Comments on: Don\’t Dismiss Character Blogs

By: think again, ideascape moves people to action

think again, ideascape moves people to action — Wed, 11 May 2005 15:50:19 +0000

Blogging with Smarts and Guts
The ever generous and insightful Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion offers the most down to earth advice for any business about who should be blogging for the company. Steve says, "

By: Judy Murdoch

Judy Murdoch — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 14:50:44 +0000

When you have large, multinational corporations tryig to be “cool” whether it’s by blogging, faux grafitti, or Super Bowl advertising it has a high probability of failing. Why? Because part of what makes something cool is the inherent risk underlying it. I don’t usually hear corporations rewarding executives for spending millions of marketing dollars on something that could backfire in the most wretched way. Plus the effectiveness of a blog is based on the authenticity of the emotion behind the writing. Irony and a sense of humor don’t impress stockholders unless, maybe, your David Letterman.

There is one area where character blogs play an important role and that’s in social commentary. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin published a very popular series of letters written by a woman named “Constant.” Constant was, of course, Franklin himself but it allowed him to comment on the injustices of colonial life in ways that he could not otherwise.

My cat, Spike, wants to do a blog. Should I let him?

By: caleb walker

caleb walker — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 02:45:15 +0000

blog-talk
Over at Contentious, Amy writes about character blogs, “weblogs that are ‘written’ by a fictional character.” I entertained doing something like that as I was coming up with the Caleb Walker blog name. But I didn’t think I had

By: Bob Meade

Bob Meade — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 11:27:30 +0000

Steve Rubel’s right. Captain Morgan’s life-as-blogged was pretty much lame and unbelieveable. But I wouldn’t write off the whole idea of character blogs based on that example. My wife, a marketer, has reminded me plenty of times when I havnen’t “got” the concept or idea behind an advert or marketing ploy that it’s usually because I’m not part of the target market. Maybe that blog’s not aimed at getting Steve Rubel to buy more rum. Maybe it’d work better on someone else. There’s plenty of recent references in blogs about how bad the Captain Morgan blog marketing device really is, but in the several denigrating blog entries I’ve read, I haven’t once seen a blogger say, “I wanted to buy some rum, but I’m not going to buy Captain Morgan, ‘cos he’s got such a lame blog.” Or anything like that. You can check it out for yourself by just entering “Captain Morgan blog” into Google search and read ‘em for yourself.

But let’s move on from the specific case of the good Cap’n to the general one of character blogs. It’s like Steve Rubel’s saying the only thing that can be an authentic blog is one written by a real person as thenselves, describing their own life, their own thoughts, their own journeys via internet links, etcetera.

C’mon Steve. Haven’tcha ever read any good fiction? Don’t you think that fiction can have something authentic and worthwhile to say about life, the human condition, it’s meaning? If that’s so, then you gotta read more, Steve. I recommend a good introduction to powerful fiction like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Most people read it the first time when they’re about 13 or 14 years old.

Steve, can’t a character blog have something worthwhile to say about those things too? Granted, I’m not aware of any good example of that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, nor that it’s not going to be a delight to read when it appears in a blog.

And Steve. If you can be insulted by a character blog’s existence like Captain Morgan, then you must be very easily insulted. Just get on with your life Steve. Let it go.

Get concerned about something else. Like race hate blogs. Captain Morgan’s blog never really hurt anyone. Can’t say the same for some other blogs.

By: Ask Dave Taylor!

Ask Dave Taylor! — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 04:51:10 +0000

What’s a Character Blog?
Dave, I’ve been reading all sorts of stuff on different weblogs about “character blogs”, but I’m still not clear on what they are and whether they’re a good thing or not. What’s your opinion?…

By: Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:45:51 +0000

Back before the days of weblogs I was a member of a mailing list for a while where the members assumed the voices of fictional (or non fictional) characters. For my part, I played the role of Sir Richard Francis Burton (ie., the explorer, not the actor) and had fun for about six months regaling the assembled with a long-running semi-fictitious dispute with John Hanning Speke about the source of the Nile and other oddities.

People who say weblogs should not be ‘authored’ by fictional characters should remember, in my view, that on the internet your identity is something you create, not something you inherit, and that the assumption of various identities is one of the more empowering – let alone fun – aspects of virtual life.

I learned a lot about Richard Burton, too.