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IBM researchers devise a system to help bloggers get past the 'wall'
Proper writing -- you know, novels and stuff -- shares a few common traits with blogging. The most common is 'writers' block' or THE WALL. You simply run out of things to write. It can either creep up on you slowly, or just suddenly emerge before you like a big... brick thing... but either way, it's a problem. And IBM has a solution! In true, researchers-are-not-very-good-at-naming-things fashion, it's called 'A Topic Suggestion System for Blog Writers and Readers' (PDF).In essence, it connects blog readers with blog writers. Readers suggest topics they're interested in, and then writers decide if they want to address it or not. It's actually designed with employee blogging in mind (IBM has a huge intranet), but there's no reason such a system couldn't be applied to the Wordpress or Blogger dashboards.
Initial results at IBM were positive: in a study of 1,000 users that tried out Blog Muse (someone coined a more catchy name for the system), blog posts "got twice as many comments and got more views as well, and they got 3 times as many stars (or likes)." Posts weren't any more frequent though; they were simply more engaging.
The in-depth analysis at GigaOm doesn't hint at IBM using Blog Muse outside its intranet, but with the research paper now out in the open, I would expect to soon see a similar system appear for Wordpress or Blogger.
Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsminibarMar 7th 2010 12:36PM
looking at the linked pdf, categories are based on shared professions, social networks, companies, ... and i think there's an implication that it is optimal when bloggers not simply discuss certain topics but actually add value to the discussion by lending their expertise and relevant experience in a concise, takeaway fashion (unlike print media, which has far more depth and research.) i would like to see a lot more blogging that adds value to the discussion by relating expertise and experience. i.m.o. sebastian does a far better job than most, but my point is that blogging is ideally not simply flinging topics at the wall to see what sticks, but directing and shaping the conversation, even if the ultimate direction is something other than intended.
Sebastian AnthonyMar 7th 2010 1:26PM
Well, as you say, it's about adding something to the massive, jabbering crowd.
You can simply re-news a story, but that hardly adds anything of value. A lot of 'tech blogs' do that, as I'm sure you're aware.
The whole point of being a specialist is that you can add your own flavor/slant to a topic. The reader then adds his or her point of view... and voila, you have KNOWLEDGE!
MasonMar 7th 2010 2:36PM
Hmmm... sounds like web 2.0.1 to me.
minibarMar 8th 2010 3:50AM
@mason
it looks like print media is going away and it would be a good thing if the replacement has more value than a social topic board because there is a lot of info fragmentation--contextual gaps, gaps of coverage,... the unfully articulated solution that came to my mind is something more smartly engineered with fewer geographic gaps, less content redundancy, fewer walled gardens esp. architecturally,... this may have the appearance of web 2.0 but would functionally be far more efficient. widespread e-book reader adoption and untethering mobile devices may need to happen simultaneously...