The blog I was tasked to follow is Boing Boing,
a multi-award winning publishing entity and one of the most popular blogs on
the Internet. Run by up and coming writers and accomplished journalists, Boing
Boing deals with technological and cultural curiosities, and exciting or funny
stuff from the web.
Boing Boing started off as a small circulation
self-published magazine by current co-editor Mark Frauenfelder and his wife in
1988. 15 issues were published with the maximum circulation of 17500. Common
topics included sci-fi, technology, futurism and left wing politics. In 1995,
Boing Boing was transformed into a web site and was relaunched as a weblog in
2000.
Over the years, the staff has been expanded
with the addition of several editors who previously contributed to the likes of
The New York Times, Wired magazine, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post
and The Guardian. In addition, Boing Boing often features guest bloggers
including scientists, journalists and authors. I don’t know 99% of them.
Boing Boing is supported by advertising. In the
first business quarter of 2010, they reportedly earned $27000 so it is safe to
say that the editors can make a nice living without the worry of going to the
poorhouse anytime soon.
I was curious to find out how they can make
this money off of this blog, but I haven’t really come up with an answer.
Personally, I have never heard of this weblog before and it seems to me that
they don’t really care about marketing a lot. Surely, in accordance with the
current trends, they are available on Facebook and Twitter, but these options
are not exploited enough and the editors don’t really have many followers
either. Considering the fact that Boing Boing is one of the most visited blogs,
it was quite surprising to realize that there aren’t many user comments. I
expected to see hundreds and hundreds of replies, but the post count didn’t
even go above 10 sometimes.
The layout is quite simple and esthetic, you are
definitely not going to get lost on this site. Most importantly, it is a
pleasure to the eye due to its colorful display filled with large images. Also,
there are different sections available from the header (?) such as features, books,
reviews, science and geek stuff. I especially like the very clever archive. Of
course, there is a monthly archive rooting back to 1999 and you can search
recent articles listed by days. Moreover, there is a tag cloud which features
hundreds of keywords with the most popular ones boldfaced and highlighted in
different color.
The blog is updated quite frequently. Up until
4pm ET (Eastern Time Zone), 19 articles were published on April 2. In average,
there are at least 30 posts daily. Today’s subjects included Autism Awareness
Day, Tibet, Irish Catholic priests sharing gay porn, etc. The posts are usually
written in an informal, casual style so visitors can perceive and understand
everything easily. Also, the articles contain a lot of references such as links
to other sites, quotations, excerpts from books, etc.
In addition, Boing Boing produces two weekly
podcasts entitled “Boing Boing Boing” and “Get Illuminated” which are intended
to cover actualities, the week’s posts and feature interviews with creative
figures such as writers and artists. I don’t know 99% of these people either.
All in all,
Boing Boing is quite a decent blog; however, it is not exactly my cup of tea.
Surely, I’ve read many exciting stuff over the weeks, but vast majority of the
subjects are not really enticing for me. Concerning their success, I’m quite clueless.
Maybe I should keep following them and take some notes so one day I could get
over 25 grand in a quarter. Git dat dinero, muchachos and chiquitas!
