Questions for Political Blog Readers

Those of you who read political blogs on a “frequently” or “sometimes” basis, how did you find the blog(s) that you follow?  Was there certain criteria you were looking for (e.g., the blogger had to have a certain opinion on something)?

There was a study finding in the “Why Blog?” paper that stated that blog readers perceive blogs as a more credible source of news than any other news medium.  Why do you think this to be true? (If you even think it’s true.)  Do you agree that it’s because complex information is presented in a more understandable way?

Oh, politics.

Politics.  Ugh.  Not something I’m a fan of – probably because I don’t know a lot about our political system and I think a lot of politicians are crooks.  But, that’s beside the point.  I enjoyed the “Why Blog?” reading this week because if I did have an interest in politics, reading a political blog would be the method I’d choose to stay informed.  I’d find a political blogger with similar views as my own (which might be tough) and turn to them for my political news and updates. 

They call me Koogle.

So what is it about Google that makes it the most popular search engine?  In my mind, it’s the only one.  I don’t think I’ve ever used Yahoo, I use Bing to search for travel only because I think their Price Predictor is cool (and fairly accurate), but other than that, I’m a “Googler” all the way.  In fact, one of my nicknames is Koogle (Katie + Google, for you slower folk).

Questions for Twitter users

In a lot of recent polls, people have reported that their main source of news is Twitter.  I am not a Twitter user, so for those of you who are, why is Twitter such a widely-used news source?  What makes it so great? (Or, better than other sources.)

Two of the readings this week pointed out how Twitter does not have a requirement or expectation of reciprocity, meaning that you can follow someone with out them following you back.  Again, for those of you who use Twitter, when someone new starts following you, how do you decide if you will follow them or not?  Do you even contemplate it?  Or because there is no technical requirement to, do you just let them follow you without even thinking of following them?

I know who’s listening to me

In the I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately article, social media audiences were looked at; mostly, one’s Twitter audience.  I do not have a Twitter account and although I’ve looked at friends’ accounts a couple times, I don’t know a lot about how it works.  The explanation this article gave though, about how one tweets and retweets, helped me understand how determining who your audience is on Twitter is so much harder than on other social media or networking sites. 

Wiki Wiki Whoo!

I love Wikipedia.  Whenever I need to know something about anything, that’s where I go.  Maybe it’s laziness, but I never go directly to the Wikipedia site – I always Google the topic and then the search results lead me to Wikipedia.  I guess I love Google, too.

The Not-So-Private Personal Blog

The beginning of the Blogging as Social Action reading mentioned blogs’ peculiar intersection of public and private, which is something I had a hard time with when creating my first blog.  First, I’ll let you know that I have never been a major consumer of blogs.  Although, occasionally when Googling how to do something, I am led to a blogger’s instructions, which I follow if they seem to know what they’re talking about.  But, never has there been a fashion, gossip, or sports blog that I read on a daily or weekly basis.

I had to create my first blog as an assignment for a class I took last quarter.  It could be about anything.  You’d think that with such wide-open boundaries coming up with a blog topic should be easy, but in fact, that was the hardest part.  What do people want to read?  What do I know enough about to write about?  Do people really want to hear my personal stories?  I mean, I like my life, but it’s not that interesting.