UK visits to blogs on the rise: 1 in every 84 web sites

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June’s UK Internet usage statistics suggest that blogs are enjoying a massive surge in popularity, with one in every 84 web site visits landing on a blog. That’s up 101% in the past three years, which is greater than more traditional web sites such as news and media sites.

Rather optimistically, some are suggesting that this proves that blogs are proving more popular, or that the UK populace suddenly understands blogs and deliberately seeks them out…

Opinion – Why the Observer's '50 most powerful blogs' feature proves print media knows nothing about new media

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Katherine Hannaford writes…

Last week, when reading the upcoming features for the next issue of the Observer Magazine, I was worried to see they promised an article entitled ‘The world’s 50 most powerful blogs’. Old media reporting on new media? It could only mean trouble, and stir a generous helping of some angry-sachet into the big online pot.

When having my weekly Sunday morning lie-in in bed with a copy of that day’s Observer, I realised I overestimated the knowledge of the journalists writing for that paper, and indeed, the magazine. Sure, I can’t tar them all with the same brush, considering the Observer and its brother-newspaper, the Guardian, have internet-savvy journalists like Bobbie Johnson and Jemima Kiss snuggled under their wings, amongst others. But what I saw before my eyes on the morning of the 9th of March angered me greatly.

It appears I wasn’t the only blogger infuriated over the dubiously-named list of ‘powerful blogs’ (available online here). The 26-odd commenters who’ve shared their opinions on the article online all agree, as do thousands more across the world, that the list is possibly the worst, most confusing collection of so-called blogs ever put together. Collaborators Jessica Aldred, Amanda Astell, Rafael Behr, Lauren Cochrane, John Hind, Anna Pickard, Laura Potter, Alice Wignall and Eva Wiseman, you should hang up your Bloglines accounts for good. Although I’m guessing one of them, if not all of them, doesn’t even know what an RSS Feed is, according to one of the many mistakes they made in the summary about Engadget…

Opinion: Creating our own content will never replace traditional media

Jon_smal.gifJonathan Weinberg writes…

2012, the year London is set to host the Olympics and also the year Nokia reckon a quarter of all entertainment will be created and consumed within peer communities. They think that in five years time, traditional media as we know it now, will begin to die out further with personally-created content becoming the must-read and must-watch for Internet users within their friend networks and social community sites.

But I just can’t see it. There’s no doubt it’s becoming more and more popular to make your own videos and post them on the web for all to see, but 99 per cent of it is absolute tosh – like the man who can juggle dogs while standing on his head drinking a glass of water and playing the harmonica! PS: Don’t try that at home, it doesn’t exist and we don’t condone cruelty to animals, I just use it as an illustration…