Blog Tipz

Quite a bit of buzz has formed over Google’s new addition to its News archives area, which includes more print articles, in the form of photographs, headlines, articles, advertisements, and the other areas of a newspaper/magazine.  The ultimate goal of Google, nearly since day one, was to conquer the world’s information, and present it in an accessible and highly organized manner.  After all, they created the search engine as you know it today, helped define what a quality website is organized, and created services that billions of people are able to access with only Internet access.

The moves that Google has been making recently have angered some people, which may appear to be possibly infringing on their personal rights, including personal information, although Google has published multiple blog posts clarifying the information that users have had questions about.  Beyond the fact that Google is constantly trying to drive traffic to their properties, the undeniable truth is that these services will ultimately impact the way we all interact with the billions of pages of newspapers, and information.

What Does Google News Archives Mean to Bloggers and Others Online?

Bloggers will ultimately be able to benefit from Google News Archives, as it is easy to link to and excerpt articles from the news stories found in newspapers that have been archived to date.  To find an article that has a newspaper associated with it, the search result will have “Google News Archive” next to the newspaper title and the date it was published, however older sources from TIME have been excluded, as these articles can be found on their website as text.

Previously, bloggers and journalists alike would be required to dig up an article from a local source or have the newspaper agency send the article, often costing heavy fees for either party and lost time, trying to get “the facts.”  

Let’s say you are writing about a historical event.  Instead of searching throughout the web, you’ll simply need to locate the archived article, then create a link to the specific article using the tool located on every newspaper page.  There is no need to create multiple links, images, and excerpts to news articles as once before.

News stories that were once forgotten, in towns that didn’t start growing until the late twentieth century will now have some relevance to other people, should Google fulfill their promise in trying to archive nearly every newspaper in the world.

Put in short terms — it’ll save time for bloggers, while maintaining consistency by using sources that have generally become credible through the years, adding more relevance to your own blog through your personal research and thoughts.

Twitter: Less than Two Years and Now Used in Mass Media

Not only CNN, but several other popular mass media sites and television (traditional) media have been on the forefront of adopting the micro-blogging client as a method of quickly communicating with their viewers and readers.  While most web-aware people understand the importance of communicating through this method on the Internet, the growth of the service would likely be much higher if people understood its overall purpose.

Twitter now receives well over 21.8 million (United States) monthly visits, has enjoyed year-over-year growth of between 400 and 800 percent, as well as month-over-month growth of between 15 and 25 percent.  While these figures are quite astounding, it represents the trend that “old media” is currently transitioning to online, interactive forms of media that allow viewers to “chat” with the on-air correspondents, and provide direct feedback, rather than older methods, such as phoning in, and writing into the producers/journalists through mail or email.

The slow evolution from the once tell-true methods of growing your target audience are slowly coming to an end.  With the introduction of Twitter as a prominent part of the news program, and potentially as its own independent show for showcasing the ideas of viewers from their dedicated page, Twitter is rapidly gaining the trust of people who wouldn’t normally revere web applications designed for people who are connecting with each other on the Internet.

Put it all in perspective.  Why would a company with one of the largest audiences and cable news networks strongly work towards getting people to divert away from one of their online properties and travel to Twitter, a non-related, but equally compelling service?  Obviously each coincide with one another, providing the valuable asset that the company is looking for in strengthening and/or rejuvenating its audience to a slightly younger/Internet-savvy crowd.

Conclusion

Through these two examples above, one can see how the evolution of traditional media to online formats is rapidly taking shape, mostly by large, multi-billion dollar corporations that have money to experiment in areas that could lead to further innovation on their fore fronts in other areas.  

After online diaries (an off-shoot of the modern blog) started around 1994, it took much longer for blogs to become mainstream – nearly ten years, at which point they were used in the media/election.  Obviously, the mass media is beginning to “get” what journalism is instead of sticking to practices that worked twenty years ago.

The future of blogging may not be as clear as it once was — twenty to thirty years ago there was no such thing as “online journals,” although there were still newspapers, which are now being digitized for everyone to read for free.  Look twenty to thirty years into the future and the video, media (photographs, etc.), and content (blogs, etc.) will be archived in a similar fashion, only through use of a new revolutionary format, making them even more accessible.  It won’t necessarily happen, but if the past is any indication of the future, there will be drastic changes in the way that today’s online/offline activities take place.

[Source: Google Blog]