seems I’m not the only one with the problem, the K2 page has the same 404.

Web 2.0 shtuff in Cork, boy

9/6/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

Damien has a post up, and there’s a few photos floating around on Flickr.

I didn’t get chatting to everyone, but I did have some conversations with Bernie, Donncha, Rob, Joe, Branedy, Fergus, Ed and a quick chat with Tom and Shel, Salim and Conor.

What a great bunch of people and thoroughly enjoyable conversation! Send me some link love guys! :-)

Web 2.0 prior art?

30/5/2006 in Blogging, Technology by Gavin Sheridan | No comments

I was browsing comments on O’Reilly and came across a link to this. It’s from 1999.

The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop.

Canvas

27/5/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

Just tesing out the Canvas plugin for Wordpress. It is rather nice.

Tom gets Slashdotted

26/5/2006 in Blogging by Gavin Sheridan | 2 comments

Companies really should think about the repurcussions before they send off Cease and Desist letters.

I hope Tom’s server can handle the /. crowd! :)

The backlash has been quite substantial, O’Reilly have responded. Tom has published the letter of their response, it’s not too nice either.

Update: It appears Twenty has written a rather nice letter to Sandra Grayson….

Sony Ericsson W800i Review

23/5/2006 in Blogging, Technology by Gavin Sheridan | 3 comments

After my reliable and much loved Nokia 6630 had an unfortunate run-in with a washing machine, it was written in the stars that I was destined to get a new phone. I eventually decided on the Sony Ericsson W800i, incidentally the same as Ryan’s who lauded the phone’s features.

First off is the 2.0MP camera. I took a few photos at the maximum resolution and found the quality excellent. None of the same grainy issues of the 1.3MP on the 6630. I have only taken daytime photos thus far, and have found them all comparable to photos I have taken on standard digital cameras. There is no flash, b