Blogging Type Analysis
Thanks to Typealyzer:
Sphere: Related ContentINTP - The Thinkers
The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
Well Duh Polly
According to Dizzy, Polly Toynbee thinks that all Tory Blogs are all funded by Tories.
Tell us something we don’t know Polly. My blog costs money to run. I pay for it with my money. I am a Tory. Therefore my blog is paid for by a Tory. What, you expected my blog to be funded by the Labour party?
In all honesty though, why on earth shouldn’t Tory bloggers be paid? She has made millions from her writing. She has no right to complain about others being paid for their writings.
If there is actually a Tory fund to pay bloggers, could they please let me know as I could do with a bit more money what with the recession and so on.
Sphere: Related Content#100
Having decided to take a break from writing this blog to focus on writing my final year essays, I also noticed that I was one off a hundred posts. Such a position seems a rather good one to start assessing where I have got in blogging.
This blog started six months ago off the back of a desire to get back into the swing of politics after being drafted into an NUS delegation by a friend in my student’s union. My gradual involvement in student politics had brought me to become increasingly annoyed at the tribal hostility to any form of conservatism. The complete disconnection between the expectations and reality of what a conservative was became a point of intrigue. Intelligent and passionate people were completely unable to understand how an apparently intelligent person such as myself (more fool them) could hold right-wing opinions. I set this up, after several other abortive attempts at starting specialist blogs, to hone my writing skills and articulate a conservative viewpoint to try and dispel the myth held by some that there is an automatic correlation between conservatism and stupidity.
In that ensuing period of around seven months, this blog has written 46,077 words and had 2,812 views. It has had 38 comments, a few links and 1,541 spam comments deleted. My writing has taken me to several events throughout the realm of politics, had me invited to numerous events, and even got me dragged over to the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham. I even had an article linked to on ConservativeHome. If anyone reading this is considering starting a blog, I urge them to do so.
Given that I am going to be noticeable by my absence in the next few weeks, I’d still like to retain some engagement with this blog.
First, if you want to guest write for this blog, please let me know either in the comments section or through the “Contact” tab and I’ll set you up with something to write.
Second, I would like to get some feedback. This can be on anything surrounding the blog, but I would particularly appreciate comments on the following:
- What do you think of my writing style? What could be done to improve it?
- What articles have you liked?
- What articles didn’t you like?
- What should I do more of?
- Are there any (general) topics you would like me to cover that I haven’t done previously?
- How do you like the design of the blog?
I would also like to gauge your opinions as to what I might expand into doing. For a while I have considered the following:
- Live coverage;
- Open threads;
- Book reviews;
- Videos;
- Regular weekly spots along the lines of a cartoon, video or guest post.
Is there any demand for this?
Finally, I am considering having a bash at making some submissions to the Orwell Prize for Political Blogging. I would really appreciate it if you could suggest what posts I have written that would be worth submitting. More information about the criteria can be discovered by visiting the link.
See you in a few weeks’ time. I’ll be checking this blog for comments and might put up a few posts every now and again.
Sphere: Related ContentTechnological Progress
Hat-tip: Wardman Wire
Sphere: Related ContentI Agree with Luke Akehurst
A title I never expected to write, proving once again that politics makes for interesting bedfellows. I was going to write something similar on Hazel Blears’ comments, but it seems he beat me to it.
Sphere: Related ContentUsually I agree with Hazel Blears but I’m not sure I do when it comes to her comments yesterday on blogging:
“We are witnessing a dangerous corrosion in our political culture… Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a ‘Samizdat’ style. The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?” But mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy.” Until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.”
I think this rather misses the point. If politicians didn’t misbehave, Guido wouldn’t have anything to write about. He reflects public cynicism about the political class - largely self-inflicted by politicos who have behaved badly - rather than generating it. People read Guido in large numbers because he breaks stories which mainstream journalists or their editors are too risk-averse to run with, and because it is an entertaining, funny read. Blaming Guido for cynicism about politics sounds like the MacMillan era Tories blaming That Was the Week That Was and Private Eye for public disrespect post-Profumo.
Guido’s personal attacks on the PM are deeply unpleasant - and for Labour supporters like me actually reinforce our sympathy and loyalty to the man - and his commenters are often from the loopier fringes of the right, but his own politics aren’t nihilistic, as far as I can work out he is a libertarian, which is a legitimate philosophy to hold even if I disagree with it.
The vast majority of blogs are not “written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians” - mainly they are written by people who are part of the political system or politicians themselves. Unfortunately, the majority of this majority of blogs are painfully dull so no one reads them, whereas Guido at least entertains and informs his audience so people do read him.
The irony is that Hazel’s forthright opinions would actually make her a brilliant blogger who people would want to read and comment on.
October Statporn
Wordpress Stats:487 Visits
Google Analytics
Visits: 360
Absolute Unique Visits: 222
No idea how two rather divergent sets of statistics came out. A downturn in readers this month as a result of last month having a slight conference bubble. As other commitments crept in, limiting my ability to publish regularly, and my posts got longer and more academic, some readers will have left. My writing on issues outside that on my RSS reader has also led to a drop in readers. Still, the articles in the new “religion” category seems to have drawn in some new readers.
This month I got predominantly new visitors over returning ones. This may be because my feed is managed through feedburner, which registers an average of 13 hits per day.
Top referrers this month were:
- Facebook (+2)
- Letters from a Tory (-1)
- Tom Harris (New)
- Iain Dale (-2)
- Total Politics (new)
- The Young Conservative (New)
- The Commune (New)
- Alexandra Swann (New)
- Hotair.com (-9)
- John Redwood (New)
- Recess Monkey (New)
- Broken Britain (New)
Direct hits remained the top source of traffic.
Sphere: Related ContentFrank Field Has a Blog
You can find it here. Thankfully I have a separate blogroll for MPs, otherwise I’d be torn as to whether I classified it “Right”, “Left” or “Non-aligned”.
Sphere: Related ContentStatsmut for September
A slight disparity in the statistics for last month. Google Analytics reports 689 Visits, with 584 Absolute Unique visits. Wordpress Stats however suggest a slightly lower figure of 522 views, although I am not quite sure how they reach this figure. Nonetheless this remains the highest month on record. I got a large number of visitors from the US after getting linked to on hotair.com regarding my post on Sarah Palin. The interest generated by the slight nod to the Atlantic might lead me to write a bit more about US politics, but I somehow doubt this would be of particular interest to my regular readers. If you feel particularly strongly about this either way, please let me know in the comments section.
Another good source of traffic was breaking the story on Luke Akehurst’s Labour Leadership facebook group backfiring, which even spurned a second facebook group to allow Tories their own special place to praise the Experienced One. Traffic from Tory Bear and Iain Dale therefore came in as new referrers.
My foray into the Facebook Blog Networks has also made me gains with new referrals and readers.
The top referrers then for me this month were:
1. Hotair.com
2. Letters from a Tory
3. Iain Dale
4. Facebook
5. Tory Bear
Blogging from Conference
Now that I’m settled in Conference I’ve got a set of measures up to ensure as much coverage as possible.
First, my Twitter Feed will have the most up-to-date postings of brief observations and thoughts.
Second, I am using a service called VR+ to do a form of podcasting. I make no guarantees as to doing this, but should I do so you can find the feeds here. I will make a post if that is the case.
Finally, I will be continuing to post to this blog as and when possible. I should be able to upload photos from my BlackBerry as well as write some more detail if I get the chance to.
So far after a somewhat extended journey spent sleeping, reading the papers and listening in on BBC journalists, I have arrived and am now writing from the official party internet café. I have the morning largely to myself to get acquainted with the layout of the conference centre and go to lunch with some of the senior people in Conservative Future. Following that my schedule is now slightly out-of-date. Because of the current economic conditions several events, such as “celebrating electoral success” have been cancelled to ensure that Ben Brogan’s “Tory Hubris Watch” and other similar activities are not the dominating theme. Given that I had signed today over to official events I now have considerably more free time than I expected.
Tomorrow I intend to attend predominantly fringe events, as well as a free breakfast, focusing around themes of social justice and excessive state intrusion into the private sphere.
Sphere: Related ContentIn Support of the New Blog
Scorn and derision have arisen from the attempt from CCHQ to establish a new blog. A blatant piece of propaganda, acting as little more than the sanitised mouthpiece of the Party is the opnion of Guido Fawkes, who has taken to exhorting his readers to calling it “Pravda 2.0″.
There is an element of truth to these accusations. The new Conservative Party blog is unlikely to be a source of candour, or the hotbed of debate and exchange of ideas that ConservativeHome is at present. Nor is it likely to undermine that blog’s readership or influence. That being said, this does not render it useless.
An official mouthpiece for a political party is no bad thing, provided that it is honest about it being such. Something that allows voters to discover what the party line is on an issue without having to go through the intermediary of the press is no bad thing. If one is an optimist, it could even be argued that such forms of direct engagement undermine the PR and spin games that have weakened the health of our political culture.
Providing editorial balance to ConservativeHome is necessary. This is not because of any particular disagreement with their editorial line, but because it s necessary to differentiate between the opinions of an independent publication and the official position of the Conservative Party. During the debate on 42-day detention Gordon Brown attempted to pass off a dissenting ConservativeHome editorial as an official party press release. Having an official party publication, however anodyne, at least prevents such confusion from arising in future. It may also do ConservativeHome a service by demonstrating that it is not a CCHQ mouthpiece to the casual reader.
At a time when people are complaining that politicians are out of touch and failing to communicate properly with the electorate, surely a party getting an official blog should be celebrated? It was not that long ago that Guido was complaining that the Tories were not web 2.0 enough.
Sphere: Related Content
