Dough!! Duchess of York Sells Prince Andrew

Duchess demonstrates eligability for this blog. As she rationalises what has taken place she attempts to diminish the PR and reputational catastrophe as a heavy day.

The Elephant In The Blogosphere

So who really is getting the benefit from blogging? It seems that for all the talk about marketing paradigm shifts and new communication eras that the usual suspects are the people who have the time and interest in blogging.

Journalists are a case in point. Trained writers and people who are paid to write. The UK election trotted out the odd political blogger to show how 'hip and trendy' they were. The old wags made quips about the new turks using twitter.


Marketing communications and relationship marketing people are evangelists too. Paid to relate paid to communicate. The thing is all these people have TIME to blog, TIME to engage and participate. I've noticed a very interesting things with social networking. I work in academia. Academics do alot of reading and writing. Usually other peoples work. When it comes to blogging and engaging in sharepoint sites, ning communities they simply don't have the time to be avid and prolific. Composing a post occupies the mind as well the time. If your mind and time are occupied you don't blog. Simple as. So if a huge number of people are disenfranchised from the blogosphere not because of technological access or know how, not because of education, then how representative is the blogosphere of opinion?


Blogging and social media neophytes claim its the new frontier. They have the time to preach. For me its Cognitive Miser time. I can engage sparodically, my social influence is limited. The only gratification is expression of point of view. This has taken me 20 minutes and I could have been watching Springwatch.

Do Google Keywords Stifle Originality?

I've been dabbling alot with keywords recently, using Googles Keyword Tool and other Google search tools such as Google Insight for Search.

Now sure as eggs are eggs I'm no SEO expert, and yes I've found that finding 'goldilocks' keywords (not too popular, not too obscure but 'just right') have appeared to make a difference to blog posts visits and also my Squidoo lenses. They've also influenced url selection and also title selection too.

But that is what got me thinking about originality. If writers and publishers of on-line material chase after key words then where is the spark of originality?

If Harper Lee had done a search on 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' would she have thought woah!! Not very popular steer clear? How about Shakespeare? 'Much Ado About Nothing' hmmm not many searches for that...So it seems to me there is a conundrum. Do you go for the unique and rely on your creative genius to be discovered, or do you go bland and follow the sheep?

Google after all is predicated on technical search assumptions not artistic originality.