Blog feedback - tell us what you think
We have been running this blog for a few months now. You may or may not know that it is part of a wider trial across the ´óÏó´«Ã½.
The trial was set up because we didn't want to assume that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ - being (let's say) a Big, Strictly-Governed Organisation - necessarily had any reason to launch its own blogs (an emerging medium, but the contrasting characteristics of which could be said to be Small, Anarchic, Anti-Organisation..).
Anyway - we'd really like to know what you think of this blog and our World Cup blog. So please let us know here and in return I've shared a few lessons we've learnt along the way..
Just to fill you in on the background - there are about 30 blogs running across the ´óÏó´«Ã½.
Recent launches include the News Editors blog - which yesterday had a really interesting post on the tricky issue of doctored/staged news photos - and Blue Peter, which gives you an idea of the range.
We in Sport are currently running two.
You may have read our World Cup blog which was the most high-profile one we have produced so far - it attracted almost 6m page impressions during the tournament and more than 23,000 comments - and there is this blog, a forum where we can talk about our coverage.
Anyway, here are a few questions to get you thinking:
what do you like best?
what don't you like?
how can we improve it?
do we post often enough?
is this a worthwhile way to engage?
In return for your thoughts, here are some of the conclusions/observations we drew from our World Cup blog.
- you really liked being able to comment on the TV coverage - and especially our pundits! (and ITV's)
- you wanted to make sure we were really listening/responding (we were, including the main man, director of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport Roger Mosey)
- you REALLY want to know more about the music we use
(to answer those three points - Match of the Day editor Paul Armstrong will be continuing to post - on this blog - during the new season, and we will be endeavouring to include weekly details of the music we've used)
- debates on nationalism/patriotism can be conducted in a passionate, erudite and rewarding way without descending to abuse, but only with careful moderating..
- you liked Fletch and Ricco's licence to be your eyes and ears in Germany and have requested for more of this kind of fun from us
- you liked responding to opinion from those with first-hand experiences of the games (even (or especially??) if you didn't agree, as long as the writers backed up their views/responded). Of course they should - it's a blog, right?
- you didn't like mistakes appearing ('who's editing this stuff?' you asked more than a few times - point taken).
- some of you didn't like - in future we will do it in an open way - (it may seem a pedantic point but it seems blogging is like doing your maths homework - showing your 'working out' is as important as the 'answer')
- we can do more to promote your blogs (of which there are an ever growing number), which may be just as important as writing our own
We will very shortly be launching a Test Match Special blog, with the likes of Arlo White and Jonathan Agnew contributing as well as the cricket journalists who write for this website.
And we will be running a short blog in the build-up to and during September's , which will be largely written by Matt Slater and Rob Hodgetts, who you may know from their .
And we have plans to extend our World Cup blog into a year-round football affair.
But I'll get your thoughts on that another time.
