Blogging

Article — 30 July 2010 — 116 words

Blogging for the University of St Andrews web team

I have now begun writing for yet another blog. The University of St Andrews web team blog is being relaunched after an almost two year long hiatus. So if you’ve ever wanted to learn about what I do at work (!) then you are in luck! My first post is about the Institutional Web Management […]

Article — 20 November 2009 — 657 words

Is the blogging era over?

Technology

It is commonly said that blogging is dead. The refrain has increased in frequency over the past year or so, as Twitter extends its influence further and further. I have been blogging since 2002, when I was just 16. Over the years, it has been my favourite means of communicating online — more than Facebook […]

Article — 7 August 2009 — 1,155 words

Growing up with the internet

Media — Personal — Society — Technology

It is notoriously hard to get to grips with the youth. Advertisers hate it. The age group of 15–24 — of which, incidentally, I am still part — is notoriously fickle. They define themselves almost in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. That is the explanation being given to the […]

Article — 28 April 2009 — 1,253 words

Iain Macwhirter inadvertently criticised the media

Media — Politics — Technology

There was much hand-wringing among bloggers a couple of weeks ago in the wake of an article about blogging written by Iain Macwhirter. I didn’t take much notice of it at the time. After all, it is not exactly surprising that an established media figure would take a swipe at blogging. And if there is […]

Article — 6 April 2009 — 188 words

Web 2.0 and the Scottish Government

Business — Culture — Society — Web

As part of my never-ending quest to find something resembling employment, I recently spent a bit of time shadowing at the Scottish Government. It was a great experience, and reassuring to see that there are people there who really properly get it. It was interesting to see how they are preparing to enter the web […]

Article — 8 March 2009 — 988 words

Blogging and the future of journalism

Current affairs — Media — Personal — Technology

This week I helped out Peter John Meiklem on a story for the Sunday Herald about the future of journalism. Amid all the job losses in the Scottish media, the piece looks at whether bloggers can step up to the plate and begin to supplant traditional media outlets. My view has long been that blogging […]

Article — 15 January 2009 — 1,319 words

Spare part

Business — Current affairs — Personal — Technology

I see that the BBC’s iPM blog is asking for the human stories behind the current unemployment figures. Well, I am a human face of two recent news stories. As readers are no doubt sick of reading by now, one of those stories was the loss of around 27,000 jobs at Woolworths. The other is […]

Article — 28 October 2008 — 203 words

Reading The Guardian in full

Media — Web

I have long been an advocate of full RSS feeds for reasons outlined in this post. I do, however, understand why most news outlets opt to keep partial feeds. News websites, unlike blogs, typically show you just the headlines and a short summary of each story on the front page — just like a partial […]

Article — 23 October 2008 — 1,540 words

Rumours of blogging’s death are exaggerated, but not greatly so

Media — Society — Technology

There’s been a lot of chat recently about whether blogging is dead, sparked by this article in Wired by Paul Boutin. It’s easy to scoff at the article, and the idea that blogging is dead is obviously nonsense. But I doubt the claim would have got so much attention if there wasn’t a bit of […]

Article — 12 September 2007 — 2,026 words

Shove your partial feeds up your RSS

Media — Technology

(Yes, every post I write about RSS must contain the hilarious “‘RSS’ sounds a little bit like ‘arse’” pun.) I have a request for those people who publish RSS feeds. Make them full feeds! I know there is a supposedly a debate about whether partial or full feeds work best. Well, that is not really […]

Article — 7 September 2007 — 2,187 words

20 reasons why I will put my blogs on my CV (and three reasons why I might not)

Business — Society — Technology

Yesterday I looked at the dilemma facing a blogging job hunter (ie. me). Should I put my blog on my CV? Rhys Wynne and Rich Minx think that blogging gives you lots of skills that employers find desirable. The Devil’s Kitchen has added his thoughts here and asks if there are any more skills that […]

Article — 6 September 2007 — 740 words

Should I put my blogs on my CV?

Business — Personal — Technology

Here is something that I’ve been pondering about quite a bit recently. A few years ago it was all bad news for bloggers who have jobs. Getting sacked because of your blog stuck fear into so many that it the concept even spawned its own word: dooce. People who have been dooced are not in […]