ThunderDragon Blog

Blogging, according to Wired magazine is “so 2004″:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

I suppose they have a point. The internet has developed since blogging began, with the ease of audio and video embedding and general usage plain old text has become somewhat superceded. And now the MSM has entered in full force.

However, blogging stays alive - just in a new form. Text, video and audio together. Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have taken over the personal diary blogs and the personal posts. It has taken the “what I had for breakfast” and “what I did today” type posts away from blogs and in to a more easily accessible social network.

But it hasn’t - and can’t - take away the topical blogs, such as political blogs. Why? Because Facebook, Twitter etc. aren’t capable of taking those sort of posts and thoughts and making them available to all. Twitter gives you just 140 characters, and Facebook notes are available only to “friends”.

As for the entry of the MSM to the blogosphere, that’s not all a bad thing. Even if it can be said to remove some attention from amateur blogging commentators such as yours truly, they add an extra dimension to the debate and help “legitimise” the process as a form of journalism. As well as that, the inclusion of MSM journalists help publicise blogging and increase readerhsip of all blogs in a roundabout fashion.

So even though blogging has died in one form, it lives on in another.

Other comments: Rory Cellan-Jones @ BBC dot.life (via Mike Rouse on Facebook), Doctorvee.

A new Conservative ad campaign has been launched, showing the changes that a Conservative government will bring to Britain. With the campaign is a new video setting out these changes, which you can watch here, via the new Conservative party Facebook page. David Cameron explains the new campaign in the video below:

One thing I don’t get though is the idea of becoming a “friend” of the party, but not a member. Doesn’t really make much sense to me, but hey.

Facebook really does seem to be getting more media coverage than any social networking site really deserves. Is it really newsworthy that Facebook is to remove the mandatory “is” from status updates?
No, it isn’t. It’s not news at all except for the minority of people who use Facebook and really care about having to think up a status that grammatically follows “[Name] is” or just settling on an ungrammatical status instead.

Really, who cares? It might make users go “oh, that’s good” but then they would get on with their lives. To whom is it really a big issue? So why has it got such a large article - or any at all?

On the Telegraph website, right now this story is just below one titled “Father and son, 5, drown in Spain” and just above an article on former attorney general Lord Goldsmith saying that he would have quit if parliament had ratified to government’s preferred pre-charge detention limit of 90 days.

Really, why?

Source: The Telegraph

Sam Coates [of the Times, not ConervativeHome] is writing the Times’ News Blog during the Conference season. His latest entry is on the Lib Dems Conference focuses on the discovery of Facebook by politicians:

I have to say that I disagree with him. I think it is a good thing that politicians have discovered Facebook, if they use it to actually connect with young people. It’s all too easy to write it off as a gimmick and as a cringe-worthy attempt to be “down with the kids” but if they actually use it to connect with and listen to the young people in their constituency, then it can be nothing but an unqualified good.

The reason that young people are often seen as disconnected from politics is because it operates in a different way to them, in different spheres of human life and society. Politicians have a duty to attempt to connect with all members of the electorate, and they’re not able to connect with the vast majority of young people through the normal means.

Facebook is a good way for politicians to link with young people in their constituency. They can connect with them and hear their opinions. They can find out which issues most concern them, and what they think could or should be done about them.

That politicians are ready and willing to take the initiative to get in contact with and listen to the concerns of young people is certainly a good thing. They should do everything that they can in order to get young people interested in politics, and to hear their opinions.

Even if it can be as cringe-worthy as the uncle on the wedding dance floor.

More than 5,000 people have joined a Facebook group opposed to HSBC’s scrapping on it’s free overdraft on graduate accounts, and have caused the bank to retreat:

That a bank the size of HSBC has been forced to retreat on this policy shows the power that the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook can wield. It wasn’t long ago that Cadbury brought back the Wispa chocolate bar after on-line campaigns.

What their action of ending the free overdraft facility has done is dealt them a huge blow. The purpose of student accounts is to encourage a graduate to continue to bank with them after they have closed that account. What HSBC have done will cause big problems for them, especially with students, both now and in the future. If they are willing to change the conditions on an account in such a way and at such short notice, what will they do in the future? If I was a fresher going to University this September, I know that I certainly wouldn’t get a HSBC student account, and I have every intention of avoiding using HSBC myself.

Whoever at HSBC thought up this idea is an idiot. It has caused a PR disaster for them. I would be surprised if many freshers signed up with them, and if many of their existing student customers did not go elsewhere. the other banks must be laughing, with the problems HSBC have caused for itself.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

The TUC are saying that employers should allow their employees to access social networking sites such as Facebook during office hours.

Except that during office hours, it doesn’t matter if you have a life outside of it. While you are at work, your time is the companies time. When they are paying you to work, they have the right to say what you can’t do.

I don’t think that the outright ban of those sort of sites is a good idea, but there is no denying that the companies have the right to ban them during working hours if they want to and feel that it is necessary. I think that it is unnecessary to ban the use of such sites if they are not interfering with the employee’s work, really, but I also very much accept that the employer has the right to say whether or not social networking sites are off-limits during working hours.

A total ban is never really a very good idea, as it will only inspire people to break it. But the choice is up to the company. If they want to prevent their employees from using Facebook, that is their prerogative.

Sources: The Times, BBC, The Telegraph

Today I received an email [forwarded on a mailing list that should not be used for this purpose] claiming to have uncovered “KKK propaganda and calls to ‘hang golliwogs’ on BNP Facebook groups”. It links - well, rather it does in a painstakingly indirect way - to a petition to get the BNP off Facebook. The email, also a press release on their website, says:

Well yes, one group does have a picture of “Ku Klux Klan members with a sword with the subtitle “Local BNP meeting, blacks welcome”.” It also has an “image spelling out I.S.L.A.M. with the “S” standing for slaughter, “A” standing for Arson.” In the image, the “I” stands for Intolerance - which is precisely what this group are arguing for. Intolerance of a reprehensible ideology, yes, but still - they have the right to be able to express themselves. I’m not denying that certainly the first image is disgusting, but I don’t think that it means that the BNP as an organisation should be banned from Facebook.

The Facebook Terms of Use state, under “User Conduct” that

So Facebook can remove the offensive imagery and text. They should do that. But that these are BNP groups does not mean that the BNP as an organisation should be banned from using this, or any other, social networking site.

They are a legitimate political party. We may find many of their policies and the opinions of many members [which may or may not represent the majority] frankly disgusting, but for as long as they are allowed to stand as a political party, they have the right to make use of these sorts of resources.

To say that they, as an entire organisation, should be banned from Facebook is an extremely dictatorial and excessive overreaction to the problem - and the sort that these people would like to enact against the groups they hate. The BNP are best combated with reasoned arguments and disdain for their views. Holding a petition to have them banned from an internet site just helps them by polarising opinion, making it either for or against.

Saying that “the BNP’s views pose a direct threat and are offensive to many Facebook users” is utter bullshit - you only come across them if you go looking at their groups - I never had until researching for this post. It’s like peering through someone’s bedroom window and then complaining to the police that you saw them naked. Anyone who signs the petition is, frankly, a bit of an idiot. All you are doing is giving the BNP the oxygen of publicity. Let them rot in a dark, dank corner instead.