Signs of Clue in the UK media
I'm interested to see some of the UK media establishment diving into weblogging, and evidently with some gusto. Some of them are starting to understand the concept.
Following The Guardian's lead, The Times has a list of weblogs by op-ed writers and columnists (well suited to the blog format), but what's more interesting is that they've allowed the blogs to live off the main Times site.
All the Times weblogs live off timesonline.typepad.com, and the newspaper's webmonkeys have made no effort to incorporate the Typepad service under their own domains. To me, is shows signs of a more relaxed attitude and I think that's a good thing. Back in the 1990s, the corporate image would have counted more and someone high up would have insisted that everything be carried under thetimes.co.uk. Now, they're just more relaxed about this sort of thing.
This is a sign of Clue at the Times. Yay.
Now the Beeb has finally started 'proper' weblogging for reporters. (I say proper because they've had content they called 'weblogs' before, but it was just pages buried in the rest of the site and loosely linked together under the 'weblog' title. They didn't have an easy-to-find front page, or a particularly 'webloggy' feel to them.) Starting with a weblog by political editor Nick Robinson, they're now using MT (or Typepad, I dunno) and they're doing things the way you'd expect; a front page, archives, comments, all the shazzam.
Assuming other media jump the wagon as they do in the past, I forsee that within a year, The Sun will have blogs; The Mirror's 3am will have been spun off as a separate bloggy site; the Telegraph will have limped into line behind The Times; even the Daily Mail will have a House Prices blog. The Express will continue to be publishing shite about Princess Diana and not have a fucking Clue about anything.
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