The burgeoning blogosphere : Increasingly popular sites, many local, help create web of knowledge
Posted on Sunday, April 6, 2008
Aubrey Shepherd knew about blogs. A journalist by trade, he didn't want anything to do with them.
"First, I'll have to confess words like blogs were kind of offensive to me," said the Fayetteville resident. There was a reason, too.
"Years ago, [bloggers ] had a reputation as teenagers posting things their parents might not want to see. Now, I believe it's an important tool," Shepherd said.
To say he's come around on the subject might be an understatement. The 67-year-old is now responsible for 14 unique blogs, ranging in topic from one supportive of a local mayoral candidate to one that discusses the need for an increased severance tax on mineral rights in Arkansas. Many others are ecological in nature, promoting conservation and care for the local environment.
Shepherd is one of many who has found that blogging is a fun, unique resource for posting information on the Web. In Washington County alone, there are hundreds of unique Web logs - the name from which blog is derived - discussing such diverse subjects as family-friendly events, art, Razorback sports, even some that resemble diaries. The sites, it seems, are as unique as the people who spend hours each week compiling them.
And the people who create them ? They might be your neighbor. Blogs in bloom Blogs are not new. Their exact history isn't precise, however, as most sources place their creation somewhere in the mid'90 s.
What is widely accepted is that as tools such as Blogger. com, LiveJournal and Pitas. com, all of which launched in 1999, helped speed the growth of blogs. The easy-to-use interface of such sites allows those without advanced computer programming skills to make their own sites, and many took them up on the offer. Online search engine Technorati, which specializes in blogs, is currently tracking 112. 8 million such sites, the Web site says.
It would be impossible quantify the blogs made by Northwest Arkansas residents. But even in this corner of the state, the diversity of those that exist is remarkable.
Shepherd, for instance, grew up with a fondness for the outdoors. Before retiring, he worked as an outdoor reporter or editor for publications such as the Northwest Arkansas Times, The Springdale Morning News and the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette, before the latter two merged into one news organization in the'90 s.
He now spends hours each day taking photographs and adding to his blogs, the links to which can be found on his main site, www. aubu nique. com.
Curiosity led him to create his first blog. He was reading a locally produced site when he saw a link at the top. It stated simply," Create Blog," taking anyone who clicked the words to another site where the user could make their own. That was a year ago, and the number of blogs he keeps has increased ever since. "It's great," Shepherd said of blogging. "If I were more techno savvy, I'd have a lot more."
Finding a target Technology is the key to the blog's ease of use and popularity, Shepherd said. He remembers a time, early in his journalism career, when he would take six photos on his film camera, hoping to get one strong image that would make the paper. He can now post six photos from his digital camera on the same blog post - just minutes after the images were taken.
Shepherd's sentiment about the relative ease of creating a blog is shared by Terri Chadick, a Fayetteville-based attorney. As she searched online for information about where to take her two boys, Lesh, 8, and Eli, 6, for fun, familyfriendly events, she realized there was no central location for such information. So she made one.
She didn't know HTML code, the complicated system of instructions programmers use to make Web sites the interactive tools they are. Instead, she subscribed to Type-Pad, a do-it-yourself blog service that originated in 2003.
Her first blog was called "All Sides of Life. "It included a listing of the family events she spent her evenings searching for. That concept expanded into her newly redesigned blog and Web site," Life + Kids," accessible at www. life pluskids. com.
From those humble beginnings, Chadick has seen a staggering increase in site traffic. According to Chadick, her site is now accessed about 14, 000 times per month, and more than 500 people are subscribers, meaning they receive an electronic notice as soon as she updates her site.
Chadick tries to add new information about four times per week, sometimes even more often. On average, she spends several hours per evening working on the site. Her volume of posting has increased since the beginning, but her work is also easier now. As part of the blogging community, she receives tips from readers who have an idea about the kind of information she would want on the site. Chadick thinks that is part of her success - filling a niche and providing useful information. "My audience is very targeted," she said. I've gotten great feedback, and people are finding it useful.... I think parents are always looking for things to do with their kids, and the Internet is a great resource."
' The more the merrier' Wherever there is a thirst for information, there are likely bloggers trying to fill in that gap. As a result - deep in the heart of Razorback country - there are dozens of blogs that focus on University of Arkansas athletics.
Steven Hankins, a Springdale resident, is part of a group that maintains one of the more popular of those sites, www. razorbloggers. com. The site is an extension of one of Hankins favorite activities: watching the Hogs.
He began sharing his thoughts, photos and experiences via a blog, which he claims was one of the first Razorback blogs in the area. In 2006, he relaunched the concept with a fellow blogger known only as TipsterHog as an early version of what became the Razorbloggers Network. It is just a natural extension of what the pair does, Hankins said.
"We all have season tickets," he said of the Razorbloggers group, which now has four members. "And that makes it easy. … We're going to be at games anyway, and I just love the Razorbacks."
His site is also an example of what can be done with a blog. In addition to his fondness for the Razorbacks, Hankins also enjoys the Internet and its capabilities.
While blogs can be a very simple affair - some are just text and a few photos - others can be more elaborate. Hankins said his site falls into the latter category.
"When you look at ours, it's not just Wordpress [a popular blogbuilding Web site ] code. It's an Internet experiment," Hankins said.
The site contains photos, links to other Web sites and what Hankins believes might be its most advanced feature, a news aggregator. The aggregator scours the Internet, posting any information it finds as soon as it's discovered. The search looks for any and all Razorback data it can find, and it includes regular updates from newspapers around the country. For example, if the Razorbacks are playing the Auburn Tigers, the aggregator will catch all the posts and stories written by Auburn sportswriters in Alabama-based news publications.
The search also scans local outlets, and information from other Razorback blogs or news sites are posted as soon as they are found, too.
"The more the merrier," Hankins said of similar blogs. "We're all talking about the Razorbacks. It's all good fun."
In addition to the stories pulled in by the news feeder, the bloggers, including Hankins, will add what he calls "observational commentary."
"If we think everything is being covered in the local papers, we may not talk about it," Hankins said. "We only say something if we feel we can add to it."
Adding more videos to the site will be the next advancement, Hankins said. As is the case on most blogs, readers are allowed to make comments to share their thoughts on the subjects highlighted by the posts. Comments are frequent, as are visitors. Most of the visitors to the site are from out of state or access the page from elsewhere - people in 108 different countries visited the page in 2007, Hankins said. He attributes that to Razorback fans in the military. "If you don't live in Razorback land, to get all the news, we're a pretty good place to go," Hankins said.
In the name of info There is a term that attempts to summarize the ever-growing world of such sites: the blogosphere. Much attention has been given to the nationwide blogging culture, as it uses the posts and the dialogue created by the associated comments to discuss politics and other hotly debated topics.
Local political issues find the way to blogs as well. One popular blog," The Iconoclast," which can be viewed at jonah-tebbetts. blogspot. com, discusses activities by local governing bodies, mostly notably the Fayetteville City Council and the Fayetteville School Board.
It's author, or authors, remain anonymous. A request for an interview, sent to an e-mail address listed on the blog, received the following reply "Thanks for the invitation, but we have too many personalities to speak with one voice. ' We are large; we contain multitudes, ' as Whitman said, and we would contradict ourself."
Such is one of the quandaries of blogs: how much faith should someone have in a discussion or critique that is posted anonymously ?
Credibility can be granted in the way the blog handles its subject matter, Shepherd argues. Many blogs contain commentary interspersed with information from established news sources.
"You notice on "The Iconoclast," as an example, you see assertions that are clearly opinion. But if you click on the links "The Iconoclast"provides, you do have the opportunity to come to your own conclusions," Shepherd said.
Although Shepherd has been connected to "The Iconoclast"blog by several people, he maintains he didn't create it. He does admit the site is the one that led him to start his own blog.
"If it weren't for that site, you wouldn't be interviewing people about blogs, because I'm not the only one [inspired by it ]," he said.
Anonymity might be a critical element to blogs, even to those who are more forthcoming about their identities. Chadick, whose name appears on her site, has befriended several fellow bloggers she has met through her site. Not that she'd recognize them on the street, though.
They are all part of her community, the one she created, because she thought there was a lack of information about the familyfriendly events in the area. Like the community Hankins and friends started because he had data to share about his beloved Razorbacks. Or the ones Shepherd has created about the city and ecological matters.
It's all about the information, someone no one can get enough of, Shepherd said.
"There just isn't the information flow that we believe we [need ]," he said. "They don't get the information we need to be informed voters, about recycling things.... And I think blogging is one of the ways to do that."
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