iNorden was launched today, a multi-language pan-Nordic citizen journalism/blogger site (the founders are Norwegian, most or all of them with lots of blogging/writing experience). There will be articles in each of the Nordic languages and in English. An exciting initiative to follow. But why so modest — according to the about page, iNorden is “non-profit initiative,” “not motivated by future prospects of profitability”. Why not? If the project is successful, the editors would want to expand further, and if that means selling ads and/or getting investors on board, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
Category Archives: Blogs in Scandinavia
VG celebrates 10.000 blogs
10.000 blogs have now been created on Norway’s largest news website VG Nett since the service launched last October, a milestone the site rightly celebrates. As I am quoted as saying in the story, there’s every reason to believe that many find VG attractive as blog host because traffic will spill over from the news website to blogs. Not the only reason for choosing VG as host, but probably important. The site also features highlights from blogs quite prominently on the main news page.
One of my hopes for the future of VG’s blog coverage is that they will also hunt for good blog posts among bloggers outside VG’s own service. That way they will definitely increase their credibility among non-VG bloggers, and also their relevance as a main aggregator of the wider Norwegian blog community.
Another peculiarity of VG’s blog service is that the bloggers there relate very much to each other, and not so much to bloggers outside VG. Hence, there’s a strong, independent community at VG Blogg. Nothing wrong with that, but again I hope that “VG’s” bloggers in the future will connect to the wider networks as well.
Under medienes overflate: Rapport og kronikk
De siste månedene har jeg forsøkt å gå dypere inn i problemstillinger knyttet til blogging og journalistikk. Rammen har vært et forskningsprosjekt støttet av Rådet for anvendt medieforskning. Mange av innleggene her på bloggen har vært notater til dette prosjektet. Nå har jeg skrevet ferdig rapporten fra dette arbeidet, og presenterer noen av konklusjonene i en kronikk i Aftenposten i dag.
De som er interessert i å fordype seg mer i materialet, oppfordres til å ta en titt på hele rapporten.
Dersom du heller foretrekker pdf-versjon, kan den lastes ned her (482 kB).
Om arbeidsprosessen: Jeg hadde visse ambisjoner om å gjøre i hvert fall deler av prosjektet wikibasert, men der feilberegnet jeg tiden. Siden jeg hadde en deadline å forholde meg til, måtte rapporten gjøres ferdig på mer tradisjonelt vis. Men jeg tar svært gjerne imot kommentarer og innspill, som jeg kan bruke i en ny versjon av rapporten eller i videre arbeid med disse temaene.
[Explanation to non-Scandinavian readers: This post refers to my previously announced research project about blogging and journalism, where the project report is now available. So far only in Norwegian, but I’ll try to translate parts of it later.]
Student marketing 2.0
Probably a marketing scoop by the University of Bergen: They hired a young student to blog about student life, the city, the university as part of the effort to attract more students. An excellent alternative to embarrassing cinema commercials and other panic-smelling university advertising campaigns. Add to this that Kristin Breivik is a talented blogger understanding the genre, that she sounds authentic and that she knows what the audience wants – and this initiative looks like something that will get students to talk about the university (via forbruker.no).
Blogging and opinion formation
In this week’s Mandag Morgen, I contributed to an analysis (subscription required) of blogging and opinion leadership in Norway (a favourite topic). Some key figures from a survey among the Norwegian online community (83 percent of Norwegians over 12 years are online):
- 7 percent of users read blogs every day.
- An additional 19 percent of users read blogs at least once a week. Hence, 840.000 Norwegians are at least weekly blog readers.
- Of those reading blogs, 86 percent follow one to four blogs. Only 2 percent read more than ten blogs.
- 36 percent have contributed comments to blogs.
Coverage of the story in Dagbladet.
Keep on bloggin’…
VamPus Verden is the deserved winner of the first Gullbloggen award. Congratulations! The very highly qualified jury takes the full responsibility for this decision (though not for VamPus’ writings), but immediately points out that we were in line with the people, which elected VamPus the best political blog also. Other excellent category winners chosen by Dagbladet’s readers: One satirical deer won in the Open category, eirikso the Technology race and Bærturen is the best underage, no Under 20 blog.
Norway’s best blogs: Nominations released
The honourable jury has done its part. Nominations for Norway’s best blog are out, and voting is underway. These are the nominees (most of them written in Norwegian):
Politics:
Technology:
Jo Christian Oterhals’ søkeblogg
Under 20:
Open class:
The pleasure of blogs
Being in the jury nominating Norway’s best blogs has given me some extra homework. So has it been worth it? Definitely and absolutely. There are many, many good blogs out there now (you’ll soon learn which my co-jurors and me think are the best). Working my way through them there were moments that reminded me of the revelation of reading Salam Pax’ blog for the first time back in 2002 (See an older Axess piece for a description of that discovery): Inspired and fresh writing, original and insightful ideas. A genuine pleasure to read (I’ll supply some examples after the nominations have been published). Now how often do you get to say that about your newspaper nowadays?
The best Norwegian blogs
Dagbladet has launched “Gullbloggen” (The Golden Blog), a competition for the honour of being called “Norway’s best blog” in different categories. An overall winner will also be chosen. I was invited to sit in the panel together with jilltxt and Dagbladet’s Bente Kalsnes. Our job is to make a shortlist from the readers’ nominees, then the readers will elect the winners. The panel will also choose the overall winner.
The start looks good – the competition announcement has been read over 10.000 times already, according to Dagbladet’s public statistics. And nominations keep pouring in.