ScooptWords blog

Pimp my Typepad blog

If looks are important, and they are, and you have a Typepad blog, you could do far worse than check out Typepadhacks, a blog by John T. Unger. He caught hold of a need - how can I make my Typepad blog better? - and is blogging tweaks and hackwizardry on a daily basis - much of which is garnered from the masses of blogbrains that gather around his three month old blog.

At ScooptWords we're all about selling blog content, selling words to print publications. What John's doing is quite different, but there is a related point here (honest). In a way, John's selling himself, his brand. He's now a recognised Typepad expert who could (probably) walk into a job at SixApart before the end of this year if he wanted to. Typepad themselves would do well to consider formally incorporating Typepadhacks into the Typepad brand. Or does Typepadhacks have more value to Typepad as a completely separate, independent entity?

The whole idea of 'selling a blog' has yet to catch on, but it will. I know of one blogger who is in talks about selling his two blogs to a mainstream publisher and becoming part of a larger network. It's all part of the same game: making cash from your content, from your brand. And making your blog more functional, more pretty, is another important part of that. Typepadhacks will help you get under the bonnet of your Typepad blog to do the necessary if you're so inclined.

What's going on?

Plenty Scooptwords background to devour with Robin over at Cybersoc with Kyle Macrae and myself stepping in to the comment box to answer Robin's plea,

So it's like blogburst. But the bloggers will get paid for content. Or maybe not - they've invited along the Creative Commons people. And lawyers. Oh dear, I am confused now!!! Someone please tell us what's going on!!!!

But if you haven't got time, the 7 inch version of answers to Robin is as follows; No. Yes. And Be patient, we will.

Guided by bloggers

Tim's got a very 'Tim' - and therefore entertaining, informative and concise - rundown on what NightCapSyndication is all about. Key point for ScooptWords sign ups,

One thing we want to encourage is for editors to think of bloggers as potential freelance writers for their magazines and newspapers. So we have a system (in association with ScooptWords) so that an editor can actually purchase a piece here for publication. We’re rather of the school of thought that blogs won’t "beat" the mainstream press but we may well infiltrate it.

And they want,

Anything cogent, well argued, interesting, different. Short stories, humour (yes, you can tell from that we started in the UK) news, opinion, editorial style pieces, travel, cartoons, crosswords: all of the normal things you would find in a newspaper unconstrained by space. We expect pieces to have already been published elsewhere, probably on the writer’s own blog. For the writer you can think of this as advertising, another place to get the word out. For the reader, a guide to some of the interesting writers out there. For editors, similarly, a guide to people willing and able to provide you with things to fill in the spaces between the advertisements.

All of which makes sense... to me. Another cog in this whole experimental process of getting cash for quality blog content. Meanwhile look out for Tim's opinion piece about freelancing and blogs later this week in the Press Gazette.

What the people want

Great wee story, tenuously linked to citizen journalism, highlighted at Poynter.org,

Conventional wisdom states that news sites must update to attract readers. Well, quite the opposite happened on Norway's site Bergens Tidendes (bt.no) this week.

Instead of giving heavy coverage to the recent Scandinavian Big Brother finale (in Swedish), bt.no decided that an ultra-short and to-the-point article (in Norwegian) would suffice -- adding that they probably would not be updating...

...The whole article reads: "Jessica won Big Brother. Jessica is 21 years old and comes from Kalmar. The first prize is one million Kroner. Bt.no probably won't come back with more."...

...after having been e-mailed between friends and referred in other media, it attracted 25.000 readers during Tuesday, according to NA24 Propaganda (Norwegian).That kind of readership is usually reserved for much bigger stories and happenings on Bergens Tidendes.

Says Bergens Tidendes news editor Anne Gjerde: "We have never had so many readers for such a short article."

As popular as reality TV shows are, it is refreshing to see one news site take a stand, discard sheepmode and report only what needs reporting and free up space for more interesting and important stories. Unless that is, the front pager on that day was a 'cat in a tree' piece - I'm afraid my Norwegian is rather rusty to understand the website - But bravo, Bergens Tidendes.

Bloggers seek out journalism tips

Interesting observation by Spencer Critchley over at O'Reilly Digital Media,

"It surprised me to learn it, but one of my most-cited posts has been 10 Journalism Tips For Bloggers, Podcasters & Other E-Writers. It turns out there’s a lot of interest in using the web not just for sounding off, but for practicing real journalism. And as in so many areas–music, video, politics, etc–the amateurs are crashing the gates that formerly protected the pro’s."

Is this an early indicator? As non-journalist bloggers get more serious with their blogging, they're more inclined to sharpen up their skills, become less bloggy and more journalist(y)?

Another blogger's perspective

Neil Baker, UK-based journalist, editor and the blogger behind An Idle Writer, has had a wee preview peek at ScooptWords and here are his thoughts,

It's an interesting idea. I like the fact that you're honest about having no idea how it will evolve! Very English. The  Americans who hype the hell out of it.

As a freelance, the thought of being able to spend all my time researching and writing articles, while leaving all the selling and billing to someone else, would be a dream.

And like many freelancers - especially in the UK - I'm still hand-crafting tailor-made products for individual editors, when I could be re-selling more generic pieces globally.

As an editor, I'd happily buy articles through this route, if they were journalism. The problem is that most blogs I read do not fit the journalistic form/genre. Even if they are well written, accurate, etc they do not look like journalism. Dropped into a mag or paper, they would look out of place. But these things change. It will be interesting to see how one genre effects the other - will mag/newpaper articles start to read like blogs, will your bloggers write like journalists?

Fascinating for me - it's like watching a lab experiment of the issues my MA covers!

It is already interesting to see how blogging is effecting journalism and vice versa. There is no blogs vs. journalism thing going on. What is changing is the delivery mechanism. Blogs are leading the way there and also allow almost anyone to have a go. Many folk who are having a go are producing compelling copy. If there's money in it for their efforts, we'll try and help them find it.

A blogger's perspective

I took one ex-journalist/PR/VSO volunteer & blogger, Steve from Our Man in Hanoi, through ScooptWords to see what he thought. Here's his reponse,

It's interesting and I like it. I would certainly be interested in putting a button on my site just out of curiousity if nothing else.

One thing strikes me though. As an example my weekly blurb is of no interest at all to any newspaper or magazine. But then again there might be someone in the media who is interested in profiling what it's like to work in Vietnam, or what it's like to be a VSO volunteer, or just want 400 words on Hanoi or whatever. If they liked what they read on my site then maybe they might commission me to write something. I'm already on the ground and hey, I'm cheap.

So alongside offering what I am already writing for sale, would it be possible to create a database of bloggers who can write on certain subjects?  Maybe we can tag ourselves as to our areas of expertise. For example, mine might be vietnam, hanoi, streetkids, vso.

Back in my days as a hack filling up countless pages of commerically driven copy I used to have to write whole holiday supplements without leaving my desk. If I could find a blogger in ten different parts of the world, commission them to write something on their locality and get the copy ahead of deadline then that would be great. I guess that goes even more so for pictures. But there is nothing in my site that could be cut and pasted to a newspaper without someone saying: "What's a xe om" or whatever.

Sure you might turn up some juicy celeb pics but then again they probably won't end up someone's blog anyway - they'd be hawked to the press straight away. If they did end up on a blog then everyone would just nick it anyway.  Of more interest, blogwise might be disaster areas, wars, protests etc. The citizen journalist's point of view if you like.

But I guess one big scoop would pay for all your efforts. But a lot of this will simply be down to how you sell it to the media. I can see the likes of the Guardian really going for it. And for cheap filler maybe local and free papers. But again it might be through commissions rather than stuff they can take wholesale.

Hmm...that was all a bit of a rant in the end.  In short, I like the idea.  I can see current limited interested but that may grow as interest in blogging grows.  Just maybe you're on to something.

Interesting points. Thanks Steve. We're already working on having a pool of blogger/stringers affiliated to us and available for commissions. We also believe newsworthy items first reported on blogs will be of interest to some editors. You're right there is a limited market, but that market will grow.

According to Technorati (and from memory) the blogosphere doubles in size every six months. As of today Technorati is tracking 41.3 million blogs. Double that six months hence and you're well deep in madnumber territory. However, probably only something in the region of 0.5% of all English language blogs will consistently produce saleable content, or at least content that can be edited into printworthy copy. That's still a huge number of blogs capable of tapping into the paying market.

Beta mantra

Robin from Cybersoc links in to the ScooptWords blog follwing Tim's mention at the increasingly sharp looking NightCapSyndication. We're still a bit half dressed here at the blog, so apologies to passers by. The ScooptWords site is up, and like Tim says re: NightCap, we're also in beta mode, approaching alpha, but beta will be our mantra while we faff away in the background. Please hold on till we're ready to 'go live' as I believe the saying goes. I have now mapped the DNS of this blog - I'll be perfectly honest and add that I don't know what that means in normal words, but I do know you end up with a snazzier looking url than Typepad can offer, which is nice. The domain name is www.scooptwordsblog.com. Welcome

Big Blogger

Comment is free, the Guardian megablog which I also write for, has launched 'Big Blogger' to find the next big blogger for the big British blog. Comment is free headgirl, Georgina Henry, explains,

Prompted by those of you who have argued that not only is the debate on most of the threads not as bad as I sometimes make out, but that in many cases is of higher quality than the posts by some "professionals", we are now seeking nominations for the best commenters on the site, one of whom will officially join us as a regular blogger.

Fabulous idea. I can see the successful blogger garnering a bit of press, loadsa linkjuice and will eventually, like all of us, stand or fall on his or her words. It's an interesting model the Guardian are experimenting with at Comment is free. I'll blog about it more at a later date. I can see ways in which a service like ScooptWords can tie in with, or emulate, blogs of this kind in the future. Good to see our friend Tim Worstall from NightCapSyndication in with a shout of winning Big Blogger.

Blog school

The Telegraph blog has published a style guide for blogging journalists, reports Robert Andrews at journalism.co.uk,

"Many of our journalists wanted to start a blog but were new to the medium," news editor Shane Richmond told journalism.co.uk. "They wanted to engage more with readers, to share observations and thoughts about their work and the field in which they operate as reporters - but they needed a little guidance.

"The style guide sets the parameters for our blogs and offers a few pointers about how to approach this new medium. What it doesn't do is specify word use or set a standardised structure for blog posts." 

And here is the Telegraph Blogging Style Guide. Richard Burton (not the dead filmstar) encourages experienced bloggers to air their thoughts on the guide,

I know we have a lot of bloggers who frequent this site and I'd like to hear your thoughts on what we've got right and what we've missed out...

Suggest away. There's more: lessons in blogging. Interesting. A newspaper, founded in 1855 asking readers for advice on how to write. Has to be applauded really.

My own thoughts run slightly contrary. I personally would not want to use any style guide for any blog ever. Many blogs I like have quite distinctive mannerisms and voice. However, that's not all blogs or everyone's style. Many bloggers aim for a journalistic style. Healing Iraq for example. A dentist turned blogger soon to de-dentist and train as a journalist.

However, if - like all you ScooptWords sign ups - I wanted to sell a particular post on my blog, a style guide - with an eye on journalistic integrity - might well be a handy tool...

FWIW, on my noodlepie blog I do try to include the answers to 'what, where, who, when, why and how' questions when I write a restaurant or streetfood review. Everything else, IMO, is wordwank - entertaining, but nothing more. For blogs like noodlepie you should be able to take out all the I, me, mine, sentences and still have at hand the information you need to replicate the experience described in the post - or at least find a street vendor selling the best sandwich in Saigon...