Recent interesting links: BBC, journalism, blogging, social media.

BBC and Blogging

The re-launch of BBC News 'blogs' has sparked some criticism. Going after the new commenting format in particular, Adam Tinworth describes them as a "road crash", while Adam Bowie starts at the scene of the same 'accident' before turning his attention to the associated RSS feeds.

Off the back of that, an unrelated yet interesting piece of research from Canada suggests that blog readers are perhaps not as interested in the ability to comment on blogs as one might think.

Social Media and Journalism

Sky News freelancer, Neal Mann (@fieldproducer), explains how he uses social media to monitor 2,000 sources - a practice he regards as essential to his job.

His post was one in a series for the BBC College of Journalism in the build up to their Social Media Summit on Thursday and Friday this week.

Hopefully, I'll see some of you there!

Links for today: Twitter, RSS and blogging

Haven't done one of these posts for ages. Tend to push links through my Twitter feed these days. But anyway for your dereliction or delight here are a few things I've been reading:

Twitter

• Can't seem to escape it these days. Surgeons are tweeting operations and 'normal' people will be using it soon. Heaven forbid. Normal people.
  

• For those of you just can't take it anymore, here's the Daily Show's John Stewart who says what you're all thinking.

RSS

• Various journalists explain how they use RSS feeds to do journalism in the comments section of this open post.

Blogging

• So 2005, but still so much to be resolved. Kevin Anderson highlights some of the issues that have cropped up as a result of the festering NUJ row.

• Though budget airline Ryanair might usefully take a trip back to 2005 and learn a few basics. This is a case study in how not to engage with bloggers.

P.S. And if you're interested in counterinsurgency and social media, check out my latest post at the Frontline Club.

RSS: Ssshhh...don't tell anybody, they might start using it

Iain Dale recently asked his readers a few questions on his blog. He got 1,100 responses. Here's one of the questions and the results:

"How do you read the blog[?]

* 15% via an RSS reader
* 61% via your favourites on your toolbar
* 10% via another site
* 15% by typing the domain name each time"

I am intrigued that as many people type in the domain name each time as use an RSS feed. When will RSS go mainstream? Who's promoting it? Who's teaching it? Does it get taught in schools? Is RSS really that complicated? Does it need simplifying further? Or is it just a case that it's not that useful for most people?

It seems to me that people stumble across RSS by chance - one journalist I spoke to the other day said she only discovered Google Reader when she was shown how to use RSS feeds by her flatmate.