Commentary

Data Dashboard: A Blogger's Progress

Meet John. He's a prominent blogger who has been toiling away in the tech sector for more than 20 years now. Remarkably, the history of his blog closely mirrors the history of the "blogosphere." John has agreed to publish a selection of his blog posts below, interspersed with comments. Consider it a blog cheat sheet. If anyone asks you to explain the origins of blogs and what's in store for the future, just hand them this article.

January 31, 2000 "Hello! I'm John Jared, programmer by day, über-liberal by night. I finally got my site online. Keep visiting as I post my ramblings, family pictures, and maybe some software best practices."

Comment: Early bloggers were technophiles whose blogs were essentially personal home pages with infrequent updates.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 2:34AM 1 COMMENTS

December 2, 2002 "My site is now at Blogger.com. Posting has become so much easier. Type. Click. Voila! I found a law professor's blog, with daily political posts that have become an alt-news staple. Right now he's on a tear about racist remarks by Trent Lott -- read now! (Why isn't the Times on this yet?) Following the prof's lead, I'm going to focus my blogging -- in my case, on technology."

Comment: New tools opened blogging to the masses, and blogs that focused on specific topics expanded their appeal beyond friends and family -- to readers and advertisers.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 1:14PM 3 COMMENTS

January 31, 2003 "Woohoo! Visit Technorati.com and search for 'technology blog.' I'm No. 3!"

Comment: Blog search engines allowed readers and advertisers to find blogs of interest, and allowed advertisers to compare pre- and post-campaign "blog buzz."

POSTED BY JOHN AT 3:28AM 16 COMMENTS

March 5, 2003 "A good friend has been working for the last six months on a product that will take online video to the next level. Here's the Web site. UPDATE: A journalist from the WSJ called my friend after reading this post. You're welcome!"

Comment: Journalists browse blogs for story ideas, so getting blog mention can lead to more ink.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 12:28AM 13 COMMENTS

April 30, 2004 "A company offered me a T-shirt if I blogged about them. Idiots! I'm not for sale. And if I was, it wouldn't be for a damn T-shirt."

Comment: Some marketers don't know how to approach bloggers properly. Treat them with respect, build relationships, buy ads, sponsor contests, offer products for review. Just don't try to influence editorial content.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 2:20PM 26 COMMENTS

January 31, 2005 "Just discovered RSS (Really Simple Syndication). It lets you 'subscribe' to my blog, so every time I update, you're notified. In fact, you'll get my blog post with the notification, so you don't have to come to my site. Welcome to the world live Web."

Comment: Savvy advertisers caught onto this technology, creating their own feeds and developing engaging blogs related to their products. This drove response and elevated branding.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 4:16PM 14 COMMENTS

November 30, 2005 "Saw a line outside of Best Buy for the Xbox 360. I'll record some interviews with people in line for my podcast tonight. (Note: Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld)."

Comment: New technologies like podcasts and mobile Web browsers continued to set blogs apart. Blogs eventually rival all media channels in audience size.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 5:40PM 131 COMMENTS

February 30, 2007 "My 100th podcast is tonight! Listen to it live through Sirius' new podcast streaming feature. The subject? The rise of on-demand entertainment and ad-supported software. Want to sponsor my podcast? Log in to your Yahoo account and type a 30-second script for me to read on-air. Or just upload an MP3."

POSTED BY JOHN AT 12:28PM 924 COMMENTS

February 30, 2015 "There are now 1 billion blogs, and the most common language is Mandarin (though, thanks to modern translation technology, you'd never know that). I have a large following in the Philippines, and 75 percent of my income now comes from international advertisers."

Comment: We should quit our jobs to write a blog on blogs.

POSTED BY JOHN AT 3:28AM 429,368 COMMENTS

Greg Rogers is director, strategy & insights, and Adam Ghahramani is media strategist, both at MEC Interaction, the online, search, and direct response business unit of Mediaedge:cia. (greg.rogers@mecglobal.com and adam.ghahramani@mecglobal.com)

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