Another Blogger Dooced

Blogger petite anglaise has been fired for blogging about work and blogging while at work. She joins the ranks of the infamous Heather Armstrong of dooce.com, who was also fired for blogging, and for whom the term "dooced" was coined from.

Link via Nikkiana at everytomorrow.org.

The 1% Rule

About 1% of Wikipedia's 25 million visitors each month contribute content to the site. Same rule may apply elsewhere as well. Any community, it's theorized, depending upon involvement and contribution by it's members can count on about 1% of it's members to actually pitch in and help out. Only 1% of us are contributors to a community. The rest are consumers.

-Shlog

Diary-X

In An Open Letter, Diary-X's Stephen Deken says this:

Diary-X has suffered from an unrecoverable drive failure. Due to a combination of issues, the last backup (from December 2004) contained only configuration files and other non-essential files. We do not have any other backups for the site. All journals, user information, forum posts, templates, images, and everything else are all irrecoverably lost... I believe it makes the most sense to close Diary-X permanently. Tentatively, the site will go dark on March 31st, 2006.

But going to diary-x.com says they are going to rework the site and Diary-X will be "reborn." Wikipedia says this:

As of March 2006, a community project is underway to construct a site which combines the features popularized by Diary-X with more modern features popular on other services. This community project, called Codexed, is headed up by a group of eight people. The administrator of the original site plans to contribute to the new project, but will not be involved in the administration.

According to answers.com, in 2005, Diary-X hosted approximately 120,000 journals, of which approximately 8,000 were being actively updated.

Old Diary-X users can register their new site here.

Changes

I am currently working on re-vamping Dialog: Breaking the Bubble. Stay tuned for updates in the next few days!

The Great Canadian Blog Survey

Offering a look at "a snapshot of the Canadian blogosphere in 2005", the results of The Great Canadian Blog Survey, as compiled by Aaron Braaten and CanadianEconomist.com, can be found online here. The survey was conducted over a period of three weeks in September, 2005. It asked bloggers and blog readers various questions that enable in-depth analysis along 25 different variables. Overall, 1146 responses were collected.

General Interest:

50.3% of Canadian bloggers and blog readers are between the age of 18 and 35.
• Bloggers and blog readers as a whole had an increased probability of being married when compared to the Canadian population in general.
• 71.5% of Canadian bloggers and blog readers are male whereas 28.5% are female.
• 47.7% of respondents earned $45,000 per year or less. Alternately stated, 52.3% of respondents earned an annual salary above $45,000 per year.
• Canadian bloggers and blog readers tend to be more highly educated than the Canadian population in general. The largest clustering of education levels was around the Bachelor’s level, with 56% of respondents reporting a level of education at or beyond the Bachelor’s level (Master’s and Doctoral).
• Bloggers and blog readers are more likely to be unemployed than the average Canadian.
• Bloggers tend to be younger than blog readers.
• Bloggers had a greater tendency to be single, whereas blog readers had a greater tendency to be married.
• Blog readers had a higher tendency to be male than bloggers.
• Blog readers reported higher incomes than bloggers did. This supports the theory that blogging entails an opportunity cost of time – the higher the income, the less likely one is to blog.
• Bloggers were more likely than blog readers to have attained a level of education equal to Bachelor’s and Masters level. Blog readers were more likely to have a Doctoral degree than bloggers.
• Blog readers tend to spend slightly less time reading blogs than bloggers, but this difference is minimal.
• Blog readers generally read fewer blogs per day than bloggers do.

The Superblessed Christian Blog Awards 2005

What a nice surprise! I was scanning the nominees for The Superblessed Christian Blog Awards 2005, only to find this very blog nominated for Most Educational Blog. I am humbled to be among the following:

1. Ambergrs.
2. Avoiding Evil.
3. Bloggedy Blog
4. Dialog: Breaking the Bubble
5. He Lives
6. Mark Byron
7. Notes in the Key of Life.
8. Real Live Preacher.

You can find the winners listed here.

Thank you Ganns!

The Weblog Awards: 2005

The Weblog Awards 2005 are currently up for voting until December 15/05. You can vote once for each category every 24 hours.

New this year is a category for Best Religious Blog.

Finding Teenagers Online

From the latest email from Walt Mueller at the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding:

There has been a lot of national attention on our area in recent weeks as the result of a murder case involving two home schooled kids from Christian families. Much of the media attention has focused on the kids’ websites at Xanga and MySpace. As a result we’ve been called on by the media to talk a bit about those sites and how kids use them. We have appeared on local television and in local newspapers, in addition to a segment on CNN. If you are somewhat new to the world of online journaling and social networking, check out Finding Them Online, our primer to accessing the online world of teens.

In his latest blog, Splitsville, Walt offers more commentary on that local murder case and how it relates to youth culture today.

The primer includes a great list of popular online journal/diary sites.

The teens that Walt mentioned had blogs, just like many of their peers. Both David Ludwig's and Kara Borden's have been shut down (although screen shots are available at various places around the internet). (See more at Wikipedia here and here)

You may remember last year's headline news telling the story of 16 year old Rachelle Waterman, who kept an online blog as well, and was arrested for the murder plot of her mother. (See more at Wikipedia).

The world of blogging, of online diaries, of teens online, it has done nothing but continue to grow since it first began. In the autumn of 2002, when I first began blogging, I was working on an independent study for college, a course called "Adolescent Subculture Profile." While others in the course chose to study skinheads and skaters and cowboys, I ventured into life online and studied teens online. My paper led me into a new world and gave me a glimpse into the lives of teenagers I had never met.

This study strengthened my belief in the reality of online connections and relationships, and led me to eventually study blogging in much more depth. This Adolescent Subculture Profile helped me to see the need for Christians online in the world of teen blogging.

In my exit interview from seminary, after discussing the research I did later on in my studies (that which resulted in the creation of this website), my youth ministry professor asked me if I really believed that Christian adults could positively influence teens through blogging being themselves. Being a 50 year old man.

Yes.

I still believe this.

However, I caution, that motive is key.

With that, I present the following:

1. Blogging is relational.

Blogging relations are built through commenting and the reciprocal visiting of each other's blogs. However, as "Nexopia's Advice for users of Online Communities" states, "Anyone can be anything on the Internet; someone claiming to be a 15 year old girl may in fact be a 45 year old man." Truth is key. I don't believe that disguising oneself as someone of another age (or gender for that matter)for the sake of ministry is moral or logical in any setting.

I believe the extension of relationship is one of the greatest keys to ministry, and a ministry through blogging illustrates this.

2. Blogging is tribal.

Bloggers tend to link and build relationships with others who are like them. Others who are teens. Others who are interested in Sailor Moon or Harry Potter or Dashboard Confessional. What do you as a blogger have in common with an individual teen blogger? Can you logically be a part of their tribe? Do you have an interest that is the same or similar? Do you have an experience that is the same or similar? Blogging ministry is similar to other forms of ministry, touchpoints of ministry are important online too.

Can the relational factor override the tribal factor? I think so. Do you have to be a member of one's tribe to have effective ministry online? I think not necessarily. I believe that you can still build effective ministries with others even when you do not share the same interests, you do however share some of the same experiences and that is key.

3. Blogging encourages involvement.

I firmly believe that online relationships have the potential to be just as powerful, if not sometimes more powerful, than face-to-face or "real world" relationships. The connections built online through various means, including blogging, for many, are reality. Teens and adults alike consider the bonds they have made with others online to be real. They consider their online friends to be real friends. Teens and others online, especially in the blogging community, will share information with people they have met online that otherwise they would not normally share with someone they were speaking with in the flesh. Is this healthy? I can't say yes or no, it depends on the situation.

And real world relationships can be strengthened through blogging. Blogging allows a venue for sharing that isn't otherwise facilitated through other means. Blogging, through it's nature of being a diary or journal or collection of links, is a sharing device. And through commenting systems and the commenters' blogs, it's a reciprocal sharing device. Blogging encourages involvement.

4. Blogging is out there.

By "out there"... I mean it's accessible to everyone who has access to a computer and an internet connection. Anyone can blog, that is part of the allure and part of the danger. It's a part of the beauty.

I believe that blogging is and should be a ministry tool. I believe that Christians online shouldn't be confining themselves to Christian bubble tribes.

Although David Ludwig and Kara Borden are/were professing Christians, Rachelle Waterman was not. How are these teens linked? They are all teen bloggers linked to murders and murder plots.

A quick look at their blogs reveals typical teen blogs. Typical hopes, dreams, despairs. Taking a look at any of the blogging/journal/diary sites listed at the aforementioned primer on teen blogging at CPYU will quickly show you the hundreds of thousands, if not millions and millions, of teen bloggers out there.

I don't think we have heard the last of teen bloggers involved in crimes, in fact, I think it could quite possibly increase. As the internet and blogging community increases, the vastness of it increases. There's no governing body in the blogosphere. There do not appear to be any effective watchdogs.

Is there anyone out there searching for hurting teens to positively influence?

5. I believe blogging can be a form of incarnational ministry.

Jesus ministered by example. He lived his life out in front of others honestly. I believe we can do the same. Incarnational blogging... what is it and how does it manifest itself? I ask this question of you.

Blog Family Tree

The Politburo Diktat is collecting information to trace "the Blog Family Tree." Information is being collected via email, and includes the the following:

- "blogfather" or "blogmother" the one blog that, more than any other, that inspired the participant to blog.
- blog birth month
- any "blogchildren" the participant is sure they have inspired.

(link via Lone Prairie).

blogs4God Back in Business

Bad grammar and all, the "Semi-definitive list of Christians who Blogs" has resurfaced "with an entirely new format to serve those who live their online life by the question : 'what would Jesus blog?'".

Link via Andrew Careaga.

Canadian Blog Survey

Aaron Braaten, an M.A. candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Alberta is conducting a websurvey on the online browsing habits of Canadians in regards to blogging.

This is a self-funded study that is not financially affiliated with any particular group. The information you provide will be used for two purposes. The first is to obtain data on the online browsing habits of Canadians. A summary of this data will be analyzed and made available to the public, free of charge. The second purpose of this study is to utilize the data for a more technically rigorous Master’s thesis which will be made available upon your request before the end of this year.

For this study, the researchers will be surveying over the population of Anglophone readers of internet content to obtain their opinions about blogs and blogging.

The Great Canadian Blog Survey is located here.

Link via Benediction Blogs On.

God's Blogs : Life From God's Perspective

August 1, 2005 Multnomah Publishers is releasing God's Blogs : Life From God's Perspective, a 256 page book by Lanny Donoho (president and founder of BigStuf Productions and BigStuf Camps). Donoho "consults with leaders of a number of organizations around the country to help them think outside the box and to assist with programming and technology... Lanny's mission for his life is 'to creatively communicate the refreshing spirit of Christ, the truth of His word, and the difference living for Him can make in our lives.'"

Amazon says:

www.Read God's Journal Dot Com The date is April 12, 2007. God has just posted His latest blog for all humankind to read. Since you actually can't log on to the Internet to view such a thing, here's your next best opportunity. God's Blogs is a humorous yet moving, fictional yet insightful book containing a series of online journal entries from God. Lanny Donoho's unique style and perspective allows readers to see things from God's vantage point as He watches the world and delivers His day to day reactions and thoughts. It's God's journal...as envisioned and penned by a human writer, of course. Some are lighthearted, others profound, but each entry illuminates a biblical truth in a whole new way that will meet you right here, right now!

(Source)

What do you think?

MIT Weblog Survey

MIT is currently conducting an interesting weblog survey. Click here to participate.

They are asking questions in regards to personal blogging, blogging links, instant messenger use, and friend/family/acquantainces relationships via these technologies.

Link via prwdot.org.

How Many Blogs Are There?

Blogcount.com asks the questions "How big is the blogosphere?" and "What is its shape, color, true nature?". Blogcount uses a variety of sources and "catalogs efforts to answer these questions."

Recent posts on Blogcount point out the following study results:

Blogging Maintstream in the US

- In the USA, 30% of those surveyed read blogs.
- Of those surveyed, s minority, with 39%, said that they found blogs less credible than newspaper articles. An additional 32% said they either did not know or had no opinion.

MSN Spaces Creates Huge Growth in Blog Numbers

- Microsoft announced more than 4.5 million spaces (their term for weblogs) have been created. That's 3 million added in approximately 90 days, since 11 January 2005.
- Users are updating about 170,000 blogs on MSN Spaces every day and uploading about 1.9 million photos a day.

France's Blogging Community Grows

- 2.6 percent of France's population are the 1.6 million who house blogs on Skyblog... a blogging service run by rock music station SkyRock.

Technorati Trackings Shows Huge Growth in Blogging

- The number of blogs Technorati tracks doubled every 5 months for the 20 months preceeding March 2005.
- Technorati discovers 30-40 thousand blogs daily.

Blog Readers Survey Shows Blogreading Demographics Changing

A survey of readers of blogs which carry BlogAd advertising found the following:
- 75% of blog readers are over 30 years old (up 16%)
- One reader in five is a blogger
- 75% are men (down 4%)
- Half found blogs their most useful source of news and opinion
- 28% use RSS to read blogs

Please go to Blogcount to read more on these posts and others.

The 2005 Bloggies

The Fifth Annual Weblog Awards: The 2005 Bloggies were announced yesterday.

Categories include best blogs by countries and regions, most humourous, best writing, etc., but there is no category encompassing faith blogs, Christian blogs, god blogs, or anything along that line.

Blog Readers

A new CNN/Gallup poll suggests that the large majority of people do not read blogs. The poll found that only 7% of the population read blogs two or three times per week. 48% said they never read them. The good news was that only 26% were "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with blogs -- so not many people have been exposed to them yet. CNN said the poll was based on telephone interviews of 1,008 American adults carried out February 25-27 and that it has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

Source: Bloggers Blog.

I am not surprised at these findings. Although blogging is becoming increasingly more popular, I think that there is still a long way to go before blogging is completely "mainstream." What do you think?

Who is He?

There seems to be a lot of buzz about Hugh Hewitt these days.

Hugh Hewitt is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show heard in more than 70 cities nationwide, and a Professor of Law at Chapman University Law School, where he teaches Constitutional Law... the New York Times best selling author of If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat. He has written (5) other books. Hewitt has received 3 Emmys during his decade of work as co-host of the PBS Los Angeles affiliate KCET's nightly news and public affairs show Life & Times. He is a weekly columnist for The Daily Standard, the online edition of The Weekly Standard. (Source)

He has his own blog at hughhewitt.com, and also wrote Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World.

In his book, In, But Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition, Hewitt suggested the following:

#32 Start and maintain your own Web log (blog).

Hugh Hewitt Inspired Blogs "is dedicated to documenting the blogs that were inspired by Hewitt's advice and to encouraging the community of bloggers that develops."

The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Teenagers

The National Study of Youth & Religion has just published its first major findings after three years of study, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton, published by Oxford University Press.

The National Study of Youth and Religion, is funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and is under the direction of Dr. Christian Smith, Professor of Sociology, based at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They list their purpose as this:

"to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives of American adolescents; to identify effective practices in the religious, moral, and social formation of the lives of youth; to describe the extent and perceived effectiveness of the programs and opportunities that religious communities are offering to their youth; and to foster an informed national discussion about the influence of religion in youth's lives, in order to encourage sustained reflection about and rethinking of our cultural and institutional practices with regard to youth and religion." (Source)

Reasons to Blog

Melinda Penner of Stand to Reason Weblog has an interesting post up based on Hugh Hewitt's book Blog. She says:

The real power, as I see it, in what Hugh has to say to Christians is that every individual Christian can blog and have influence. It’s a great way of sharing one’s gifts, knowledge, and experience with people they’d never otherwise meet. It’s a way for someone who’s shy or embarrassed to express themselves with a bit of cover. An individual Christian’s influence may be a half dozen people, but that is probably a half dozen people you didn’t have influence with before. If it’s difficult to share your thoughts and views at work or at school, write them in a blog and send your coworkers and friends there. Christians have all kinds of gifts and expertise that don’t get used well in the local church; take your ministry in your own hands and blog it – always remembering to be a winsome and attractive ambassador.

Jeremy Thiessen, the so-called Normal Rockstar, points to Melinda's post in his introduction to blogging for his fans entitled To Blog or Not to Blog. He says:

Don't let blogging & your desire for influence replace your relationship with the Lord and those closest to you. Blogging is just like ice cream: it's a good thing in reasonable doses, but too much of it can be a very bad thing. Make sure you set guidelines for how much time you're going to spend on it and what exactly you want to say. And have someone hold you to those guidelines - remember that there are real, breathing people near you who need your attention more than those in cyberspace... keep the main things the main things!

Weblights

Benediction Blogs On continues to post many interesting observations on blogging, the blogosphere, God blogging, and internet information. Some interesting info includes:

The State of Blogging in the States cites a Pew Research study on blogging which notes:

6 million Americans (5% of online Americans) get their news via RSS aggregators
8 million Americans (7%) have blogs of their own
14 million American (12%) have commented on other people’s blogs
32 million Americans (27%) read blogs regularly
74 million of Americans (62%) don’t know what a blog is

Bene asks about women bloggers... where are they in the god blogging realm and how can we interest them?

God -blog Demographics 2005 Part 1 takes a look at some god-blog Aggregators and Lists. Just looking at it briefly reflects the lack of a larger or more unified Christian or God blogging portal. It's been interesting to read about developments in this field these past few months around the blogosphere.

But do we need a larger more unifed Christian blogging or God blog portal?

Teens and webpages points readers to Church Marketing Sucks' post on Designing Web Sites For Teens.

Here and There

Various news items and links of interest from around the Blogosphere:


Dr. Andrew Jackson of SmartChristian Blog posted yesterday about possibly starting a "Christian Blogosphere Portal," and says the following:

...it is becoming harder and harder to introduce the CB (Christian Blogosphere) to new wannabe bloggers, or navigate its many streets and alleys, hills and valleys. Christian Blogosphere Central would attempt to be a comprehensive and informative portal into the world of Christian blogging and blogs.

What do you think of Andrew's idea? You can see the original post and give feedback here. Andrew is also planning GodBlogCon.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released 2 recent reports on the blogosphere and the state of blogging.

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.

The reports can be accessed here.


Bene Diction of Benediction Blogs On is doing another "God Blogging" study similar to one they completed last year. Read about their new God Blog Demographics 2005 study here.


Blogging awards are growing and becoming a bigger idea. The 2005 Catholic Blog Awards, the 1st Annual Evangelical Blog Awards are just some of the increasing many blog awards.

Tsumani

"My name is Anthony Pratley, I am a Youth and Family Director at Trinity Lutheran Church in Frankfort, MI. My high school youth group has started a project to raise money for the tsunami relief efforts. We decided to sell "virtual bricks" on our website at http://www.rebuildinghope.org. Each brick costs $1. Our goal is to sell 1 brick for every victim of the horrible disaster.

Luckily, all of our efforts will be matched dollar for dollar by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Could you please help spread the word? Send emails, post on blogs, forward to your contacts, or buy bricks for friends and challenge them to do the same. Thank you!"