Today’s Dayton Daily News dedicated their Op-Ed page to a discussion of traditional elite journalists vs. the new media darling; the blogger. (It doesn’t do any good to point to the articles since they will be off the site in a week). The articles pointed out all kinds of facts and figures and made wild generalizations about audiences, fact checking and what the future holds.
The fact is information is information- presented by bloggers or traditional media- it’s all bits of data- and the form or forum isn’t important. As Nicholas Negroponte said in his book “Being Digital” – “Bits not Atoms” and this is why newspapers in particular should be nervous. The information contained within the page was all digital at one point- by converting it to a printed newspaper doesn’t make it more legitimate- it just makes for a better birdcage liner. The same goes for a blog- garbage in – garbage out. Fact checking can be bad from any venue- look to the New York Times and the Jason Blair affair or CBS news with the doctored documents on the President’s service records- being a big media giant doesn’t mean you get your facts more right than the guy putting his message out into the world using a blog. With apologies to Marshal Mcluhan- the medium is not the message anymore.
The blogosopher seminar talks about creating content of value to build your web presence, the use of WordPress is just a tool to get visibility in search engines like Google. While the editorials talk about credibility- we talk about visibility. In the new media age, if you create crap you will be found out faster than ever before. It used to be said that great advertising will kill a bad product faster than bad advertising will kill a good product. Misrepresenting your product will not be overlooked- the word will be out faster than you can say class action lawsuit. The new iPod nano from Apple was exposed on a blog 3 days after its launch by an unhappy young man who launched flawedmusicplayer.com (site no longer live) and started cataloging problems with the screen.
You blog is your product represented on the web, it’s up to you to calibrate your data for your audience and to provide useful data for them. Content is king, information is power, and a WordPress blog is just one tool to spread your message.
Don’t get caught up in Big Media’s semantics of what a blog is or isn’t- it is what you make it. WordPress is a content management system- it’s the typographer, printer, distribution system (paper boy) etc. It isn’t the editor- that’s you- and that’s a budding blogosopher.

While the Blogosopher seminar showcases WordPress and how to use it, the course is really about understanding how to build your business and search rank- along with a real comprehension of how the Internet and search work. We mix in a lot of marketing- understanding the building of relationships with your audience- and what you need to put on your site to make it work for you and your reader.
So- as everything now changes in Internet time (faster than a speeding bullet) there are a few new developments with WordPress.
On December 26, 2005 version 2.0 is supposed to be released. It offers a lot of new features and bells and whistles- the best description of them are here on Owen Winkler’s site
While many people always want to install the latest software right away- my advice is always to wait a week, to see what bugs surface. The features that interest me the most are the integrated image browser, which will eliminate the name for a plug-in hack to do this, and a revision to the users feature, where instead of a 1-10 level type hierarchy, you can now assign roles and permissions to each user.
Some changes to how pictures are handled could be good or bad- but it should eliminate the need for gallery type software to display a picture with a description easily (something that should have been really easy). A WYSIWYG text editor is now included making things like bullet lists and tabs and indents much easier.
The interface is different- which will take some getting used to- but this is always the case. A built in Spam catching system may eliminate the need for plugs ins to do the job.
There is one feature still in Beta that really interests me- a Stats panel right in the interface- no having to go to the server to see what’s what- but this may only be a feature in the hosted solution- see below.
The other big news is that you can have a free WordPress blog at WordPress.com – some would say that will be the end of our hosting business– but I think it just proves that you get what you pay for. The free Blogs don’t come with your own URL- that makes for a sloppy url ie. something like blogosopher.wordpress.com, and of course, I’ve reserved it- and put a little bit up. You are also limited to 12 themes with no ability to edit them.
There also will be the question of ownership- and integrity of the authors. A local newspaper reporter has asked me several times about how to figure out the owner of a site on blogspot– www.mydayton.blogspot.com to which I am unable to determine- since the url isn’t a primary. There have been some stories in the blogosphere (not blogosopher) about some sites disappearing– or being deleted. This is always the possibility on a “Free” site.
These are big changes for WordPress- and we’ll try to keep you informed of how they change things as we learn more about the changes ourselves.

We keep telling people- it’s only a blog if you think of it as such- WordPress is really just a Content Management System- that is very easy to use. With the number of options and modifications that can be made- it can be made to do anything a static site can- plus some- with no need for the person maintaining the site to know code.
We’re in the process of adding a small shopping cart to the site, using PayPal to allow people to register and pay online.
It should be fully functioning tomorrow.
Now- we just have to determine our next seminar dates!
If you have suggestions for date or time- please let us know [email protected]