Main blogs for your industry
One of those dumbass things you notice – Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft does not have RSS turned on their official press release/media site. This means that instead of being able to subscribe to their news in say my.yahoo or igoogle, you have to go to the site and check for new news. None…
One of those dumbass things you notice – Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft does not have RSS turned on their official press release/media site. This means that instead of being able to subscribe to their news in say my.yahoo or igoogle, you have to go to the site and check for new news. None there? Try back again tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.
I’m always coming across companies not having RSS turned on their press releases – gosh, most of them publish a PDF file, and expect you to open it. But does one expect it from a MMORPG (massively mulitplayer online roleplaying game)? Nah they should wise up.
By the way, one of my RSS groups is “major social networks”. These are the feeds I subscribe to, in that group:
See? Nice and organised.
When one of these guys blogs, we all blog our opinion back. In a way, they are like traditional media. They provide the original source of content that usually creates our discontent. Heh. Google releases a new product and we go mad. YouTube changes rules, we blog it. Facebook puts in recommendation ads? Vilified online with millions of media hits.
These are not like Engadget, or TechCrunch or Techmeme or Mashable blogs that discuss the state of the industy. Mostly they are using them for press releases – to announce news for bloggers to pounce on, and tweet and so on.
What is your industry? What industry blogs do you follow? What company blogs do you follow? Or do you read an aggregator/commenter blog..?
… and I really don’t understand Blizzard not having RSS turned on. Though I guess with 11.5 million players, it’s likely that someone will copy and paste the material into an easily consumed format.
1. a way to check sites without RSS for updates automatically = http://www.web2mail.com
2. If industry blogs = people who I respect in a particular industry these are some examples:
* Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik – http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/ – Web Analytics
* Out of My Gord by Gord Hotchkiss – http://www.outofmygord.com – Search Engine industry
* The Technium by Kevin Kelly – http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/ – Search for the Meaning of Tech
I think I was trying to say – and not very clearly 😛 – was that company blogs that only have company news and not industry news can still be interesting. So you won’t catch YouTube waffling on about video news other than YouTube vid news, nor LinkedIn talking about much else than LinkedIn. See?
Then the rest of the blogs take their news from “primary’ company blogs and create “secondary” discussions.
*sighs* I’m still not being clear…
You know it’s funny; there is one very successful YouTube video creator who I never understood. But I was reading The Daily Telegraph a week ago, reading the letters and editorials (about nothing of very much interest) and I had such a revelation!
The purpose isn’t to provide information so much as it is to get people excited (or “pissed off” to borrow from the local vernacular). And then people would react and respond, either being asked randomly off the streets of Sydney for their opinion, or adding comments via email or snail mail or SMS services.
And then these people would buy the newspapers again (or read online), react to new articles as well as other people’s reactions to their earlier feedback.
My heart sunk a little.
Isn’t this what the much heralded “conversation” is?
Does this mean that the most “engaging” forums will be not those that offer the greatest insights and quality information, but merely those most talented in arousing emotional frenzy in others?
John Lacey’s last blog post..Networking Promotes Dialogue… Maybe
Yeah exactly. We like to read things that rile us, get us excited. We used to yell at the ‘telly “What are you thinking??!!!” now we do it on blogs. From passively content to aggressive discontent in a heart beat.
It’s called linkbaiting and it’s worked for talkback radio hosts for ever.
I’m pretty sure that the corporate blogs I’m talking about don’t intend to linkbait, nor do traditional media. It’s just that every social network I’ve ever worked with doesn’t like change, and likes to react with “NO!”. They moan about the colours being changed, additional features, and whatnot.
But lately I’ve had a revelation, too :). It’s just debate. We have become pretty politically correct – you have to indicate your disagreement in a very agreeable way or you are “trolling”. Even a “I’m sorry, I don’t agree” is viewed harshly.
How do we find a balance between the two? How can we be passionate advocates for change in a polite, genteel way? Beats me 😛