Alright, here is all you could ever want to know about the blog called 'loobylu.com'

1. The author is a woman named Claire Robertson (an illustrator living in Melbourne, Australia, just in case you wanted to know).

2. She seems to be writing about a lot of of 'home' topics. In the current blog, she is talking about her obsession for finding 100% wool in Melbourne. She gives recipes to make (such as a delicious tapioca that her daughter cannot eat because she is dairy free). She also gives project ideas and parts of a continuing series.

3. She has links to some ad sites on google, as well as the sites that support her blog (moveable type and segment publishing). She has a playground finder, and links that are changing to places like Target or eatraw.com. She has a link to some of the projects she has made, with examples, including an ongoing project called "A month of softies" as well as a link to a site where you can purchase some of her work.

4. The author's site design has a good deal of influence on the perceptions you get. It is all flowery and pink, making it more than likely that the blog is created and kept up by a female. The links to craft projects and recipies give you another glimpse at who she is. She also has a link to a website about the city of Melbourne. This is a huge part of her culture and background, obviously. A part of her culture is that of being a mother. She has pictures of her daughter and husband, as well as her own mother. This has an influence on the work she does on the website, for sure.

5. The authority doesn't neccesarily present herself as an authority on any subjects, but rather as a 'go-to' person for this type of information. It seems that Claire views her website as a place where mothers or others who are interested in matters of the home could go as a resource. However, she also uses it as an online journal for her own personal life. She talks about moving and her daughter and things of that nature. This of course, she would be an expert in, but, most people would expect that. Overall, it is a personal blog with some extras for those who care to read.

blogcritics

The author Anna Creech is blogging on about The Slits who were truly one the earliest punk bands as well as one of the first female punk bands.
Creech gives a little history of the band, their sound and who they've played with but doesn't go into any depth.
She links to samples of their music. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/05/125811.php mostly from more recent releases (1997 and up). Since she lauds them so highly, we would be better served with links to some of the Slits more historic and groundbreaking stuff. But it is a short blog and I assume that if I was really interested I could do a search myself (but since I've seen them live and in their prime in the late 70's, I don't need to).
This blog hits me as a promo or PR sheet. Talk up the band, link to some music, and push their new release. If I didn't already know of the group I would say the casual blogger finding this would be minimally informed but interested enough to listen. It would seem that Creech is knowledgable about the music and credible but we don't know that unless we click on the following link (Posted by Anna Creech on January 05, 2005 12:58 PM (See all posts by Anna Creech))

Tony Pierce blog

The author of "busblog" is Tony Pierce. He writes about personal topics, whatever he is thinking. His most current posting is a fierce open letter to the music industry, especially harsh on Ashlee Simpson. Other postings include high school sentimentality, "Best of Blog Awards" (BOB), and the best of the past two months of posting. His linked sites include several newspapers and a few dozen other bloggers. From his site, I figured out that he is educated (newspapers), casual (no capital letters), black (said so), from Illinois (said so), sarcastic/opinionated/self-deprecating (style and topics). He doesn't really present himself as an authority since it is a personal thoughts type of page, but he was nominated for BOB Big-name award.

Exploring Blogs

Blog: Waxy.org
The author of this blog is named Andrew Baio. In his recent postings he as been talking about the Tsunami and recent sites that he has been using are links to video tapes taken of the tsunami. By just looking at the appearance alone, the blog looks professional and business-like. Its very clean looking and easy to navigate through. What I learn from these characteristics, is that his life in general would be very organized on a daily basis. One example is by how he links previous blog ideas to his current blog so the person would understand what he is talking about when referencing something. He represents himself as an authority by bringing up topics and moderating them by responding to the comments on previous blogs and taking into consideration to what they are saying.

Thoughts on Overcaffeinated blog

The author of this blog is Sergio I. Villarreal Pou. This blog focuses on topics based around humor. This included one persons cancer protection policy and how much money they would receive if they got cancer. There are other funny stories about romance and dating and finally funny commentary on the their "Six days of Christmas". The main links on the blog are numerous other webcomics (funny websites), communities like Slashdot which is "news for nerds" and dating websites like match.com and tallfriends.com. However they also had dictionary.com and others giving their website a more professsional feel.

The content within the website conveyed a youngness about the author and that he is male, but the design gave a feeling that he was a professional web designer. Many of the pictures showed that he is kind of rebellious and thinks outside the box. It also appears that he does not take himself too seriously. With regard to being an authority on the content, I do not think he is trying to be, he just enjoys talking about it.

Exploring Blogs

The blogsite that I chose was platicbag.org. This is a site made by a man named Tom Coates. In his Blogs he writes about blogs and links, he posts questions to others, talks about computer software and technological information about computers and video games. The links on the site are to BBC news, Threadless, other peoples blogs, a link called Innocent Smoothies and another called Tiny Hat Project. The author is very into technology and computers as can be seen by looking at his site. Based on his link to the BBC I would say that he is not from America or is interested in news abroad and news in general as he has information from the New York Times. Tom Coates presents himself as if he is very knowledgable about the world and that he is on top of technologies and new information about technologies.

plasticbag.org

A guy named Tom Coates, who works for the BBC doing website stuff publishes this blog, called plasticbag.org. He's got a good sense of humor and is mostly interested in talking about online technology (he's been working with blogs since before they were even called blogs). He offers definitions of technical terms, etc. He's also interested in the blogging world in general and has links to them and comments about the kind of information they have; a link to the bloggies website, some awards for bloggers / blogs.

He's pretty open about himself, he has a somewhat self-depricating bio and his entries are pretty open (he talks about being a queen...). Given his background in this technology, he comes across as a knowledgable guy, someone who readers can trust to given them answers (not that many people seem to be commenting on his blog, so he must have an email?!), but usually the answers are sarcastic. When asked what this site is about, he says, more or less, that people need to get a life.

little. yellow. different

Aight, I checked out this blog titled 'little. yellow. different'. The author of this blog is Ernie, a Chinese-American who works at Yahoo as a web developer (not surprising at all). The content in Ernie's blog are quite random and just pretty much about his life. His latest update included a fundraising from google.com where proceeds will be donated to the tsunami relief. What was intersting about his blog was that he included actual conversations from his daily encounters.

There are a lot of links in Ernie's site, mostly consisting of links to other postings in his blog or to other blogs. Ernie has a mini-blog to his blog. His mini-blog has more random sh** in it like 'how to weave a wallet out of 12 dollar bills. Then it takes you to another website. So if you have the time to do it, then try it.

What I learned about Ernie from his blog is.......well, pretty interesting guy. He's Chinese-America, so I understand where he's coming from (me being Taiwanese). He's a computer programmer.....

I think Ernie presents himself very freely and interesting.

Anyone wants to add anything?

photoblogs.org

Author: L. Brandon Stone

Topics: Art and Photographs

Links: Articles about the site, other sister sites (1, 2, 3)

About the Author: Photographer, enjoys taking pictures of things in his community, travels often

Presenting themselves as an authority: Most bloggers post photographs they have taken along with links to other photos. They also provide links to their own websites and their contact information.

Overcaffeinated

Overcaffeinated

The author is an individual with an emence imagination named Segio from Mexico.

He is very interested in writing about off the wall topics that make little reference to the way things happen in the "real world"

He links to sites a profile about himself on match.com(in hopes to catch a good date), tall women, carved cabinent legs. A very strange and funny assortment of links.

You are able to learn that Sergio is from Mexico and that he has had a long strand of unsuccessfull dating relationships and feels open to sharing that. He makes fun of his own bad fortune. The site has pictures of people and animals full of emotion. The name implys too much caffein which could lead to hyper activity.

He presents himself in a lighthearted manner and doesn't seem to take himself seriously.

slashdot.org

Though there are a variety of active authors for the blog slashdot.org, the two most prominant, active authors are Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda and Jeff "Hemos" Bates. Though they were the founders of the site, the site today is owned by a company named OSTG (Open Source Technology Group).

The site discusses a variety of topics that is "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Topics range from comptuer and technology news and discussion, to politics, science, and even games. It covers topics that other "nerds" such as themselves would be interested in. Sites that they link to vary from main news sources, to small, obscure, underground resources. They often link to other sites and blogs that are similar in nature to theirs.

By looking at the content of slashdot.org, these are young, technologically knowledgeable people who are opinionated and open minded. The site serves as a news hub to spread the truth that is often not heard of through mainstream media. It also serves as a forum for others to come together and talk/debate with each other about each topic. The author's are smart, educated people with an agenda on spreading news related to technology to those who seek it. The site design also leads you to believe that those involved with the blogs do not need a fancy, styalized site that many sites use to entice users. The site is simple, detailed, and there only for those interested in its content, not it's flashy appearance.

Though the site has specific authors, much of the topics brought to discussion are submitted by other readers. The site maintains its validity by ensuring that all news articles are valid and reputable. This is done by viewing each and every entry that comes in to their inbox. By providing only the most current, valid information on their discussion topics, they are presenting themselves as an authority for the technology related news they post.

The Gawker Blog

Here is a link to Gawker!

1. Who is the author?
Gawker is published by Gawker Media, but Jessica Coen is the editor who posts all of the
information

2. What topics are they writing about?
As the editors have posted, Gawker is a gossip blog: "Current obsessions include but are not
limited to, Tina Brown, urban dating rituals, Condé Nastiness, movie grosses, Hamptons
gauche, real estate porn, Harvey Weinstein, fantasy skyscrapers, downwardly mobile i-
bankers, Eurotrash, extreme sport social climbing, pomp, circumstance, and other matters of
weighty import."

3. What sites are they linking to?
AD Rants, AP Regional, Curbed, Drudge, Fashion Week Daily, I Want Media, The Kicker (to
name a few)

4. What can you learn about the author's politics, culture, background, from her blog?
This is a Manhattan based group that has upscale, enthusiastic online consumers and
entertainment junkies as its audience. It is sponsored by companies like Nike, Warner
Brothers, and British Airways. You can tell by looking at the blog that they are not too
concerned with graphics or design, and they have no editorial board, assigning editor, or
delays, meaning they are mostly concerned with posting the news as quickly as possible.

5. How do they present themselves as an authority?
They are unconcerned with language or visual appeal, and more concerned with getting the
news posted quickly. They use annonymous sources for their information. It has a laid back
vibe. They are providing facts and opinions for those interested to read and/or use.

www.kottke.org

Jason Kottke, a watcher and web designer currently working for Google writes about his personal interests on his blog kottke which include media, design, hypertext, photography, writing and programming. He has links to other bloggers sites of whom he shares much of his information with. He also has monthly archives of photographs he has taken as well as which cameras he prefers to use and the photo programs he uses on his computer to edit them. He has a list of movies he has seen and leaves his critique of each. In his blog he also includes an archive of the books he has read, along with some very extensive notes on how he feels about each one. He has a page on his blog that includes excerpts from comments he has made on or about other web sites. On the front page of the site are where Jason posts all his new entries and has a list of links to older entries. I think it would be safe to say that Jason is quite the techie. He is very interested in new media technology. One thing I noticed is that his entries are a bit scattered. It's almost like his thoughts are not finished; as if the blog serves as an outlet for his random frustration. The topics vary from girl scouts to Digital Rights Management to fashion and has links through out his entries for more information on the various topics.

Slashdot exploration

I visited slashdot. This site was created by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda and is written by him and Jeff "Hemos" Bates. (Though it is owned by OSTG.) The site is devoted entirely to issues that the classic"nerd/geek" would find important - news about computers, tv, video games, politics and science. The links they have are to computer sites like Linux. The authors are definitely "geeks" and embrace that. They fit into the category of computer people who hate big corporations but still use their products. They are aiming to serve an audience very similar to the one that they belong to, and show their expertise in the way that they write the blog. They show their authority on "news for nerds" by showing that they are nerds.

Deep Thoughts: Sergio on Cancer Insurance Policies

Well....this is one of those blogs that the prof warned us about in class. You know the ones that can be uncomfortable and unprofessional. Problem was that the more I read the more entertaining, via shock value, it became. The bitter and cynical ravings of a foreigner on cancer insurance! Sure the blog my have been called overcaffeinated, but we're talking about overcaffeinated on anis liquor and coffee.

Sergio, our blog host as it seems, is native to Guadalajara, Jalisco and is a Computer System Engineer employed at Grupo AS as a Webmaster. And in his own words: "I like shiny things and I'm the proud owner of three coffee making machines (Larry, Culty and Moe), which I use liberally," (Obviously). Obviously he's not an expert on cancer insurance. Guessing from his profile, which included a personal ad of sorts where he included that he liked long walks on the beach and is a movie lover and technology fanatic, I would assume he lives an interesting enough life.

In his discourse on Cancer Insurance, Sergio, at length and with many explanatives, informs us that the cancer policy he subscribes to which should cover any sort of cancer actually, covers all cancers except those that most people actually get sick from. Amounting this exemptions clause to the novet War and Peace and something about cocain and purple flying monkeys. So if your in for an entertaining read...go for it! Here is the link in case your interested, you might also check out the Bladder dialogs both at: overcaffeinated!

Talking Points Memo

The author of this blog is Joshua Micah Marshall. His entire blog is about politics and various political events and he really likes to talk about his opinions about different politicians. So yes....itjs all politics. There are a lot of different links to sites, but the majority of them are to other political sites, magazines, politicians' web sites and newspapers. He also has a link to NYU and PBS.

You can learn a lot from Josh's blog about his views and values. He knows a lot about politics, history and news events worldwide. He lets people know about different things going on in different states (e.g. in Florida he was telling everyone about a comment someone made regarding Social Security) so you can tell he both really cares about people as well as the U.S.

He does criticize a lot of people and their decisions but he also knows a lot and provides a lot of background from things that happened a long time ago to support his opinion. His comments really show that he has a lot of knowledge about politics so it is easy to see he has great authority about what he is writing about! He seems to know anything and everything that is going on in the government.

If you ever want to know anything about politics, you can visit his web site at www.talkingpointsmemo.com

Getting personal with Sergio from Overcaffeniated.net

If you haven't met the angry blogger known as Sergio from Overcaffeinated, then you haven't truly experienced the awesome power of the blogger to say anything about anyone in any context and language - politically correct or otherwise.

Meet Sergio, the overcaffeinated Mexican blogger, who's rants over ACE insurance company had us girls in the back laughing our "Gluteus Maximuses" off - which is not the term that dear Sergio would use.
(please see I own a Cancer Protection Insurance Policy)

Topics on this blogg tend to be of the non-politically correct nature, as the creator Sergio's posts can attest to. His topics range from meeting his mate on match.com to a conversation between his penis, brain and bladder. Academic in nature?...Well I certainly learned a lot about the "the lecherous, a**-raping, mother-f***ing motherf**kers over at ACE Insurance Company of North America. "

Serg also has a link on the left sidebar on the homepage that links to a personal bio, though you can pretty much learn his thoughts on any number of things by the off-color tone tone in his writing style. If you like sarcasm and are angry, you and Sergio would get along.

The most interesting thing about Serg's blog - who's posts are remarked upon under the comments at the end - is that the color and style of the webpage is utterly inviting (a true irony). At first glance, one would assume they had accidentally come across the hallmark homepage. Soft brown backdrop, curved edges, and enticing graphics, I was put at ease (and initially bored) when I examined the style of the webpage. However, content more than makes up for the friendly appearance of the blog - and in fact the ironic use of elegant style mixed with what some would deem offensive postings really drives Serg's sarcastic tone home.

If you aren't easily offended and enjoy the racy rantings of an overcaffeinated Mexican, than www.overcaffeinated.net is for you!

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."

The blog misbehaving.net is about women and technology. The authors are ten technologically advanced females: Danah, Hilde, Caterina, Meg, Liz, Fiona, Dorothea, Halley, Gina and Jill. They discuss all kinds of issues relating to women, from personal interests to politics and science, but they tend to focus on women in the field of computing. These women are authorities on women and technology, not only because they are "techie" women, but also because they have done alot of studying, research and work on the topic. They include a Ph.D. student, a University researcher, a writer and technologist and a professor. All studied some form of gender studies or information technology in college. This is a very extensive weblog, but one thing is clear about these women's perceptions: they are very aware of sexism and also very aware of the contributions women make to technology. As they state, it's a "celebration." There are links to somewhere around 200 other women's weblogs, which all deal in some way or another with women and technology.

gawker.com

I went to the gawker blog which is edited by Jessica Coen and Matt Haber as well as other interns and web designers. Topics on this blog are about celebrities and people of prominence that are news worthy like business CEO's. It is gossip about them and their personal lives and what projects they are working on. They link to sites that are gossip related like pagesix.com which is the NY Post gossip page and cosmogirl.com, mostly sites where their articles or gossip have been featured or a site that goes along with the post.

It's hard to learn a lot about the personl politics and backgrounds of the authors, but it is safe to assume that they are interested in celebrities and are probably based out of NY and/or LA due to the stories that they post and the people they post about. Due to the nature of some of the content of the blogs, I would assume that they are probably liberal and very trend savvy. The site is fairly plain with pictures of the people featured in the post and a white background. It has links to audio or vidoe files that are relavent to the posts and at the end of the post will link to a web site that the story came from. They appear very authoritative about their subjects, they often post as if what they are writing is the truth and/or really happened, often backed up with an unofficial source or a reported siting of the celebrity.

Overcaffeinated- Exploring Blogs

The site I picked to explore was Sergio's blog called "Overcaffeinated." Sergio had 5 different topics or should I say "stories" to share everyone. His topics were:
-Crystal Part I ~prostitution in Sergio's apt in Mexico and one of his neighbor, a woman named "Crystal", wants to meet Sergio and coming on to him.
-Six days of Christmas ~ things he got for x-mas
-ACE Insurance Blows ~ Insurance ppl coming on him to join their ACE insurance
-The Bladder dialogue~ Parts of his body talking to the bladder to forget about going to the bathroom and go after the girl now.
-Online Dating~ his reason for joining on an online dating and sharing his profile.

Reading his topics were kinda funny to read, but a little bit strange at the same time. I can probably tell that Sergio is very open minded and doesn't care too much what anyone says about him. He's seems to brave enough to share everyone his profile for online dating in match.com. Sergio is a Mexican boy who has a good sense of humor and has good stories about himself.

Blog Assignment

Slashdot is owned by Open Source Technology Group. Posts are authored by self-proclaimed nerds and are targeted at other nerds. The posts generally discuss technology with an emphasis on open source software. The site links to other sites that offer free software, wifi, free music, etc...and also to sites selling computer equipment and other technological toys.
The authors are definately hardcore nerds who keep up with all the latest technology news (i.e. "According to the New York Times, Hewlett-Packard is to offer a new digital media hub based on Linux"----Hot Damn!). The authors appear to lean towards anti-establishment, "anti-intellectualism" and free software for all!
OSTG calls itself "the most dynamic community-driven media network on the Web." The site is by nerds for nerds and in the land of nerds the authors are king.

Nerds venture forth: http://slashdot.org/ (Just for kicks and giggles, try reading the entire URL out loud)

Blog Assignment: Gawker

The author of Gawker is gawker media, and as Adrienne mentioned, this blog deals with celebrity gossip, and a lot of posts make fun of things in this realm as well. There is a posting about a picture of Chris Noth (formerly "Big" on Sex and the City) looking wasted on a subway in New York. There is a link to the website of the civilian who took the picture, where you can see the picture for yourself. This particular blog has a lot of advertisements throughout-- actually no, just a bunch of ads for Nokia products. I suppose no one else has bought advertising space. To me, this blog seems like an electronic, more sarcastic take on the oh-so-popular celebrity gossip magazines (InTouch, Star, UsWeekly etc.) I'm not really sure if the people posting on this blog are fans of Hollywood and it's drama or disgusted by it. Actually, I think it's a little bit of both! I don't think that they are any type of authority on the subject, however, is anyone really an authority on other people's lives? I didn't notice that anyone on the blog actually knew the celebrities they were talking about, or bashing, which doesn't give much credibility to their statements. There are tons of entertaining links from this blog though, like Ashlee Simpson performing horribly (once again), this time at the Fed Ex Orange Bowl. I couldn't get the file to work right, but I think this is mainly due to the restrictions on the computers in this classroom, and the fact that I didn't have headphones.

In class activity

1- Wil Wheaton

2- geeks and their experiences with computers and of course star wars, personal experiences, places, activities, basically everything.

3- blogyou.com, scripting.com, plastic.com, priceline.com There are more just comments than links but these were a few I found.

4- he is probably strongly into politics and video games (star wars) because of the whole "geek" thing. he looks like a daring guy as well he had a few pics with his hair being blue(which was cool) he likes to give to the community, funny, he is an outdoor person because of his photos and blogs. one thing that concerns me is the use of the color lavendar as a background for the blog.

5-he uses different styles of blogging which i found very cool. he has audio, text, and even video blogging. he starts off with a variety of postings with random topics. some cover news, his personal life, shows, computers, school, and so on. this represents authority because he posts these different topics so many can relate. some may like computers where others would comment on his vocations.

if you would like to view this site here is the link Wil Wheaton

Welcome to the class blog for COM 301, Winter 2004

This blog has been created for COM 301, Navigating Information Networks, a class taught at the University of Washington's Department of Communication. All students in the class will be posting to the blog throughout the quarter responding to the readings, class discussion, and activities. The blog is designed to foster communication outside of the classroom and augment our in-class work with useful resources from the Net and beyond.