From Blogussion comes a primer on the imperative of blogging in the age of changing media.

It ought to be obvious at the end of the decade, but for some it isn't, that blogging offers the largest personal and institutional opportunity to develop and converse with communities of interest.

The post from Everett Bogue explores the basics of creating, publishing and marketing blogs.

"As the future of journalism unfolds, we’re beginning to see just how beneficial this shift is for the writers out there.

1. We can interact directly with our audience.
2. We can write for a small audience, about what we care about.
3. We can profit directly, and immediately, from our writing.
4. We can build a reputation for ourselves, outside of an institution."

Bogue identifies successful marketing techniques, audience development and platform options. It's a useful elementary guide to the field for aspiring and experienced journalists alike interested in the form.

One of the blogosphere's challenges is to organize content for those who want to refer to it. RSS feeds and individual sites are fine, but curation and organization continue to matter.

A second challenge is, of course, the business model and how bloggers can be adequately paid to ensure quality sustains.

Which is why the new AsianCorrespondent.com site offers interesting possibilities. It's a site of about 50 English-language paid bloggers in 13 countries all over the vast Asian continent, augmented by Associated Press content from there. Unlike some such sites that pay according to page views, AsianCorrespondent is compensating with fixed salaries.

At first blush the site has a strong range of harder and softer news, analysis and commentary. It ought to become a good news resource because, unlike the lens of a western-based news agency that filters content for western distribution, this has more of a feet-on-the-ground feel to it.

And it might prove to be a model for others to try similar hubs to serve strong specialties.

The annual report on the blogosphere is being released in a serialized fashion this week by Technorati.

The latest instalment suggests some 13 per cent of bloggers do it full-time.
A further 15 per cent use the blog to supplement incomes.

Who blogs? Relatively affluent and educated people. Two-thirds are men and 40 per cent have graduate degrees.

Why? Self-expression, sharing of expertise. More than two-thirds say their own personal satisfaction is the measurement of success.

Danny Sullivan spreads out his long talk with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and reveals a great deal about the search engine/advertising behemoth's views on the print medium's future.

Among the views:

1. Google has a responsibility to help with production costs, advertising challenges and classified problems.
2. Newspapers will decline but not die.
3. Google wants to create new ways to read online.
4. New advertising formats will emerge.
5. Few bloggers can do what large organizations can and there is some fear that city hall and other civic coverage will be at risk.
6. Brands will still prevail over branded journalists.

The least attractive element of the Internet's culture of conversation has been the all-too-frequent disregard for basic accountability in the commentary attached to stories, topics, images and discussions.

For some reason, anonymity is acceptable --- not as the justifiable shield for those who fear retribution if identified, but as a shield for those with other kinds of fears, motives or tendencies. Somewhere early in the game it became a rule instead of an exception to adopt a nickname and speak through it.

The result breaks what we were all taught rightly in school: That part of the bargain in speaking freely is the responsibility to stand up and be counted, and that part of the bargain in being criticized is to at least know who is attacking.

It's heartening, then, to read J.R. Johnson, the CEO of the social sharing service Lunch.com, observe in the San Jose Mercury News a shift to more accountability in comments online. He believes, and I agree, that more transparency among contributors and commenters will spur more participation; at the moment, many are keeping out of the fray because the unattributed cohort is given a long leash.

Ultimately the benefit will outweigh the detriment in making visible all but a handful --- those who truly need the protection.

The New York Times' recent examination of the Harvard Medical School was an extensively researched investigation involving a big media outlet asking big questions and producing a big conclusion on inherent conflicts.

Eric Alterman suggests the story is a good example of why it's important to try to preserve journalism's existing format. The Harvard school is large, a recipient of government grants, and not subject to Freedom of Information law.

"Do you think it will cooperate with some blogger?"

The MBA Blogs from Business Week are a frequent source of good media observation. A new post argues that the way for companies to get media is to be media.

By that, it means creating a blog and hiring writers instead of creating a marketing budget and hiring an agency. It means breaking news instead of making it. It means writing about your targeted media list instead of waiting for them to target you.

To many newsrooms, the advice here might feel menacing.

Inside Higher Ed offers an idea to fill some of the gap created by the loss of voice in some markets: Models based on the expertise in universities or related institutions.

The academic blogger. Campus-based ventures for local and regional news. Undergraduates serving as reporters. Land-grant approaches to funding. Tapping into the constellation of entities (galleries, museums, and the like) associated with the university.

All are put on the table as possibilities in this intriguing approach.

"If these trends continue, the public affairs that most nearly touch our everyday lives -- school board elections, library censorship battles, state bond issues, social service regulations, land development schemes -- will become veiled from public discussion,"  writes David Scobey. "Those with power will have a powerful incentive to inside dealing and corruption; those without it will have a powerful inducement to acquiescence."

The announcement this week of a deal between the Seattle Times and a batch of local neighbourhood blogs is an indication of the change under way in news.

Only a couple of years ago, a deal like this would have been unthinkable for either party --- the legacy media wouldn't have deigned to open themselves to the hyperlocal parties, and those parties would have found it suffocating to play with the Goliaths.

Mutual interests have emerged: legacy media want the granular coverage, hyperlocal media need the larger impact to generate a better business model.

The nature of the deal is lacking in financial specifics. It's all about exploring advertising opportunities, collaborating on content, exchanging links and audiences, and agreeing to examine the common opportunities.

But it's an interesting model for others to study. Seattle is one of the strongest examples of a market able to pursue such a deal, but there are others near and far.

At a presentation today at the Aspen Institute conference on journalism, veteran media executive, CUNY professor and Buzzmachine blogger Jeff Jarvis talked about a new business model for hyperlocal news.

It presumes big and doesn't necessarily accommodate small.

But it's a first step in the reconsideration of the metrics necessary to ensure strong local coverage takes place in the time ahead.

Essentially Jarvis' model organizes local bloggers into a network that associates for advertising.

The concept founders on the existing economics of digital advertising, but the principle is an interesting one that ought to be explored more fully before dismissing it. (He took a fair amount of heat quickly from others attending the conference.)

It isn't clear how the bloggers would organize to avoid excessive duplication or assign and share work, but no matter --- that's in the details for later.