Blogs, Blogging | featured news

A mystery blogger who appears to have close access to the daily activities of China's new leader may be the leader himself, say China watchers. The blog "Study Xi Fans Group" has posted pictures of Communist Party Secretary General Xi Jinping's trip to northwest China along with detailed updates about his busy schedule.

The design of Tumblr, the blogging tool and social network, is guided by feeling. In particular, the feelings of David Karp, the company’s 26-year-old founder, whose instincts tend to run counter to current Web conventions. Tumblr does not display “follower” counts, for example, or other numerical markers of popularity that are viewed as crucial social-media features, because Karp finds them “really gross.” The culture of public friend-and-follow reciprocity that theoretically expands a social networking service can, in his view, “really poison a whole community.”

That was the headline on a conservative blog following a $2.5 million judgment this month against blogger Crystal Cox in a defamation case tried in federal court in Oregon. It’s a case followed closely in both the blogosphere and in the traditional media, as it highlights the proliferation of blogging, the blurring of lines between journalists and bloggers and more libel cases born out of blog posts.

The Philadelphia-area high school teacher who was suspended for blogging about some of her "lazy" and "frightfully dim" students will get her ...

A new entry to a blog purportedly written by a Syrian-American lesbian living in Damascus asserted the saga was a hoax, as the male writer of the post claimed to have penned it all.

A Canadian man who blogged about his battle with cancer has died, but not without leaving a post-mortem message. "Here it is. I'm dead," read the last internet post of Derek Miller, who died last week after more than four years of blogging about his struggle with colorectal cancer.

The understanding was Arianna provided the platform, I provided the content, and the hope was (on my part anyway) that at some point the combination of the two would land me a paying gig, or up my profile (or in the case of people I know, up their consulting fees and/or land them publishing deals) etc.

Long-form blogs were once the outlet of choice, but now sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are favored.

I know, like many webmasters you must be already familiar with many of the techniques of optimization; but are you making the most of them?

Ultimately they will extend coverage and fill the gaps, not kill the industry.