Interview With Lori Talley

I was finally able to speak with a real life blogger, which I hope adds some greater insight into this project. I spoke with the multi faceted Lori Talley. She is the writer of the blog, From the Memex to the Push-Button Finger: observing internet marketing practices. She was able to give me some really interesting and insightful responses to some questions I had.


What is your profession other than blogger?


I'm an interactive producer for the independent Chicago ad agency,
Cramer Krasselt. I also teach in the Sound Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and maintain an active art and curatorial
practice.

I'm the co-author of the interactive work, My Name Is Captain, Captain. and co-curator of the performance, sound and language festival andsymposium, OPENPORT.

While working for Cramer-Krasselt I've produced a number of onlineinitiatives including Monk-e-Mail.com, AirTran Raceway, the 2008 launch of Corona.com redesign, Age-o-Matic, AirTran.com and others.


What inspired you to start blogging? How does it relate to your
profession?


A large part of my time as an interactive producer involves research
into all things online (social networking, web based technologies,
emerging behaviors, etc.) so that I can advise the agency on current and emerging marketing opportunities within the interactive space. I meet regularly with technologists, development companies, small interactive shops and a variety of service providers to better understand their offerings and strengths so that I can build strong teams for specialized interactive executions.


I hit a point a few months ago where I realized I needed a place to
organize my thoughts on all this "input" so that the topic of "the
evolvement of social networks" would stop dominating all of my
conversations. One evening I stayed late at work and created From the Memex to the Pushbutton Finger. I think that it's a much better solution than a list of website bookmarks or a stack of not very well organized notebooks. After a while these written lists, links and notes become meaningless without the ability refer to the work and the work lives online. Pushbutton is also a testing ground for embeddable technologies which explains the absurd number of widgets on the blog. Since the blog includes content management tools I can quickly embed and test widgets, post links, video and sound in live space without having to maintain the code of custom built website. Working in this way I have first-hand experience of what it is to use these tools available to non-technical users. Again, all part of the research.


It's also worth pointing out that blogging is also part of my social
networking and online behavior research. What better way to research than to participate? So, not only do I blog but I Twitter, I Utterz, I publish blidgets (blog widgets) and I embed badges of saints and weather widgets for locations that amuse me like a lovely town in New Mexico call Truth or Consequences. I'm a big fan of collaborative creation online and am an active user of Kaltura, freebase, dapper and many other in the spirit of DIY websites.


Do you know what the readership of your blog is like?


I'm not sure I have much of a public readership at this point. The blog is really more for me and secondarily to be a primer for my colleagues on social networking and the new technologies and tools being developed for that space.


Do you think your blog does something different than some of the larger
tech blogs?


I read a number of blogs regularly and when I think about it seems thewriters I follow are people who are specialists in a single topic. I'm a "hybrid" -- part technologist, part artist, part educator, part programmer. Also, I use my blog as a testing ground, a notebook,
sometimes for critical essays. From the Memex to the Pushbutton Finger is probably unique in that it doesn't have a set business agenda rather it's focused on net culture, the people that make their own fun. The sub title, "Observation on Interactive Marketing Practice," is referring to


You write about technology and advertising, do you think that being a blogger about such a topic influences how internet marketing is designed and executed?


Blogs have become well integrated into our culture's information
gathering and I know that have a strong influence on the conversation in the advertising industry especially for online work. Blogs I check regularly for work: Adverblog, Mashable, Bannerblog, Contagious, Magazine, MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium weblog, Big Spaceships'strategy, design and devloper's blogs as well as the blogs associated with Hi-Res in London. This is the short list, really, there are an incredible number of people writing and discussing online work, trends and commentary. It's an incredibly valuable resource.


Do you think that mainstream technology blogs influence products being designed by major corporations, and do you think that these corporations advertise based on what bloggers write about?


Marketing companies, advertising agencies and advertisers spend an incredible amount of money on research and follow the trades and technology publications closely. In some cases it may seem that products and campaigns are developed in vacuums but I think it's rarely the case. There are entire business sectors dedicated to providing consumer insight to marketers as well as performance metrics to inform the next deployment.

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Why I Think Blogs Are So Cool and Why It Seems Others Feel The Same Way.

    For my field research, I decided to interview only people who claimed to read tech blogs. I was not interested in finding out the percentage of readers among my immediate social circle, but rather, who specifically uses tech blogs and why. There are four interviews posted bellow on this blog, and I discussed with each person on an individual basis why it was that they used tech blogs and how it applied to their everyday life. Through my interviews I found that there were two rather distinct reasons the people I spoke to looked at this type of news. The first was that it was a form of entertainment, and the other was that it helped them with their professional practices.
    First I will start with my interview with Sam. Sam studies pre-arch at SAIC. He reads these types of blogs both to read about "cool" things, as well as to discover new technologies that may apply to his architecture studies. "It gives [him] new ideas to create things [he] perhaps would not have even considered - either using that technology or reacting to that technology." Although he uses blogs as inspiration for his technical work, he also discusses reading blogs where he can find technologies that are "outlandish" that one may not be able to find in other types of media, and that they are written about with a sense of humor and are "fun to read."
    My classmate, who I referred to as Z reads the Gizmodo blog purely to kill time, and when I asked if she considered it gossip about technology as apposed to celebrity, she agreed. She uses the information that she learns as topics for conversation. Entertainment is a probably a big reason that Gizmodo has the wide readership it has, plus they cover a wide array of topics. It is in fact a great time waster, with links to all sorts of video clips and media meant to entertain.
    Jett's tech blog usage is a little different. He solely reads MacRumors.Com. He, like many others, is a Mac enthusiast, and Mac Rumors is designed to give information specifically to readers who seek out information on upcoming products that Apple will be releasing as well as software updates and other Apple related news. Jett is a relativly frequent user, but he specifically seeks out the blog when he is interested in buying a new products, or as he stated, to "get pissed off at Apple when they come out with a new ipod, or computer, or iphone that is better than the one i just bought 3 weeks ago." But inversly he also reads the site so he knows when to hold off on purchasing something. I believe that is the key to what makes blogs like MacRumors successful, it is a new way of finding consistently updated information on technologies that are consistently being updated.
    Video artist and instructor Angela Mobley, who is a bit older than the rest of people I interviewed mostly uses internet blogs for help in her professional practices. Working with digital media, she often times runs into problems and needs help. That is when she specifically seeks out blogs that can help her with her problems. Only occasionally will she look for product updates, but that again is only when she seeks to find something that will help her as a tool, not just to be entertained by the new information. She loves that she can find help for trouble shooting and read tutorials online.
    The internet, blogging, or message boards, all help individuals  learn easier. That is  what I discovered while interviewing these people. It is cheap, easy, and fast. They also do not come into your life without being sought after, so users are most often engaged with the topics they research. A blogs is made up by what I feel to be two important functions. The first, is that it is constantly updated, and the second is that it allows for comments and an open exchange of ideas. Although I myself, nor anyone I spoke to comments on the blogs they follow, we are still able to view comments as part of an overall article.
    Because we seek out this information that is important to us, and others do the same it leads to enjoyable situations where open exchanges of ideas can happen. Yet sometimes, commentors can get a little catty with one another. But most importantly, the greatest part of tech blogs, and really blogs in general relating to any specific topic, is that the information is always there when you need it.

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Failed Interview Attempts

A goal of my research was to speak with some big time bloggers and find out some of their unique perspectives on their perceived roles as blogger, and their perceived role of their blog in society. Unfortunately none of my e-mails were returned from anyone. I sent interview requests to Brian Lam of Gizmodo, Peter Rojas of Engadget,  and Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac. Perceiving the internet to be a tight knit community of people, I thought to myself that these guys must check their e-mails as much as I do, how hard would it be to write me back some quick responses to what I felt to be interesting questions. Who doesn't like to talk about themselves? Well unfortunately no one responded.  However, through the wonder that is the internet, I was able to find interviews with some of these men, both in text and video. Here is an interview with Brian Lam from Time Magazine.  Bellow is the question and answer I find most telling about Lam's perceived idea about blogging.
 Why do you think blogs have become an important part of the way people now access information?
It's the promise of constant conversational updates. I think the best blogs cover the kinds of things that traditional media don't think are important enough to cover, or don't want to tie their names to. The point of Gawker Media is to write about what journalists would talk about during lunch.

Peter Rojas, founder of Gizmodo, who left to form Engadget gives his insight into what he feels makes a good blog in the video below.



Rojas believes that passion is the main ingrediant for writting a successful blog. It is interesting that even though Engadget is owned by AOL, he still considers blogging to be outside of mainstream media, and emphasizes that with a blog, unlike other forms of media, he has to earn readership every single day with new and engaging information. He therefore makes the assumption that Newspapers and Television have a more solid following than blogs, and that it is much easier to lose readers with his medium than it is for other forms of media outlets.

In Class Readings That Informed My Research and Why

There were two Specific readings from the course that helped me understand the research I am doing. First there was Carol Delaney's Investigating Culture, as well as Press Protection in the Blogosphere: Applying a Functional Definition of "Press to the News Web Logs, by Laura Hendrickson.
Delaney discusses methods for anthropological research. In describing what a cultural anthropologist does, Delaney helped me understand what I was trying to do with my "fieldwork." The author states that when one does his or her fieldwork, he or she is merely looking for "clues" to help solve the mystery of the culture. (Delaney p.19) I was not looking to solve the mysteries of a culture, because it is a culture that I generally belong to, I was looking to see why it was people read technology news, possibly to help myself understand why I myself read it, or to feel like I am less of an outsider than I thought. I interviewed numerous people to help me uncover what it was about technology that intrigued people, and also in hopes of being able to figure out what role tech blogs have on the community they write about, and for.
Delaney discusses the importance of being aware of cultural differences in her essay, and some points make sense in the context of how I am working, however, she seems to mostly discuss this in terms of doing anthropological research on a culture that differs from her own. I on the other hand am trying to understand my own culture, so the ways in which people are interacting, are not different from my own in any strange way, but rather similar, and finding patterns in that is what I find most interesting.

In her essay, Hendrickson discusses the phenomenon that is the "blog," and how they differ from mainstream media. Early on, she makes a clear distinction that a blog is different from the mainstream press whose outlets are television, radio and newspaper, and does not include any of these large sources' web content in her definition of "blog." While excluding major media, she is unable to make an absolute definition for the word "blog" because they can take various forms.
The essay was good in informing me of the struggle the role of the blogger may face. However, large media corporations now own most of the blogs I covered. Working for one of the blogs I followed allows these bloggers press privileges, however, they are still working outside of the mainstream. Even with a rather large veiwership, Gizmodo claims 50 million page views a month, they are still not receiving the viewership of say NBC, the BBC, or any other major news source. I was less interested in what Hendrickson discussed about press protection for bloggers, and looked more at her commentary on blogs and bloggers. She writes; "blogger's status as outside the mainstream is, in fact, a favorite topic for them. Their focus on their outsider status may be in part because they do not receive the recognition that established media organizations do, and it may be in part because more politically oriented blogs seem to emerge as alternative voices to the dominant tone of the domains they cover." (Hendrickson p.195)
Hendrickson discusses political bloggers in her essay, but the same ideas can apply to the topic of technology bloggers. I believe that the perceived role of the blogger is to bring a fresh perspective to their topic at hand, a new angle that the mainstream media has ignored, and with the lower cost of production, and less of a need for advertising money to distribute their information, it is much easier to write opinions dissenting from the mainstream.
Blogs are almost always very specialized, relating to one topic of interest. "Many bloggers...truly see themselves as watchdog promoting the public good, in many cases checking facts and investigating rumors more fervently than would any reporters for mainstream news organizations. The idea of blogger acting as watchdogs of the mainstream, press does give us pause to wonder whether the large media organizations or the blogger on a mission is the less economically motivated and more public spirited actor." (Hendrickson p.200) Hendrickson's remarks ring very true in relation to my research. Technology blogs, unlike most others seem very concerned with giving their viewers up to date information on products and reviews of them. The community around computers and technology is generally one that believes information should be as free as possible, and is also a community with strong ties to file sharing software and such. The community is very interested in the ease of use for almost all products and blogs use their commentary to warn of products that may be faulty, or warn of products that give less bang for the buck.

This interview was a rather informal one with my cousin Jett. He is soon to be graduated from The University of California Santa Barbara. We chatted on AIM about his tech blog reading, as is what I tend to do with people these days.

JS:I'm gona ask you questions about tech blogs k?
Jett Gelber: what about?
JS:do you read tech blogs?
JG: just macrumors.com does that count?
JS: yeah. Why do you read it?
JG: so i can get pissed off at apple when they come out with a new ipod, or computer, or iphone that is better than the one i just bought 3 weeks ago... haha, and to see if there is a rumor that something new is coming out, so i can wait and not buy something that is gona be replaced... and get pissed off like i stated above.
JS: do you ever read any other blogs like gizmodo? that the other kids your age may be reading? to stay current in all areas of technology, not just apple?
JG: no not really.... just sports blogs... so i can be a meat head like my cuz
haha
JS: oh thats pretty funny.
JG: thanks
JS: how often do you go to macrummors.com?
JG: 3-4 times a month. And no i have not been sexually active or taken drugs in the past 72 hours. Was that your next question?
JS: i didnt ask that, but i quess that is relevant. I think most people that read tech blogs havent been sexually active in the past 72 hours
JG:72 months
JS: that too... Do you ever comment on mac rummors or talk to people who do comment?
JG: naw... im just an invisiable observer
JS: I suspect the majority is invisible observers, i have yet to speak with anyone who comments. Who are these commenting people?

Interview WIth Professor Angela Mobley

I sat down with  SAIC/ DePaul University professor Angela Mobley. She teaches Video Installation 01 as well as a few other courses at SAIC. We spoke about her online tech blog habits. The following is our interview.

JS:What blogs or what type of internet technology news do you use?
Angela Mobley: I use Tucow for like final cut stuff, I do a lot of tutorials online. Also when I'm trouble shooting or I have a software or hardware problem, i use a lot of technology message boards.
JS: So you use blogs for your artistic paractises?
AM: I use them more for the technical part of my artistic practices. when I'm working on something and i don't know how to do it in the program, then I use blogs to see how other people have figured it out, or share ware to figure it out.
JS: Are there online communities you are apart of or do you interact with other users?
AM: Yeah, I do but it's generally when I run into a problem and I have to ask people to help me figure it out.
JS: But you don't have relationships with these people?
AM: I don't have relationships with them other than, does somebody understand how to do this, or if somebody dealt with this hardware issue before, and people will usually write me back, so I have a brief conversation with them.
JS: So you sometimes comment on blogs?
AM: I don't comment, I don't usually comment on other people, I usually only go to them when I have a problem and somebody helps me.
JS: And you find all of this really useful?
AM: yes
JS: You like it a lot better than pre-technology like this?
AM: Yeah, well a lot of times when I'm looking up something it's a question  that has already been asked by somebody else online so I just find like an old message post and then I figure it out that way, but yeah that's really useful to be able to type in Google and find what I'm looking for.
JS: You don't use technology blogs in the type of gossip way, like what's cool and what's not.
AM: Sometimes I do that, like when I was curious like if Apple was going to come out with another twelve inch.  So I looked that up and there was a little buzz on some blogs about how they might have another twelve inch, but generally it's for trouble shooting or learning like tutorials.
JS: So you mostly use them when you have these problems?
AM: When I want to learn something, yeah. Generally to learn.
JS: How often do you use these would you say?
AM: I would say probably once every week or two weeks, just to like look it up, figure it out.

Interview with an SAIC classmate

Although this 20 year old female has many accounts all over the internet, she wanted to remain nameless when I posted her interview to this blog. Since I'm nothing without my journalistic code of ethics, I decided to appease her. I will say however, that she is in my Live Presence/Virtual Space course, in the Performance department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Or conversation took place over AIM, as all normal conversations people (of my generation) have happen.
For the sake of easily understanding this conversation, lets call her Z, it's as good a letter as any, plus I'm rather partial to reverse alphabetical order since, S usually lands you near the back of the order and that always bothered me as a kid.

Jake Sheiner: Whats your interested in tech blogs?
Z: what's my interest in tech blogs?
well my interest in tech blogs is its a good time killer and i think they are neat...gadjets make me smile
JS: How much time do you waste on such sites?
Z: ummmm..probably about a half hour a day at the least; on a lazy sunday maybe like a total of 2 hours or so. I visit alot of gossip sites too, like the sister to gizmodo which is jezebel
JS: Do you think that gizmodo is similar to jezebel? Gossip on technology as opposed to gossip on celebs?
Z: Actually I haven't thought of that but yeah its like gossip for geeky dudes....so very similar and they do borrow from each other
JS: What do you do with what you read from the blogs?
Z: I use it as conversational pieces, or post it in my blog or on my myspace bulletins.
JS: You repost articles you find? Do you ever buy products based on what you read about?
Z: Sometimes yeah..or snippets of them..never really in their entirety
JS: what are your favorite tech blogs?
Z: ummmm mainly just gizmodo. There was one i used to follow a while back off of danah boyds blog...i can't remember the title, but that blog is how i found gizmodo
JS: Do you ever comment on articles? Do you ever speak with anyone else who comments that you don't know IRL?
Z: No i dont ever comment or speak to anyone on the sites. I rarely even read the comments.
JS: Ok thanks, i think thats all unless you want to add anything else
Z: nah but you should read danah boyds blog apaphonia *think thats the name*
JS:ok cool, thanks

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Interview with Sam Thornton

For the first installment of interviews with internet and tech blog users, I sat down with Sam Thornton, a 20 year old Architecture student.

Jake Sheiner: What tech blogs do you read, and how often do you read them?
Sam Thornton: I go to Cult of Mac every once in a while, since you have told me about it because I think its pretty cool, but I can't say I have been on there more than four or five times, but I check it to see if anything is cool... Do you mean relating to computers tech?
JS: No not necessarily, just technology in general, that can be kind of open. For instance, do you look at technological blogs that pertain to your design practice?
ST: Yeah I do. There is one about new and innovative architectural building materials that I often check. I guess it's not really a blog, but they give news related to new building technologies coming out.
JS: So would you say that your interests in technology, or seeking out news on technology is generally related to your creative process?
ST:  Yes. it is inspiring to learn about new innovative technologies. as relating to my practice, it gives me new ideas to create things i perhaps would not have even considered - either using that technology or reacting to that technology.  for example: ever heard of translucent concrete?
JS: No I haven't is that something you learned about off one of these blogs?
ST: I learned about it off the Transstudio site, but I don't know if thats a good example because its not really a blog.
JS: But it's still a website with architectural innovation news? Is it written or compiled by any one person, with  his or her own commentary, or is it just a compilation of articles from all over the web?
ST: Well you can read their profile here.
JS: Ok well it doesn't have the same blog layout we may be accustomed to, but it seems thats its virtually the same idea. The guy running it is critiquing these technologies in what he writes?
ST: Yeah, and he gives lectures and is available to explain these materials to people.
JS: So this website is an example of sites you look at more often, but you also use other blogs not dedicated to technology as well?
ST: Yeah, I like to go on linearchitecture.com and dailyserving.com LineArchitecture is a compilation of what these two guys have found either online or in real life, and it's pretty visual, not much writing. A collection of attractive or interesting things that may peak ones interest or something.
JS: What percentage of new information like this do you get from the internet, versus from magazine or books?
ST: Probably like 90% from the internet, it's so immediate and you can just browse around without buying anything. It's probably the easiest and most accessable news source to use. I also like Geekologie.com.
JS: I read that one from time to time, what do you use that one for?
ST: I like it because they will show you products that are a little strange or outlandish and that aren't really practical, but you gain exposure to things you might not get otherwise. It also uses a sense of humor and is fun to read.
JS: Well this is all great, thanks for your time
ST: No problem.

Introduction to Blog on Blogs

Welcome

Blog On Blogs is part of a research project in conjunction with my course "Topics: Whirled News" at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have been researching Tech Blogs and individuals interested in them. Blog on Blogs will be a place for the presentation of my findings, with analysis. I will post interviews I conduct with Tech Blog readers and lovers, and hopefully conversations with the writers of some blogs themselves. All feedback is welcome, and I hope for open discussions among readers, as this will help in all of my findings. I aim to make this blog both informative and interesting, and will always be open to incorporating the ideas of anyone who is interested in these types of topics.

For the few, if any, of you who may end up reading this blog I would like to ask that you contact me so that if it were at all possible I could briefly interview you on your internet and tech blog viewing practices so that it could help me along in my research.


I hope this turns out to be an interesting read.

Jake