The good and the bad aspects of blogging

A funny thing just happened to a journalist friend of mine, Nick Clayton – he got sacked from the Scotsman newspaper after working on its IT column for years. He’s been trying to sell his Edinburgh flat after living in Ibiza for the last four years and happened to blog about the fact that all but one of the estate agents he consulted advised him not to bother advertising his property through the Scotsman – better to stick to the web. In less than a day he’d been told that his journalistic services were no longer required – seems a bit unfair as he was only reporting the facts.

This event doesn’t sound funny in itself, but what happened then has been a surprise to Nick and many others. Living in Ibiza Nick relies on his online network to bring in work. He began to blog about his first sacking experience and is amazed at the amount of attention it has received, not only via the Guardian and other ‘mainstream’ media, but also through online social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The result is that his level of awareness as a blogger and journalist has risen enormously – and in case you’re wondering the vast majority of the audience are on his side. This will probably turn out to be a highly successful publicity campaign for Nick and he’s certainly learned how to leverage Web 2.0 connections to make the most of it.

If you’re a bit of a Web 2.0 virgin I urge you to embrace Facebook and Twitter – ask your kids, as it’s too long to explain here how to use them. At a recent business dinner I sat next to a market analyst who specialised in IT and hadn’t tried either of them – that’s like a hi-fi expert who hasn’t tried using an iPod. I think I managed to get him enthused enough to go online and have a go on Facebook. If he does he’ll see that tonight Ash is running a musical jam at Voodoo Rooms and he could bring along his guitar if he fancies joining in – he can even hear samples of Ash’s band … but maybe that’s just taking him too far in one step