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The power of blogging

March 9th 2010 18:42

Some time ago I developed a theory, which has so far built a dedicated following of one, that blogging will take over the world.

Now, it seems, the legal system of Australia is recognising the growing power of the medium.

Graeme Gladman had a beef against Datamotion Asia Pacific Ltd and its chairman, Ronald Moir. Gladman used a blog to post a series of attacks against the company and the individual. The attacks were defamatory, but how to stop him as Gladman was not putting his name on them. He posted the attacks under the pseudonym "Witch".

Gladman thought he was safe, sniping out of reach from behind a wall of anonymity.

But he wasn't. He was "hunted down and found", to quote a lawyer for Datamotion, as will, he added, any blogger who hides their identities and attacks the reputations of individuals and businesses online.

Gladman was sued, and in a landmark case Datamotion and its chairman were awarded $30,000 in damages and costs.

What you write in your blog is vastly different to what your write in your emails. Your emails talk to friends and acquaintances. Your blog talks to the world.

Whether you blog under your real name or under a pseudonym, be careful what you write.
Image: B. Tal, problogger.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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Facebook takes the innovation cake

February 24th 2010 02:20

Facebook is the most innovative tech company on Earth, according to an annual review of corporate imagination by Fast Company magazine.

The full list of 50 corporate innovators can be seen here.

Facebook’s journey to undisputed leader of the social networking revolution has been a rocky one, beating out challenges from MySpace and Twitter, and overcoming disgruntled customers who fiercely opposed changes to the way the site worked.

Facebook’s decisions, however, appear to have been justified. Fast Company believes so, saying Facebook earned top spot because of its speed of development and growth. “Somewhere along the road to becoming the platform of choice for 400 million users in every country on earth, the company grew up,” Fast Company said.

Last year’s winner, the team behind the Barack Obama digital presidential campaign, has apparently found nothing to be innovative about since helping Obama moved into the Oval office. They didn’t make it into the Top 50 at all in 2010.

Twitter – which feels like it has been a major part of our lives forever but which really only became a global phenomenon last year – made it onto the list for the first time this year. Only barely, however, coming in at Number 50, and there is widespread opinion, despite news out today that Twitter is still growing steadily, that its format is too limited and that it may be the next big disappearing act.

At number 15 on the list is Spotify, the site which is redefining music delivery. Its entry, let alone at such an elevated position, is remarkable because the service has not yet launched in the US.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Facebook, Social media, Twitter

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Twilight's vampires aren't real-life

February 11th 2010 05:39

Stephenie Meyer

Emmet Spain, a 29-year-old Australian who has just successfully negotiated the obstacle course which leads to the publication of a first novel, may have ended, once and for all, the raging debate about the legitimacy of Twilight.

For those who have been on an extended break touring Ursa Major, Twilight is a publishing phenomenon built around a Stephenie Meyer novel about love between a teenage girl and a teenage, you know, vampire. They really like each other, which means he is torn between the desire to kiss her neck and, you know, sink his teeth into it.

Some people have suggested that this stretches the boundaries of the accepted vampire behavioural paradigm, while others have said who cares they’re not real. Are they?

Emmet Spain is of the boundary stretching persuasion, and calls the supporters of the Twilight version of things “puppy dog vampires”.

``Essentially vampires don't need love. They feed on life and they're brutal creatures,'' he said, a truism which surely puts a cross into the hearts of Twilight fans.

If you want real vampires, Spain provides them in his novel, Old Haunts.

Spain’s bio at Good Reads describes him as a “Long-time fiction addict and misanthrope who tried to cure his addiction by writing a book of his own, but now that it's published has become just about all he can think about. Has been known to talk fiction until the cows come home, then talk fiction with the cows.”

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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Dark corners of the language: clichés

February 1st 2010 05:17

We have in the past advised novice writers against using clichés. There no known excuse to use a cliché, we said. There is no imaginable circumstance in the occupied universe, we advised, that can justify using a cliché.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Clichés, Language, Writing

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The power of a writer

January 31st 2010 02:49

My novel, which is developing at the pace of a geriatric glacier on Jupiter, nevertheless provides moments of great satisfaction.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Writing

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What I got for Christmas was a blog stat spike

December 25th 2009 23:02

A year ago, I wrote a post over at NewlyOld entitled "Christmas and the finer points of Cockney".

It was inspired by my 80-something father in law, to whose generation this fun and quirky alphabet of rhyming slang is well-known. The post (which you can see here if interested) proved a comparatively big hit on a small and sparsely populated blog

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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A new word for an old feeling

December 21st 2009 06:52

In news which perhaps sums up a year which was unfriendly to the global economy, to the environment, to developing nations and to the remaining optimists who had faith that our leaders were capable of leading, we hear that a senior lexicographer has chosen "unfriend" as the word of the year.

It's a new word which Planet Earth knows well

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Language

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Dark corners of the language: an article on articles

October 27th 2009 04:44

English is simple, right? Where French and Italian makes things difficult with two forms of the definite article, masculine and feminine, and German makes things even tougher by throwing in neuter, English uses just one word. The. Isn't that easy?

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Grammar, Definite and indefinite articles, Writing

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Consumption Malfunction reaching for the stars

September 23rd 2009 00:28

The blogosphere has been abuzz for some time now watching the rise and rise of the Consumption Malfunction blog.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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A writer's tool kit: redundancies

September 22nd 2009 23:56

Some follow-up thoughts reinforcing yesterday's post on the issue of overused words, which is a subset of the broader subject of redundancies.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Redundancies, Writing

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March 2010

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