Where have all the bloggers gone?

Strange, the number of people who have expressed difficulty in resurrecting their blogging activity in 2009.

I think a lot of people have been distracted by Twitter which seems to have achieved some kind of tipping point here in the UK.

Indeed, this is my first post of the year so I thought I'd start gently with what is basically just a picture taken from Contract Journal's newly launched community - ConstructionSpace.

It's from their Construction Rogue's Gallery - "A selection of photos sent into Contract Journal demonstrating all the 'don'ts' and none of the 'dos' in construction. This gallery is open, and we welcome your additions."

Love it so much that here is another one:

Coming round to twitter

One of the mindsets of the mass media is that we do not understand "small" very well.

Our magazines are geared around substantial (if targeted) circulations and we send the same messages to all of them; our websites are optimised to attract as much traffic as possible.

And, if the truth be told, some of our attempts to introduce "community" have been hindered by our tendency to look for big numbers by using traditionally successful tools such as mass marketing emails.

We currently have the luxury of having three Community Editors who do not yet have communities to run, by which I mean they do not have community sections on their websites.

Together we have been developing what we're grandly calling a "social media outreach programme" which really means becoming part of the communities already out there and linking up with the (relatively few) people in their markets who are already hooked in to the whole social media thing.

It has been a very instructive exercise and the response so far has been positive. Twitter accounts have been set up by Computer Weekly and Contract Journal, both of whom have managed to achieve a tone and a restraint which are alien to our traditional publishing. CJ was even spontaneously applauded by one follower for not making the same mistake as its rival and twittering every article it publishes.

They have relatively few followers compared to the big boys but they are the right people. We've got a few other plans up our sleeves in a similar vein and I'm actually rather optimistic about our ability to think small.