How to be a star blogger
Corie Lok
Thursday, 20 March 2008 14:51 UTC
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One tip they didn’t give is to submit your writings to blog carnivals. There are a few that are appropriate for science (e.g. The Tangled Bank), as well other carnivals on all sorts of other things.
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I had never even heard of blog carnivals before! Really cool.
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When I started blogging, I saw lots of these blog carnivals and didn’t know what they were, so I went to Wikipedia, and they didn’t say either (under their “blogs” entry). So I tested Wikipedia — I put in a question to suggest they defined carnival in their list of blogging terms — and when I went back next day, there it was! Amazing.
Mind you, I have never really “got on” with the concept, even so.
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Maxine,
doesn’t From the Blogosphere qualify as a sort of blog carnival? And our recent SynchroBlogging efforts also go in that direction.
But maybe we can do more in that direction here on Nature Network, e.g. a monthly carnival on a specific topic. After April 1, that is…
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I like the idea of blog carnival or synchroblogging on a monthly topic. I’m also sort of unfamiliar with the “blog carnival” concept although I’ve seen them kicked around a bit.
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I think carnivals work best when they are allowed to roam around the blogosphere, so I guess we should be submitting our posts, and also volunteering to host them.
I really like the idea of synchroblogging. I had been thinking of suggesting one on World Book Day (April 23rd, the one the rest of the world enjoys :-)). We would have more time to prepare for it this time.
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Martin, maybe I’ve misunderstood (still!) the definition of “blog carnival”. My understanding is that it is where a group who blog about a particular topic agree to write a “round up” post over a certain time period — rather like a relay race, one writes a post summarizing what’s of interest (to that blogger) in the area, then a week (or month, or other) later, another blogger in the circle does the same, and so on.
If I am right, this is different from synch blogging, where every blogger in a group agrees to write a post on a particular topic at the same(ish) time. It’s also different from From the Blogosphere, which is intended to highlight what’s on the blogs hosted by NPG of interest to scientists with their author/reviewer hats on. (Its hidden agenda is to show people who have never heard of blogging, or who have heard of it and dismiss it as trivial, that it is actually quite useful;-) )
For my part, I’m happy to join in for a synchronised posting or for a carnival, so long as it is on a topic that I feel competent to write about (which lets out a wide range of subjects).
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Maxine – the idea of a blog carnival is to have a regular round-up of blog posts in a relevant field (which may be as vague as “science” or “cats”). You could blog about almost anything, and then find a carnival to fit it. A different person hosts it each time, so if you follow one regularly, you get to see a different blog each issue.
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Agreed, Bob, that’s exactly my understanding, too.
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Unrelated, I just stumbled upon this post
from Bora in 2006 re. the background of blog carnivals which is quite comprehensive.
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