A look at the Australian blogosphere by blogs.com.au

Just saw this article on Wired which indicates that:

A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube.

And then goes on to say that:

…in a struggle where perception is often as important as bombs-and-bullets conflict, soldiers ought to be encouraged and equipped to wage that information war on their own. And that means “get[ting] onto blogs and [s]end[ing] their YouTube videos to their friends and family.”

This got me thinking and curious if anyone knows if Australian soldiers on active duty overseas are allowed to blog and if so, are any currently blogging?

Email me anthony [at] blogs.com.au or leave a comment. Thanks.

I am back at blogs.com.au HQ so will be resuming blogging with gusto here at The Local. Although I dislike clogging up people’s feed readers on weekends and usually reframe from posting, I thought it was best to get a self indulgent post out of the way tonight.

This afternoon, the small milestone of 5000 active Australian blogs being listed at blogs.com.au was reached. Studio Annetta, a blog by an Australian interior designer based in Hong Kong was blog # 5000.

This is around 4100 more URLs than I originally had when the search engine was started in April last year. During the last nine months, I have visited and tagged all of the blogs in this wonderful collection so can say with confidence that the Australian blogosphere is a thriving and diverse community empowered by personal publishing.

For people wanting to be the first to discover the latest Australian blogs. Every Monday I post the fifty most recent listings which you can get via subscribing to this rss feed.

The Reader’s Choice Poll for the 2007 Performancing Blog Awards are now open for voting and there some local blogs in the running for an award in 10 of the categories.

Congratulations to the following Australian nominees.

Best Overall Blog
Nominee: ProBlogger

Most Influential Blogger
Nominee: Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)

Best Blog Design
Nominee: North x East

Best Blog Typography
Nominee: Freelance Switch
Nominee: North x East

Best Blog Name
Nominee: Skelliewag

Best New Blog of 2007
Nominee: Freelance Switch

Best Blog Podcast
Nominee: Freelance Switch
Nominee: On The Pod

Best Writing/Blogging Blog
Nominee: ProBlogger

Best Food/Health Blog
Nominee: The Food Pornographer

Best Education Blog
Nominee: Teaching Generation Z

Voting is open from January 3rd through January 10th and the winners will be announced on Friday January 11th.

Good luck to all these nominees. It would be great to see some of these bloggers pick up a gong as there are some fantastic blogs in this list. So go show your support to your fellow Australian bloggers and give them a vote.

LOL

Copyright pictures for sad children and found on Tumblr via Did You Ever Notice?

Nominations are now open for the 8th Annual Weblog Awards.

Previous winners of the Best Australian or New Zealand weblog category were:

2007 The Breakfast Blog

2006 Loobylu

2005 What’s New, Pussycat?

2004 Loobylu

2003 Loobylu

So go spread the love and nominate your favourite Australian blogs at http://2008.bloggies.com

You have until Friday, January 11, 2008 to nominate your favorites. Then 3 panels of 50 randomly selected voters will be involved in the 2nd round of voting to determine the finalists in each category from the list of initial nominations. Then voting will open again on January 22 to decide the overall winners which will be announced in early March.

A complicated voting process but it certainly provides worthy recognition for a blog that gets through it with the honour of an award.

Story found via Peter Black’s Freedom to Differ.

via 30+ different people on Tumblr.

Photo by Ryan Orr (CC license).

I wish the readers of The Local and all of Australia’s bloggers a very happy Christmas and New Year!

I sincerely appreciate the people who read this blog. I’m thankful for your attention. I would especially like to thank the people who took the time to comment. Receiving a comment is humbling and pleasing because you know someone is listening. Muchos gracias.

I do hope that 2007 has been a great year for you as it has for me. It was year of renewal and learning that I have enjoyed.

And I wish that 2008 brings you much success, happiness and good health.

For the people who can’t get enough blogging about blogging, I’ve got a few posts scheduled (thank you WordPress for your timestamp feature) for the couple of weeks after Christmas while I’m unplugged from the matrix. Nasty tricks of blackhat SEO bastards, review of Australian blogging in 2007, details of the business blogging aggregator that will be launching in January which will be the precursor to 50 or so Australian topic focused microsphere aggregators here at blogs.com.au in 2008 and some useful blogging resolutions to get more out of your blog right from the start of the new year. So if your are not at the beach, buried in a book, watching the cricket or doing any one of the other multitude of summer possibilities then at least some blogging about blogging exists for you here at The Local.

Anthony
Officially unplugged from the matrix.

Forbes’ list of the Top 25 Web Celebrities has been revealed and Melbourne blogger Darren Rowse from ProBlogger made the list coming in at #25.

Congrats!

Anyone who is interested in potentially making some cash from their blog but hasn’t read ProBlogger should go have a look. Everything there is to be known about blog monetisation among many other things like writing tips and blog management ideas is there. All his posts are based on experience and success while being presented via an unromanticised view of how much hard work is required to make problogging a full time job.

Link blogging about blogging. Because I like it.

1. Very sad news this week with the Alive in Baghdad blogger being found murdered in his home. Laurel Papworth has a superb post that provides further details and gives some personal perspective to the situation.
1. On Monday just past, it was the the ten year anniversary of when Jorn Barger coined the term “weblog”. He spoke to Wired Magazine and gives his Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers.
1. One of the ABC blogs, Dools Gold by comedian Scott Dooley, is the fourth most viewed page on the ABC web site.
   
   This is one of my fave blogs under the funny folder in my RSS reader. Admittedly, only Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Blog and Dools Gold have been subscribed to in that folder but it is still not surprising to me that it gets excellent traffic. I’m also certain ABC’s entertainment/gossip blog The Shallow End is one of the most popular pages on the ABC web site.
   
   It is encouraging to see that blogs are becoming popular at the national broadcaster. Because the flow on effect for the rest of the Aussosphere is that people uncertain with what blogs are will experience them at the ABC then maybe look into reading other blogs and might even consider blogging themselves.
1. Best. Spam. Comment. Ever.
1. Search engines have been releasing their annual search trends in the last week or so but now BuzzLogic has announced their list of the hottest topics in the blogosphere this year.

With the festive season almost upon us, I felt Local Food Feast was a worthwhile choice as our Blog of the Day.

Local Food Feast is using their blog to invite people from all over Australia to feast on foods grown in their bio region for 7 days during the festive season (December 24 to January 1). Then participants will share their experiences, recipes and ideas via the blog.

Eating locally looks like a wonderful way to support local farmers while reducing reduce your impact on the environment and the Local Food Feast blog will go a great job connecting people taking part in this challenge. Well done!

I found this blog via Friends of the Earth which I found via Solidariti.