Professional blogger and phd student Bethany Keeley spoke to Geoffrey Graybeal's journalism 3410 lab Wed. April 7 on her experiences with blogging and writing for the web.
What began as a simple hobby to try and get attention and perhaps become cool, blogging quickly caught on with her friends and numerous followers alike. Keeley's personal blog is read by less than fifteen people which include her boyfriend, close friends, and family members. Her fame came with the popular site "The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotations".
"The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotations" earned her fame through collegehumor.com and a feature story by the AP. On days she was featured in news articles her blog hits soared and then returned to relatively normal a few days after.
Keeley confirms that she doesn't advertise for her site but interviews with MSNBC Online, MSN Online, and The Chicago Tribune helped her blog hits soar. "I have many imitators out there. People are afraid to make grammatical errors around me now- Don't be!" Keeley exclaims.
She enjoys reading such blogs as The New York Times , anything lefty or feminist , and keeping up with her friends personal blogs. Spending around 2-3 hours a day working and reading blogs flies by she explains. Keeley dedicates around 1-2 hours simply working on her quotations blog. Whether it's responding to comments or checking her 700 emails of photo submissions, she always finds herself spending far more time than she realizes dealing with blogs.
"If you ask me what I wanted to be famous for, punctuation definitely wouldn't have been it!". Keeley explains. She admits that if it weren't for the money and attention she probably wouldn't still be keeping up with the blog.
Another project Keeley is working on is blogging for a site called thinkchristian.net. She writes a group blog every other week on topics dealing with the intersection of faith and our culture. This new project is just another blog that spreads her name and gives her the opportunity to earn some extra cash on the side.
From the beginning blogging was meant to secretly try and earn some cool points but it ended up turning into so much more. "When you set out to be cool you almost never will be" Kelley comments.
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2 comments:
Ashley,
This is an enjoyable read. You do a nice job with the use of quotes throughout and the story flows nicely.
Presumably because of the tight deadline, there are a number of AP style errors throughout (Web for example as one). Also in the last sentence you misspell Bethany's last name. Be sure to go back and edit that so it's correct.
Overall, nice job though!
I think it would have been nice to include more info on what the blog is actually about. Like is it a funny blog or a serious one about punctuation. She also told us that it stared off with her just posting one picture and she got great feedback and started posting more. Maybe you could have included that and described that picture or something. Also, I think it would have been nice to interview some people from class to see what they thought about her speech.
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