Shel Holtz has
commented on a
study by
Catalyst Design Group that suggest blog design is a barrier towards blogs entering the mainstream. The Big Blog Company in London
disagrees and rather crudely headlines its post "Some bloggers unable to find own arse with both hands".
I'm sorry guys you're wrong. Shel and Catalyst are right. As well as run a
PR company with its own blogging practice I'm also an elected councillor for an inner-city ward in south Leeds. As a councillor I've been
blogging for about three years. As part of my evaluation of how effective this
is I've done some focus group work with people in the local community.
This on the whole backs up what Shel was saying.
I've always wondered why my councillor blog attracts few comments from
local people, when I know for a fact that they read it. They've told me
and I can see from the logs that people use local libraries to read it.
The strange thing is I get emails from people commenting on topics on
the blog. So why don't they comment. The focus group work revealed that
the reason is simple. They don't know how. They don't understand the
concept of comments. They understand email.
Another point made by Shel is that if people land on an old post in the
blog they don't understand about what they will find on the home page
and the whole way a blog is structured.
I think the Big Blog Company's problem is that they have their heads
far too far up their own *****. They are too familiar with blogs, so
they've forgotten the primary purpose of any communication channel and
that is it should be around the needs of the audience not yourself.
It's a trap that we are all capable of failing in to, but some of us have spotted it and are doing something about it.
