“Blogging for Beginners” article in LDSLiving Mag
I came across this article in the most recent issue LDSLiving Magazine. The magazine is seemingly a marketing arm of Deseret Book, or perhaps an independent marketing partner. I found it newsworthy because it is the first positive article on blogging that I’ve seen in a mainstream-ish church related media outlet. Before this I had only seen a few warnings about the dangers of “blogging” that were actually warnings about community sites like MySpace or Xanga. Of course this article is a far cry from church approval of blogging, but it might signify a growing awareness among church members of the benefits of real blogs. What, if anything, do you think this article signifies?
Unfortunately, not much. I think I tried to order something from Deseret once and got on their email list, so I saw the email version. It seems to see blogs as personal tools to keep in touch with people. This is the function of lots of LDS blogs, but certainly not all or even most. I wonder if the article would take such a glowing view of the T&S/BCC/DMI type blogs that we know and love.
Can anyone that’s seen the full magazine version confirm or deny my impressions?
Comment by D-Train — February 19, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
I did notice that Deseret Book had blogs by “celebrity” members on their site at one point. It would be hard to pinpoint just one thing, some do blog for keeping in touch, then you have blogs about certain topics, and there are a lot of member blogs that aren’t about LDS specific topics. The article does a good job of presenting an overview, and it’s nice that it is positive.
Comment by Aimee — February 19, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
It really only signifies that blogging is becoming more mainstream. There is a sense of inevitable popularity on the horizon.
Comment by Eric — February 19, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
Well the positive news is that there seems to be an emerging view of blogs that is more nuanced than the overly broad “beware of blogs” messages I have seen before (which were really warning against services like MySpace.com).
Comment by Geoff J — February 19, 2006 @ 9:08 pm