marcusodonnell.com: blogsperiment

Blogs on TV

Interesting post by Donna Bogatin about blogging taking a starring role in a new police investigation series USA networks Psych. What is think is even more interesting is the fact that Gus (played by West Wing's Dule Hill) the sidekick of the starring psychic baddie catcher Shawn, blogs in character on the show's website. The posts aren't usually about incidents that occur on the show, the blog provides a back story including what Shawn and he did at school:

I'll never forget the Bosseigh High alma mater, and not just because we had to sing it all time at school events. I mean, look at it. Have you ever heard of school song so sadistic and poorly punctuated? Excruciating pain? What's up with that? And what's that colon doing at the end of the sixth line? I swear it's not a typo, that's the way the song was written, and for four years, I had to look at it painted in big letters on the wall of the gym. I brought it up to administration at least half a dozen times, all they ever did was give me a form to fill out.

Ask Shawn to sing the song, and he'll gladly oblige. He still knows it, too, and he'll sing it for you the same way he did then – at the top of his lungs, changing the last line to “If we catch your underwear.” Some things never change.

The alma mater isn't the only thing I remember from high school. I haven't forgotten anything, and although it's never fashionable to say it, I really had a pretty great time in high school. And yes, you could say I was involved, if by involved you mean ASB Cabinet, Mock Trial Team, Latin Club, Junior Kiwanis and the V8 Society (a club dedicated to muscle cars, not vegetable juice), I also filled the second half of my senior year for the guy that made the morning announcements, after he got fired for playing “Whoomp! (There it is) one too many times over the school PA.

Shawn was involved, too, but most of the clubs he was in were clubs that he started himself. He was the captain of the napping team, ran an underground newspaper (for which he was the gossip columnist), led an unsuccessful two-day boycott of the Pythagorean Theorem and subsequently founded the Quadrilateral Appreciation Society. Oh, and he somehow lettered in Track and Field even though he wasn't even a member of the team.

Backstories of the characters are becoming increasingly important in building fan communities, 24 and anumber of other shows now post full CVs for their major characters on the show website. With 24 this has been taken a step further by fans who have developed long Wikipedia entries for the key characters.

Technorati Tags: blogging and popular culture

Blogs at Sydney Uni take off

Found an interesting article from the Australian's Higher Education supplement about Sydney University's embrace of blogging. It's bizarre that the most traditional of universities would be the first university in Australia to set up a campus wide blogging project. In May the university set up a system open to all university staff.

“I don't know of any other Australian universities who have set up a staff blog system like this,” says Charlie Forsyth, manager of Sydney's web services. He says the idea is to make it easy for staff to blog, to collaborate with one another, to reach out to industry and the wider public, to share knowledge and engage in debate.

“The blogs will not be centrally moderated,” Forsyth says. But the standard university policy on computers applies; this forbids uses that are “illegal, unethical or inappropriate” or anything that would cause “embarrassment or loss of reputation” to the university.

The marketing arm of the university is also embracing blogging with a site called Sydney Life. Here they have employed a series of students to post on their experiences of life at the university

Like most blogs it has regular, journal-like entries with a comment thread. But the home page banner carries the university shield and Cohen, Sydney's marketing information manager, vets every post before it's uploaded.

Can big institutions tame the free-spirited blog format?

“I think it's working because I don't domesticate it too much,” says Cohen, who was fascinated by blogs before she came up with this official use for them.

At Sydney Life she doesn't see a lot of room for posts about dating or wild nights. She says subjects more suited to the readers include how to make friends in first year, insider tips for enrolment day, study and procrastination, as well as immersion in campus clubs and societies.

Spencer, president of the Sydney University Dramatic Society, doesn't regard Cohen's editorial control as heavy-handed; in fact, he's reassured she's there. “Obviously we're writing for a fairly specific audience and it is under the university name,” he says.

He's found it fun, a totally different way of writing, and an inspiration to look into blogging more closely.

Technorati Tags: blogs and higher education

Technorati Tags: blogs and higher education