2007 Yahoo! Intern Podcast on Blogging

DOREEN BLOCH:: According to the April 2007 from Technorati, an internet search engine for blogs, more than 70 million blogs exist on the internet today. Technorati estimates that 15 blog posts are created every second and that 120,000 blogs are added everyday. My name is Doreen Bloch. I am interning at Yahoo! for the second summer on Yodel Anecdotal. And today, I've brought together a group of Yahoo! interns to chat about the blogging phenomenon. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves?
TIKA WAKEMAN:: Hi. My name is Tika Wakeman. And I am from Massachusetts. But I go to school at Hobart and William Smith College, class of '09. And I'm a double major in English and media. And this summer, I'm in Yahoo! for good.
EMILY TSE:: Hi. My name is Emily Tse. I'm originally from Hong Kong. But I study in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, major in computer science. I'm a senior. I'm 20 years old. And I'm working in the SGS group of Yahoo!
CHRIS MARTIN:: My name is Chris Martin. I'm a student at Georgia Tech, a first-year master student. I am from Atlanta, 24 years old. I did my undergrad at University of Georgia. And then I jumped the fence over to Georgia Tech. I study digital media. And I am interning at Yahoo! Research Berkeley working on mobile application development.
RAHUL MALIK:: Hi. I'm Rahul Malik. I go to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I'm 21 years old, studying computer science. I'm currently interning at Yahoo! Maps.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: Hi. I'm Brian Krausz, computer science major at Carnegie Mellon University, class of 2010. I'm currently interning at Yahoo! Real Estate working on basically whatever they want me to work on. And I'm 19 years old.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Why don't we talk about our experiences with blogging? What platform or tools do you use to blog? Are you a reader? Are you a writer? Why don't we talk about that?
CHRIS MARTIN:: Okay.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Who wants to start?
CHRIS MARTIN:: I'll go ahead and start. I originally started blogging back in around 2003 when I was a sophomore, I believe, in undergrad. And back then, it was right when Blogger was kind of starting to roll out. I went and registered a domain, started throwing stuff up there. And it's funny now to look back. It's actually up on Wayback Machine. If you search for aroundhere.net on Wayback, you can find my blog post from 2003. And it's basically just a stream of consciousness, kind of playing with web development, talking about exams and classes and what I thought about this and that. I've moved through Blogger, WordPress, tried out a whole bunch of different Ruby on Rails platforms.
EMILY TSE:: I have a much longer history of blogging. So I started like 2001. It was like not even using any platforms. I just like writing HTML web pages and uploading to Angelfire. I think it's than Xanga. I'm still stuck with Xanga. I've also tried MSN Spaces, Blogger and Yahoo! 360. So sometimes--now I'm in the States, but my friends are in Hong Kong. So the only way, only efficient way to communicate with them is through the blogging.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: I've tried starting maybe three or four blogs since probably seven years ago, started off with just, you know, the anguished teenager who's angry at his parents all the time, all that stuff. I've tried everything. I've tried WordPress, Movable Type at one point, Blogger, all that stuff. I just really have trouble keeping going. You know, it's once you have something that you feel obligated to update every week or so, you know, it becomes more like work and less like a hobby. So they've all died off recently, so.
RAHUL MALIK:: Back in high school, like around my sophomore year or so, a lot of my friends started getting involved with a lot of these journal sites, like EasyJournal and things like that. And so I started doing that. And it was kind of interesting because, you know, journals are typically meant to be private, you know, whatever you're thinking, keep to yourself. But now you're publishing all this information to everyone in the world. And all your friends start subscribing to, kind of selective what you put up there then because you want to be personal but not too personal. So I mean, the problem with me is that once I get into like, once I get into like an inconsistent rhythm of blogging, it's hard for me to go back sometimes. And then it does feel like a chore.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Are there any blogs that you guys visit religiously?
CHRIS MARTIN:: Well, I have an RSS reader that is always overflowing with posts. I probably have--I don't know--maybe 50 subscriptions in there. And that's been pared down. It's sort of a freeing experience sometimes to go in there and just click mark all as read. And so--because it gets overwhelming. But I, since I'm in the mobile area, I read a lot of blogs about mobile and gadgets and what's going on in the mobile space. So I think it's very informative.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: I don't know if Slashdot even counts as a blog anymore, it's so big. But I follow Engadget and Gadget Mobile, Slashdot. I don't know. It's a lot different when they're bigger. I don't personally see them as blogs. I see them as just news sources.
DOREEN BLOCH:: On that note, what do you think makes a blogger different from a reporter?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: Bloggers do it because it's what they enjoy doing, because they like providing that information. I feel like reporters do it more as a job kind of thing.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Interesting.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: Which while they may enjoy reporting, you know, I doubt if there was a paycheck many reporters would still do it, which is why someone like Engadget, where they pay their reporters, I think it's a lot less like a blog because it's less passion and more about just doing a job.
RAHUL MALIK:: I think it's also just kind of what they want to say in a blog versus a reporter might have to play to certain politics.
CHRIS MARTIN:: And I'd say hopefully from a blog you can expect to see and read what the person really things, not sort of a tailored opinion on something. If they actually have an opinion that is maybe not so mainstream, they'll blog about it.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Why don't we talk about blogging and social networking? Is blogging very integral?
CHRIS MARTIN:: Well, I think a major part of blogging is the commenting, you know. And you post something, and you enjoy receiving comments and feedback on what you're posting. And so a social network can almost just develop around an individual blog. The comments are extremely important and build that social element. And then you also have things, like MyBlogLog, links blogs together and sort of actually is trying to bring social networking into the blogosphere and ties you with people that might read the same kind of material that you do. And so it sort of takes you away from a certain blog but then maybe gives you others to look at.
RAHUL MALIK:: I think it's kind of interesting, as far as like integrating the Facebook just because it's not obvious how to find someone's blog that's your friend. But if it's linking their profile, it's very easy to find. And you'll start getting people that are those religious readers.
EMILY TSE:: I love to read the comments as well.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: Yeah, I mean, I don't blog myself. But I love reading everyone's blog. And I, like on Facebook especially now how they have that, it's become more three-dimensional as the years have gone on. I mean, when I first got on Facebook, it was just a picture of a person and their interests. But now--then it became a few more photos. And now it's more and more. And now these people have third dimension to them. And you can really get to know them a little bit more.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Speaking of kind of reading only, why don't we talk about if blogging is a better way to communicate with people than a static webpage?
DOREEN BLOCH:: I think it's absolutely a better way because if you're updating content and having people commenting on your content, then it's always changing. And I mean, it's a fact that even people that would normally have a static webpage, for instance, a lawyer, you know, they might have a static webpage. It's about whatever they do. But if they run a blog where they just routinely post, you know, random things about their field, then they get a higher search engine optimization because they're producing more content, and it's more, you know, it's more relevant. It's newer. And so then, if someone goes and searches for a lawyer on--a certain type of lawyer in a certain place, then maybe they'll come to their blog first because it'll be higher. There could be 100 lawyers in a certain topic in a certain area. But if this one has a blog that he's updating regularly, he's going to have a mass of content out there. People will find it, maybe read it, find it helpful, and then go to that person. So I think that's a good example of a way that it could help someone that might normally use a static webpage. And I think real estate could be another way to do that, so.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I'm actually going abroad to Vietnam in the fall. And I'm, like I said, from Massachusetts. So I'm going to be gone for eight months at a time now. And I've been thinking about creating a page. But then I--it just seems so more realistic and practical to be having kind of an ongoing conversation rather than updating people in sort of--I guess almost a boring way in some sense because it's--you can't really continue on the conversation.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: In regards to the larger company starting a blog for the sake of, you know, search engine optimization, I actually years ago worked for an accounting firm designing their website. And the owner of the accounting firm came to me and said we should start a blog. I don't think he knew what a blog was. I think he just heard the buzzword. But--so I spent, you know, a couple weeks. I set up a blog template and gave one to all the employees. Some employees were supposed to do movie reviews. And he just wanted to give a more personal touch to accounting because that was the original intent of his business. Miserable, miserable, horrible failure. A, the employees didn't really want to update it because, you know, they were busy. And they had work to do. And why should they have to do extra work? But mostly, I don't think people really wanted, you know, to see a blog from an accounting firm about X or Y.
DOREEN BLOCH:: I think one thing from working on Yodal Anecdotal it's been really interesting to see is that very few companies do blog and make it a success. Do you think that companies that blog, does that affect your relationship with the company, with the brand?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: Most definitely. There's a company that I also did work with who subcontracted to another company for their technology purchasing. And the company had a blog, and the blog was incredibly, incredibly informal, not in a friendly way, but in the way where, you know, you think these people are maintaining my servers. I'm not really comfortable with it. I think it has a huge impact on the company's image.
CHRIS MARTIN:: So you think--I'm sorry. You think that was a negative impact? You thought that it was bad that they were blogging when they should be maintaining your servers?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: No, no, it wasn't so much that kind of thing. It was that like the way, the attitude they had towards things just seemed so not--
DOREEN BLOCH:: Professional?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: It--I mean, I'm okay with, you know, a friendly blog. But they were very--I don't know--it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
DOREEN BLOCH:: So my question would then be what would make a successful business blog?
CHRIS MARTIN:: Well, I think, in going back even to the server one, I have a completely different perspective on that because when I purchased webhosting a few years ago I actually purchased from a company called TextDrive. And they were extremely informal. And I actually appreciated that. I didn't want these canned pictures of whatever the hell they put on the site of executives and suits and all this. You know, I liked that they had a Flickr pool of their photos of setting up their, you know, their rack space and that they would blog and talk about problems they were having. And I could tell that, okay, these are real people that are, you know, passionate about what they're doing. And they're setting up this service for real people. I don't want canned and marketed and, you know, run over with a fine-toothed comb material.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Why don't we go back to talk about communication because I think there is something interesting that I came across when I was researching for this? The 2008 presidential election is on the horizon. And apparently a lot of political candidates are really embracing this Web 2.0 blogging thing. Do you think that that'll make an impact on our generation, which is, you know, historically the lowest voting?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: I think it seems a little to gimmicky for my taste. You know, I think, you know, some higher up who's paid a lot of money to figure out how to win the campaign said, oh, you should probably blog.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Interesting, yeah.
RAHUL MALIK:: I don't know if like Obama having a MySpace is going to make me go out and vote more than I normally would've anyways.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: I don't think I trust them. I feel like, you'd have some--someone would have some writer being like, oh, after saving 25 kids today, I'm sitting down for dinner.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: When was the last time a politician actually wrote his own speech?
FEMALE VOICE:: Yeah.
MALE VOICE:: Put out a flier or two.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: I think it would have an impact, though. But I don't know if that would be a negative or positive.
DOREEN BLOCH:: A positive.
CHRIS MARTIN:: I was impressed at first with the Obama site that had all of these social aspects. And I really liked being able to go on there and watch his videos of his speeches and things like that. But now, it's almost overboard. I really dislike getting emails all the time. You know, that--they've got to--they need to figure out a way to balance it. And also, there's some times I think that they dive in without really knowing what they're doing. And maybe it's not a higher up that does it. There are things like John McCain making a MySpace page. And then they didn't really know what they were doing. And they actually ripped off some images from other people's websites and hotlinked straight to them. And so then those people found out, replaced the image on their servers with like a private message from John McCain saying that he loves lesbians and, you know, things like this. And then, obviously, the people that were in charge of it didn't know what to do. And it took them, you know, hours to get it fixed. And so it can be a huge black eye if you don't know what you're doing and you try and jump on this train. And it can come back to bite you pretty badly.
RAHUL MALIK:: I think it's going to be interesting as far as a, I guess, presidential scandal or trash standpoint to bring up someone's blog from like 20 years ago.
MALE VOICE:: Yeah.
RAHUL MALIK:: In like future elections.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: And it's almost impossible to get rid of anything once it's on the internet. It's basically there forever, especially with archival.
CHRIS MARTIN:: Yeah, Wayback Machine, Google cache. I mean, if you put it on there, it's there. If you click that delete button and it's been public, it's still there somewhere.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: A bunch of companies actually just started coming out recently around the premise of give us money and we'll erase any trace of this horrible, horrible image, you know, that you've given on the web.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Has anybody explored putting ads on their blog? Or even when you read other people's blogs, do you fing that distracting? Have you ever clicked on an ad?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: In about--I ran a blog for about two years. And I think I made--I just recently got a check for $100 from Google AdSense. If I'm not really paying for the blog to be up, I don't really care to put ads on it.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Oh, nice.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: It only took two years.
CHRIS MARTIN:: I don't mind ads on blogs if they're subtle. I also put some AdSense on a blog that I did for awhile. And the blog surprisingly got some traffic. I think I made $11.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: They won't send you check until you make $100.
CHRIS MARTIN:: If I'm not really paying for the blog to be up, I don't really care to put ads on it.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Why don't we talk about bloggers' conduct. So Tim O'Reilly, who's a big blogger, he proposed the Bloggers' Code of Conduct in response to some threats that were made at another blogger. Basically, do you think this is a necessary step?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: What specifically did the Bloggers' Code of Conduct encompass?
EMILY TSE:: Yeah.
CHRIS MARTIN:: It was sort of a rating scale that you could post a badge on your blog that said this blog is all viewer friendly or, you know, I monitor all of my comments. And I filter out things--I monitor everything on this blog. Or you could post another badge that would say I'm not responsible for the comments that might be put on this blog. And so it was kind of this terror threat level scale of blogging. It's like, uh-oh, watch out. This blog has an orange alert.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: That always kind of bothered me about the internet in general. You know, if you're going around the internet, if you're looking at a blog, you're bound to find something that offends you. And you're bound to find some insulting comment or some harassing comment. And honestly, you know, we're all mature pseudo-adults here and deal with it.
CHRIS MARTIN:: Yeah, well, what it came up from was a prominent blogger actually getting very serious threats against her, like really scary type we know where you live. We're going to come kill you type stuff. And it was sort of in response to whether or not the authors of the sites that those comments were posted on should've let those stay there or should've taken them down.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: It's a touchy subject.
CHRIS MARTIN:: Yeah, absolutely.
EMILY TSE:: I read an article saying like that's how the FBI are hunting down gangsters. There's like this murder case, and then so they go to their MySpace profile. And then from the comments, then they were able to trace all the relationships the victim has and was--I think they were able to find the suspect.
DOREEN BLOCH:: So speaking of, you know, going back in time and looking at what people's relationships were via their blogs, after a person passes away, for example, in the Virginia Tech situation, what place do blogs have, a memory or is it kind of eerie? Or what do you think?
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: It brings up a larger issue of, you know, what to do with someone's whole internet presence when they pass away. But I think it provides a shrine basically, you know. I know after--I think it was the Virginia Tech shootings--a lot of the Facebook profiles had a lot of posts, you know, I miss you, etc., etc. And there was an argument where people were trying to figure out whether or not Facebook was going to take those sites down, you know, whether or not they were going to remove the user. And I think, you know, it has its place. I mean, you're not supposed to, you know, eliminate the trace of someone when they pass away. I mean, just like if there's an accident on the highway, they have basically a shrine next to the accident if somebody should die.
EMILY TSE:: I think it is like really touching because one of my roommate passed away, and so the only one time that I went on Facebook was to go to her page. And when I see on the walls like all these rest in peace, we'll miss you, all these messages, it was like really touching. And so in that aspect, I think they should be up there and not be eliminated or something.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: Yeah, I had a friend in high school who passed away. And I didn't know him that well. I mean, I knew who he was. And I--when I heard that he passed away, I immediately thought, no, that can't be true and then within the next 20 minutes, there was easily 50 different wall posts. And people started putting up pictures and all sorts of stuff and those gifts that you can give on Facebook. And I guess I was kind of creeped out. But people obviously find some sort of--
CHRIS MARTIN:: Some solace.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: Yeah, definitely.
CHRIS MARTIN:: I think it's something that's going to obviously as more and more people start having an internet presence, it's going to start happening more and more. And there's already, obviously, a few of us have experiences with it. I have had an experience with it in college also that someone passed away. And it's been a few years since then. But her Facebook, you know, profile kind of lives untouched. And it's actually very touching to see even now people still go and make comments and sort of touch base. It's almost like a way for them to put down in words, communicate. It's kind of a weird thing. It's like it's almost like a form of prayer or something, like trying to communicate with the person. They'll make a wall post and just express, you know, hey, I really thought about you today when I was doing this. And it's a touching thing, I think. It's a strange phenomenon.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: This guy who passed away, there's so many different people that are from all different schools and across the country and from different social networks that he has. And it's nice to see everyone come together in one place to give their respects to them.
CHRIS MARTIN:: Yeah, and it's one of those things that people can sort of somewhat be forgotten, you know. But on the Facebook, it's strange to still get a message when that person's birthday is coming up, you know, and still maybe go and leave a note that says, hey, happy birthday, you know, we miss you, and so.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: I can definitely see the point where people will start leaving in their wills instructions like, you know, have whoever's, you know, handling my estate make sure my Facebook friends are approved and things like that. I can definitely see the internet presence becoming a part of the process of handling your own departure.
FEMALE VOICE:: You're right.
MALE VOICE:: That's a very interesting thought.
EMILY TSE:: I think that's part of like what internet transformed our lives. So before we can only go to the grave and cry or something. But now, even though you're like across the Pacific Ocean or something, you can still communicate.
DOREEN BLOCH:: Wow, I didn't want to end on such a sad note.
CHRIS MARTIN:: Yeah. Why don't we end with something like our favorite thing about blogging? My favorite thing about blogging is I absolutely love blogging. And I love RSS because it can bring so much information to you almost in a push fashion.
RAHUL MALIK:: So originally, when I got into blogging, it was, you know, just a bunch of text on a page or whatever. And that really limits, I guess, expression as far as, you know, like hearing someone's voice or seeing someone in a video or seeing like slideshows of images. And I think the fact that we've transcended to these different mediums to express ourselves in blogs is really showing like a maturing quality of the blogging community.
BRIAN KRAUSZ:: I think it's amazing people who keep up a blog for a very long time knowing that very few people read it. And those are the ones that grow to be very large. So it's a tough thing. And I haven't been able to do it yet to keep that going until you hit that one, you know, breaking point where you post something interesting and it gets Slashdot or Engadget post or whatever, and you become popular. And I just think I have a huge amount of respect for people who can keep that going and think it's a great thing.
TIKA WAKEMAN:: I'd have to say when I'm looking at other people's what I really enjoy is when they are brave enough or courageous enough to put out their real feelings or opinions about whatever. I mean, that's why I don't blog. But I think you have to respect the person who does.
EMILY TSE:: For me, the favorite thing would be comments, no matter whether it's personal comments on my personal blog or comments on some new technical blogs, I still lock the comments.
DOREEN BLOCH:: I'd have to say for me that my favorite thing is the fact that at one point blogging was seen as such a fad and it'll go away and don't expect much from it and the fact that it really has survived and has proven itself and the fact that it's still growing. And there's so much potential for it. That really excites me. So this is the end of the intern podcast, the first one of summer 2007. Thank you so much for joining me. And hopefully, we'll get a chance to explore more insight from interns later on this summer. Thanks.