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

Something which surprised me back in April when I first started the hunt to add more Australian blogs to the blogs.com.au index was that I saw a number of “couple blogs”. These are blogs where two people in a relationship would set-up a blog so they could both record everything about their relationship. I had no idea these existed.

Even though I’m a blogging evangelist who believes people, large companies, small businesses, charities, journalists, teachers and politicians should all blog. I felt less than enthusiastic about these blogs because there was something about couple blogging that felt a little too personal to be announced to the world and archived. You know, the Internet being forever and all. It just made me question if things didn’t work out in that relationship whether both people would want that recorded online in 1, 5 or 10 years time.

The recent example of a New York tech couple, Jakob Lodwick and Julia Allison, who set up JakobandJulia.com, made me doubt my original feelings towards the subject. Right up until the point it exploded in a ugly mess of nasty posts making the cynical jaded bitter commitment phob inside of me rejoice that couple blogging really was fraught with danger.

Even though it was started with clear boundaries via a Memorandum of Understanding and things blogged along quite well for the first two weeks. Cracks started to appear when Julia ironically posted that she was annoyed about being informed of things in her boyfriend’s life only via his blog. It then went downhill very quickly with unpleasant back and forth posts.

It was interesting to watch from afar but had that uncomfortable feeling like having to overhear couples bitching at each other in the line at the supermarket. Clearly I could have avoided it by not adding it to my feed reader but that would mean I would not be an observer of sensational subjects. Still, I’m hopping these blogs doesn’t infiltrate into the blogosphere in any large number. I just would not have the time to voyeuristically keep up with them all

Stephen Collins, a Canberra based freelancer who deals with the Government has an interesting chat about Government 2.0 in the latest episode of On The Pod with Duncan Riley.

For those unable to spend 48 minutes listening to the whole podcast and are most interested in blogging, there is a great chat between 5:35 - 10:15 about the discussion paper into the possibility of the Federal Government starting a blog to facilitate the discussion of policy.

Meg Tsiamis has a full run down of the people in the running and how to vote.

It’s the last day of voting so go show some support and vote for your favourite Australian bloggers.

Please only submit your blog to be search-able at blogs.com.au if it is a legitimate blog.

I know this seems like a captain obvious request but I have recently had a unfortunate increase in the number submissions of spam blogs, generic syndicated article filled blogs, online shopping directories filled with affiliate links and corporate web sites. All of these types of non-blogs will not be included in our list of blogs to be searched.

To the people submitting these sites: You may regard these sites as legitimate money makers but I don’t believe they are a useful resource for the 500+ people a day using this search engine to find what has been written on Australian blogs and therefore reserve the right to not have these spammy type sites listed at blogs.com.au.

Radio producer NatalieV (who has an always engaging blog - The Scratching Post) has sent me a link to the audio of a blogger we’ve previously featured at The Local, John Birmingham, who is talking all things blogging on Brisbane’s 4BC radio.

Scroll down the page, click on the John Birmingham interview link and a media player will pop up to stream the audio. It’s an annoying listening set up but is well worth the effort as it is interesting and entertaining to hear the thoughts of what an experienced writer has to say on the subject.

It has been good to see a trend in both positive coverage of blogging and acknowledgment of bloggers in the Australian media recently. Has been very little up until this year, so is quite encouraging to see it presented in a way that will expose blogs to new audiences.

Book authors blogging
I should note that Birmingham along with Max Barry are the only big time Australian writers that I know of who sincerely make the most of their online journals with truly interactive blogs.

A couple of examples. Barry, who is a hilarious writer of corporate satires recently asked for and received some phenomenal mock ups of some soft drink cans to be used in the film adaptation of his book Syrup. While Birmingham regularly ask for help with details of things to be included in his books, does collaborative writing projects with his readers or seeks contributors for fan fiction festivals.

More writers should watch these two and learn a thing or two.

Blog posts about blogging. What more could you want?

1. A brilliant post by Melbourne’s Lelia Thomas about the annoyance of bloggers who make their money by telling others how to make money through blogging. Was something I heard a lot during breaks at the Australian Blogging Conference.
1. Mike has some great advice for people concerned that their blog isn’t popular.
1. A trends report, What’s Next, has predicted that blogging will be extinct by 2023. Download the 1MB PDF File for full details. Sourced at John Lampard’s disassociated.com.
1. The Australian bloggers behind the hugely successful Blog Action Day give a behind the scenes look at how they made it such a success.
1. Is good to see that the Sydney Morning Herald’s new weekly lift out, “The List”, has a column featuring Australian bloggers. No link as it’s only available in the deforestation edition, sorry. Rock concert photoblogger Daniel Boud was the first Meet the Blogger. Congrats.
1. While the enormous size of the blogosphere and finding your own place within it is on Meg Tsiamis’ mind. Chartreuse displays his consistent wisdom in a post that can help you get noticed.

I’ve decided to again start the Blog of the Day series of posts. I really like giving some extra promotion to individual bloggers who are doing an excellent job.

First on the list, Diary of a Koalawrangler.

Written by a volunteer who helps care for injured koalas at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie. This blog is such a great example of how user generated media can give a ongoing personal account of what happens behind the scenes in a type of organisation that rarely gets much media coverage.

There are lots of great posts to go through at Diary of a Koalawrangler but you should definitely check out the one which has photos of a rare white koala!

I know I and other bloggers sometimes mock the poorer attempts at blogging by traditional media outlets but I must say I laughed out loud when I saw that the name of Brisbane Times’ election blog was Poll Dancing.

I haven’t yet seen a blog title funnier than that amongst the independent blogs covering the election so kudos Brisbane Times, kudos.

It seems that a couple of local bloggers have found themselves in middle of legal issues arising from their blogging activities.

Blogger #1
Cairns Blog has being requested by Kevin Byrne, the Mayor of the City of Cairns, to apologise and remove this blog post or be sued for damages caused by the alleged defamation.

There has been three follow up posts by Cairns Blog explaining everything further and appealing for funds to help fight the legal action.
- Donate to our fighting fund
- We still need your financial support
- Censorship and posting

Blogger #2
Duncan Riley is being theatened with legal action after he wrote a blog post and video review about his poor shopping experience at My Mac Australia.

Duncan has published the business owners communication which states that they are looking to have the video and blog posts removed as well as compensation for lost business that may have resulted.

I remember reading and watching Duncan’s review at the time it was first published thinking that he definitely had rights to feel that he was an aggrieved party in the transaction so it is kind of disappointing to see it come to this.

Because political discussion and consumers reviews feature quite heavily in the local blogosphere, both cases will be interesting to watch to see what the implications are for bloggers. Not being legal expert I won’t bother speculating on how either of these situations will play out. But I do wish luck to both bloggers and hope you come out of the situations favorably.

People wanting to read some more on legal issues arising from blogging should go to Club Troppo which has a comprehensive post Feeling lucky? Bloggers and defamation liability as does Larvatus Prodeo with Defamation and the Internet.

Also of interest is Accidental Aussie’s notes from the Legal Issues and Blogs session from the recent Australian Blogging Conference.

Many of the top Australian bloggers host their blogs on U.S. supported blogging software/sites to avoid potential legal liabilities that are more prone to occur in Australia due to the lack of provisions protecting them in their country.

Apparently copyright laws in Australia are more restrictive than in the United States.

It was also brought up that Australia has no concrete provision similar to the 1st Amendment of the United States, which protects all citizens to the freedom of speech and or of the press.

Two key legal provisions that AU bloggers should be aware of when dealing with a defamation claim: notice and take down (you are notified about a defaming statement on your blog, and have the opportunity of taking it down to avoid legal course of action) and the provision to make amends with the defamed claimer.

The talented faculty at QUT Law’s Intellectual Property: Knowledge, Culture and Economy have published a number of helpful reports and papers on the use of electronic content in the digital age, for those looking for information on what is acceptable and unacceptable to copy, embed, download or distribute.

It really must be the season for Australian blogging events because WordCamp Melbourne has now been confirmed to be going ahead on Saturday November 17th.

After the great experience I had at the recent Australian Blogging Conference (I’m still to do my full write up of it. Sorry - been sick and busy) I will definitely be attending WordCamp Melbourne.

Will be good to see as many bloggers there as possible as these types of events are such great opportunities to get out from behind the laptop to meet other blogers face-to-face and discuss topics we are all so enthusiastic about.

Full details are available at: http://melbourne.wordcamp.org