I was preparing to sneak out of here a little early to begin girding myself for tomorrow’s big KU vs. Carolina matchup in the Final Four, but this article popped up in my RSS reader and I felt compelled to share. We’ve been talking over the last couple of weeks about how blogs might be used within CRL. This article describes a case study in which a weekly print newsletter made up of the best posts from a New Zealand-based blog is delivered to 6,500 mailboxes. Readership of the blog grew to about 6% of the total population (I’m not sure what that is in raw numbers) and blog participation, such as leaving comments online, increased as well.
I’ve long thought that a print (or e-mail) edition of a blog could be a useful way to rapidly collect news and allow those comfortable with the medium to read it as it’s posted, but distill and deliver it via media more appropriate for those who aren’t ready to make the jump. This could be a good gateway to the blog medium in general.
It’s also noted that “keeping it hyper-local makes it more manageable and may make people more comfortable in voicing their opinions”–although they’re talking about “local” in a physical sense, this could also apply to a highly-targeted audience like those we tend to communicate to.
What do you think? What keeps people from sharing their thoughts on this blog? Would a printed version convince you to give us more feedback?
Read Who says print is dead? Local blog finds success offlne, via ReadWriteWeb
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Tags: blogging, publishing
