Do you know what is meant by the expression, "the long tail"? Click here to read this article in AdAge. The long tail... marketing... advertising... blogging... it's all connected.
Note: the article titled "Three Ways to Ride the Long Tail" was published August 29. AdAge content is only available online, free of charge, for one week after publication.
For your bloggerly consideration:
The first issue of Access magazine hit the stands this week at SJSU. Get it, read it, form an opinion about it, and write about your opinion. By virtue of being a student here, you are a member of the target audience of this publication. Do you feel the articles are appropriate for, and interesting to, the audience? What role does this magazine serve? How does it affect the SJSU community?
Sudeshna Sen Gupta, a grad student here in JMC, is working on a thesis on why people watch reality television shows such as American Idol, and what gratifications they get from it. So if you watch such shows and are willing to talk about it, please contact Sudeshna at rinisen79 at yahoo.com or 408-836-2383. She's offering to schedule the interview according to your availability, and to provide refreshments.
Most bloggers offer RSS feeds of their blogs. Many other content-producing Web sites, such as radio stations, magazines, newspapers, etc. offer RSS feeds for their content as well.
An RSS feed allows you, as a reader, to subscribe to receive notification whenever your favorite site is updated. You can receive these feeds via email, or you can sign up at Bloglines and configure yourself a Web page to aggregate all your daily reads.
Bloglines is for both bloggers and readers. (All bloggers are readers, but all readers are not necessarily bloggers.) Bloglines also allows you to keep track of how many readers have subscribed to your blog.
Don't know what to subscribe to? Here's a suggestion, for starters: Simon Dumenco, a.k.a. "The Media Guy," writes a weekly column on AdAge.com. Find his colum, find his RSS feed, and subscribe to him.
At the SJSU Bloggers meeting last night I met Steve Sloan, who is the head of the help desk at SJSU, and also a faculty member in the School of Journalism. Did you know that Robert Scoble is a graduate of our School? (Do you know who Robert Scoble is? If not, click on that link and find out.)
Steve told me about a new course being offered this semester for the first time. It's Journalism 163, New Media and Journalism. You'll learn all about blogs and podcasts. And if you're serious about journalism as a career, you need to have a blog. It's the first thing your prospective employer will ask you. (And, by the way, MySpace doesn't count.)
The class, 163, meets Tuesday nights, 6:00 - 8:45 in the lab on the second floor of DBH. Enrollment is limited, so if you're interested go sign up today.
Advertising Age magazine reported today that My Space, the phenomenally popular personal Web space community, is moving into a new format — a print magazine. Click here to read the article. (Note: You must register with AdAge to read their content, and it expires after a week or so.)
There's a meeting of the San Jose Bloggers at Tony Soprano's, 87 E. San Fernando, at 6:00 tonight. I will be there. If you can make it, I hope you will be, too. For more information about the meeting, click here.
Welcome to MCOM 72, section 03, at SJSU's School of Journalism & Mass Communications. I am your professor, Lilly Buchwitz.
As part of the requirements for this course, you will become a blogger — but not just any kind of blogger. Not the kind of blogger that writes about politics or the kind that writes about technology, and definitely not the kind that writes about what they had for breakfast that day.
You will be a blogger who blogs about media and society.
I look forward to meeting you, and to getting to know you and your blog.
Thank you for choosing to be in my class.
