Like a lot of bloggers and podcasters (no really, almost everyone I know on Twitter seems to be one or the other), I’ve succumbed to the allure or Twitter. I haven’t been able to bring myself to call what we do on Twitter “microblogging”, but I may be changing my mind. Twitter has certainly begotten a lot of interactivity, enthusiasm and community-based effort that has resulted in good things happening. These represent values prized by bloggers, and made possible by that medium.

Last week was one of those amazing times for me on Twitter, when examples of its power to connect people were everywhere.

On Monday the folks in my Twitter circle began counting down the days, hours, minutes (?) until Steve and Maureen’s baby was due. Steve’s a prolific Twitter user, and I chat with him several times a day. Every time a new tweet from Steve came over the line, I checked quickly to see if this was the moment that he would leave work to join Maureen for the birth of their first child. As the week wore on, I felt bad about asking “any news?” because the baby had apparently decided the time was not right. Since Maureen is also on Twitter, we awaited her messages, too. “What are you doing?” indeed! I posited that if Maureen would only let Steve know by Twitter that her contractions had started, the suspense for the rest of us would be eliminated. No comment from the parents-to-be.

On Friday, Steve’s announcement winged its way into my Twitter client: “We’re having a baby.” We knew he wouldn’t let us down. We knew that before he put his car in gear to rush to his wife’s side, he’d alert the Twitterverse. We sent him off with best wishes and prayers for a safe and easy birht. As it turned out, 24 more hours would pass before Steve had more news for us. In the interim, my home Internet had gone out, and I felt profoundly out of touch until we managed to get back online, just in time to read the news that Rebecca Blair Loopipe had entered the world. By yesterday, we had pictures!

Also last week, Matt wrote in to say that his grandfather had died, and that he wouldn’t be doing his podcast this week. Friends offered condolences to Matt, and one quickly spoke up to say “I’ll do your show for you.” another friend, and then another chimed in. It was a joke at first, but within 15 minutes, and with Matt’s blessing, five of us (including Steve and Maureen, as it happened) had agreed to use Matt’s format, his bumpers and effects, and his feed to produce an episode of The Redboy Podcast. We jumped off Twitter and into email to plan and ship files around, then recorded the show via a Skype quad-ender (each participant recording his or her own audio). The instigator of our group took on the job of editing, and within a few days of Twittering our offer to keep Matt’s weekly show on track, we had published an hour-long episode.

These aren’t the kind of stories you read in business books, or hear about during presentations at technology conferences. They are utterly homegrown, and utterly human, not commercial. But the accessibility and community spirit they suggest will be just as crucial to those who have larger, more mercenary goals for their Twittering, or who see the service as a way to stay connected in real time with “big ideas”. This stuff is pretty cool.

-shelly

Apologies for the delay in getting out our podcast edition. Most of the April stories are now finally posted on our website, but the RSS feed still needs to be created. This will happen shortly and will enable you to download the entire issue (or just the stories you care about) and listen when and where you desire. Thanks for understanding as we work through our launch “kinks.”

- Larry

Maybe this is like those 4 Things About Me memes that tend to sprout, bloom and then die quickly, but I haven’t seen too many initiatives like the campaign calling for a blogging Day of Silence on Monday in honor of those lost in the Virginia Tech shootings and victims of violence worldwide.

Outreach is one thing, and there seem to be a lot of personal blogs spreading the word of this pending demonstration of solidarity in this Web community. But there also have been some questioning the gains from leaving Monday’s post for another day. So I’m curious, especially for those of you with financial or business obligations tied to your blogs – are you going to keep quiet and just enjoy what appears to be a community-sanctioned break from blogging? Or will you ignore it, and if so why?

–Anne

With the launch of Blogger & Podcaster Magazine, we simultaneously launched the B&P Guide. It’s designed to be like “TV Guide” for blogs and podcasts, allowing you to easily find new content on the subjects you care about. If you click the B&P Guide tab you’ll see our listings have grown pretty nicely over the last week. It shouldn’t be too long until this is a great and more complete resource. If you have a blog/podcast you want to have included, listing in the online directory is free. You can sign-up at www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/guideinfo.php

- Larry

I made the decision to charge for the print subscription to allow as many people as possible to have access to the magazine. If we would have given the print edition away for free, like many trade publishers do, we would have had to cap circulation at around 10,000 before our printing and mailing costs would force us to have to charge advertising rates that would be too steep for what the industry can afford at this time. By offering the digital and podcast editions for free we can literally allow millions to have access to the content without having to significantly raise our advertising rates. Hope you understand.

- Larry
Publisher
Blogger & Podcaster Magazine

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced a week ago, during our blogging break. Strange as it may seem to some new media types, I was eager to blog about them. You see, I think the Pulitzers give us something to think about.

As there is as yet no prize for blogging, those of you who enjoy predicting the exact date and time that newspapers will cease to exist may not be interested. But I am. I note the Pulitzers not only because I’m a journalist by profession, but because I’m interested in knowing about the things contained in some of the stories written by this year’s winners, all of which appeared in (gasp) newspapers.

I acknowledge and celebrate the impact of the political blogosphere in uncovering government hanky panky. I admire the immediacy of blogs written from the scenes of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, or tragic crimes like the shootings at Virginia tech. But The Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal dug deep into the use of presidential signing statements, and back-dated stock option grants, respectively. Other journalists, most working for regional papers, exposed corruption, profiled people most of us know little about, and the impact of China’s economic boom on the nation’s infrastructure. They were able to do this because editorial budgets and staffs were still large enough to support investigative journalism that required days, weeks or months of reporting. The people who reported and wrote these stories added to the national conversation, just as surely as bloggers do every day. The people who still pick up a morning paper with their coffee (or who read it online) were informed, and perhaps moved to ask questions of their government.

The problem with “old media” newspapers is not the content itself, it is the inability to continue to prosper in a marketplace that has moved on. Blogging is a more democratic, more diverse medium for many readers, and newspapers who have not figured that out are suffering financially. But as blogging flexes its muscles, and as its leaders sneer derisively at newspapers, its practitioners and champions should also ask themselves how the infrastructure of blogging can be strengthened to provide the support needed for investigative journalism of the kind still practiced primarily by newspapers. When this happens, there will and should be a Pulitzer category (or more than one) for blogs and other new media outlets.

-shelly

This blog’s been quiet for a couple of days now. That’s been intentional.

I felt the world tilt a little on its axis Monday morning as I watched horrific televised scenes unfold at my beloved alma mater, Virginia Tech. The magazine’s creative director went to nearby Radford University. Like millions of people across the nation and beyond, the shock and numbness soon yielded to a searing sadness. It’s been some time since I’ve been unable to control my crying. Now there are hints anger is the emotion about to rule the day.

That building rage, though, is being mitigated by all the friends, family and strangers who’ve checked in and a sister in Blacksburg who’s provided the kind of compassion-filled coverage and commentary that no big-city news reporter ever could. My sister is a Blacksburg Middle School teacher, where four students lost a parent. FOUR! That should help those baffled by the continued coverage understand the magnitude this massacre has had on an idyllic Southern college town and its uniquely architected campus that has served as a sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of students since 1872. From what I’ve seen and heard in the last few days, many without bonds to Blacksburg do understand and do feel the same stabs to the heart that sometimes dull but just can’t seem to go away.

Which is why we are a nation in mourning. And which is why we haven’t put up any posts lately. The digital magazine is now available. The podcast version, God willing, will soon be consumable in a day or two, just about the time the print version starts circulating through the postal system. In the meantime, the sun’s still coming out each morning. Eventually, posts to our blog will surface with similar regularity. Just not this week.

–Anne

We are working diligently to fix the final bugs before we release the digital edition of our inaugural issue. We wanted to release this today, but based on the update I just received most likely it will be tomorrow or Wednesday. Also, we’re putting the finishing touches on the podcast edition which will be released and available for download by the end of the week. The print edition is at the printer now and will be mailed out next week. As you might imagine it’s been crazy trying to put out a new magazine…in 3 formats (that are all different)… at the same time. Hopefully you’ll all give us the benefit of the doubt while we get our “sea legs.”

- Larry

The Boston Globe today has an article about making money from blogging. Among the statistics it noted:

As the number of blogs has exploded to more than 57 million today, the blog ad marketplace has also surged — from $100,000 in 2002, to an estimated $36.2 million in 2006, according to PQ Media. Blog advertising is expected to grow to $300.4 million in 2010.

It devotes a good deal of space to bloggers who have been able to make a dollar (and then some!) as a pastime or full time. The news item also mentions that the vast majority of bloggers (85 percent by one survey) aren’t out to earn money from advertising. That could be good news to those that do want some financial compensation for their time and talents, though 15 percent of 57 million still amounts to a lot of competition for dollars — or merely cents for some.

–Anne

Lots of you are starting to sign up en masse for a digital or podcast subscription, or you’re looking to maybe advertise in our Marketplace section. That’s great.

In doing so, some of you are experiencing technical difficulties. That’s not so great.

If you encounter trouble, please contact us at admin@bloggerandpodcaster.com. We’ll address your issues as soon as we can. It’s always a little easier for our small staff to work out all the kinks when we’ve got others helping us find them. Thanks to everyone who has brought a site glitch to our attention already.

–Anne