Maiden post (week 2)

I guess introductions are in order - my name is Owen Cole and I'm studying IT at QUT. This is my first time creating anything resembling an academic or corporate blog, although I have of course been active with other social media systems such as Facebook in my personal life. I'm looking forward to seeing the ways that social media usage has shaped and continues to shape society and businesses.



I haven't done a great number of business subjects, so some of the concepts introduced in this subject might take a bit to wrap my head around, but I'm always up for a challenge! I hope that I will be able to produce some decent quality posts and learn the most efficient way to present/create a digital persona.

Blogs, as the evolution of newspaper editorials brought into the technologically integrated modern world, present a unique spin on the news, changing from one blogger to the next. Part of the attraction, for most readers, is that bloggers provide a filter for the news - most blogs are about a specific subject or subject area, and so fill a specific niche. Although blogs are usually opinionated (to varying degrees), this very fact is part of their appeal.

One of the best ways for a blog to achieve readership is through visibility and crosslinking with other blogs and sites on the same topic. This encourages readers with similar interests and also establishes the authors credentials. Initially, I won't be promoting this blog outside of the INB346 group but obviously the methods are there.

I don't tend to read many blogs as I have a poor tendency to keep up to date on them (and there is nothing worse than finally getting a chance to catch up and realizing you're 15 weeks behind - may as well not bother!) but one source I do follow pretty close to daily is Huffington post and some of its hundreds of blogs. Huff-post is an interesting example because it is a cross between old-style centralized journalism and newer decentralized journalism, with many writers all over the world writing opinion pieces on many subjects, but with a larger organization lending weight and authenticity to their words.