A few weeks ago I moaned about the lack of 'real' blogs in the UK - that is blogs that weren't written for commercial reasons, or to drive search traffic.
Today comes a perfect example to test this view. Liverpool Street railway station is closed, meaning that hundreds of thousand commuters have disrupted journeys to work on the first working day after new year.
Using Google blog search I have found 30 relevant posts from 'real' blogs, including:
Another Day Wasted
Meeester Nik
Everything has a limit
First Late Western (admittedly, a rail-specific blog)
It all started with Barging
So - a few great blogs - but not many. Many of the 30 posts were mainsteam news sources, and a few were blatant 'flogs' or fake blogs, for example promoting jobs in the area.
I stand by my original point that Britain is not home to an army of bloggers. Yet.
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6 comments:
Hi Dan,
Where do you think blogs written by people in the ad industry fit into this. Most are not writing for their company to get business and have to post a disclaimer. Most would probably say its a way of learning and ordering your own thoughts but then why do that in public? Anyhow check me out... www.thebobal.blogspot.com
Hi Dave,
Great blog!
I'd say that they weren't 'real' blogs in most cases - they're industry related, and generally about selling yourself or your company. But I do occasionally go off topic (& off spelling) and write about stuff that is personal to me. Yours is more personal than mine!
Cheers,
That's one of my 'blurred lines,' i.e. business is personal - most of the best imaginative companies seem to be passion projects. Anyhow seems you get up to plenty of personal stuff that makes it onto your blog e.g. Eric Clapton eat your heart out.
Erm Dan, i think my blog is kinda real. I mean I write very little about the work I do, normally I can't bloody talk about it anyway.
It's all just stuff that interests me, from comics to data ownership theory...updated daily.
And it's shame that you didn't know me when you wrote that last post in November as I write about digital music from time to time and used to author a weekly newsletter on the subject to 3000 subscribers...
Hi,
Yes, yours is real, and great. I visit regularly, and I take my hatt off to you for updating so regularly.
But the point that I was trying to make is that yours is in the minority, and that there aren't (yet) zillions and zillions of real blogs written by people in Britain. What sparked my original post was being at a conference where people were taking it as gospel that you couldn't do anything in the world without an army of bloggers writing about it (28% of people write blogs was how one statistic was presented) whereas in actual fact it's stull very much a minority sport, and many of the things that you find when you search blogs for specific subjects, using either Google or Technorati are basically 'flogs'.
I should have stood up at the conference and said something, but I didn't want to be like someone from a Bateman cartoon - http://www.hmbateman.com/gallery_4.htm#A
Ello there, my names steve and I run Another Day Wasted, may I say thanks for sayin my blog is one of the few "real" brit blogs around.
I would like to say that is true, but Im a sell out meaning many people wouldnt agree with you on that, but it is nice to actually have it listed as a real one... and no have hate mail posted to me.
Loving the blog and I must admit your 5 points are so true and hard to find a good blog
(1 - not updated regularly
2 - very off-topic
3 - completely unread (or rather no one had ever commented)
4 - spam exercises to get high rankings for words like iPod
5 - professionally run operations with infrastuctures (Engadget officially counts as a blog), rather than personal endevours)
I really should try to keep my posts/ideas in one place, I tend to go abit insane on some posts.
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