Goodbye to the BBC blog

It’s sad to see that BBC Manchester has decided to pull the plug on it’s blogging project.
One of the founders, Robin Hamman announced the decision on the blog at the weekend but the reason for the decision remains rather elusive.
It is true that, as Robin says, “ many of the ideas, tools and techniques we used as part of the BBC Manchester Blog have since been embraced by other BBC Blogs, websites and programmes.”
So was it a victim of it’s own success? A useful vehicle to explore a different way of publishing for a mainstream news organisation that, 18 months or so on, now feels ready to embrace the blogosphere.
Leading blogger Kate Feld of The Manchizzle suggests that might be the case . “ I’m sorry to see the experiment end, but I understand it couldn’t go on forever – these two guys are pretty busy. I’m frankly amazed they were able to keep the blog active and interesting for as long as they did, given the number of other things they both have to do.
“Still, the UK landscape has changed so drastically in since the blog started in 2006 – big newspapers and media companies seem to be getting a bit more of a handle on this blogging thing, and local microsites, citizen journalism and community-led content are the buzzwords of the day. The BBC Manchester Blog was certainly at the forefront of this trend. “
So, in bidding farewell to the BBC’s blog, I was interested to see the points which the founders have taken from the experiment.
They almost become a mini guide book for good blogging practice:
* Being part of the community by participating as equals, as opposed to participating as a broadcasting organisation keen for new content but not interested in the community, brings with it many editorial and personal rewards.
* Even if you use time saving tools such as RSS, social bookmarking and technorati, sifting through content and write posts that quote from and link to the best bits.
* People don’t necessarily blog or post content about the topics, stories and events that media organisations might hope they would – and, in our experience anyway, rarely post about news and current affairs.
* As a stand-alone proposition, the amount of staff time and effort spent was high in comparison to the quantity of content generated and size of audience served. But, when we were able to use the contacts and content we found through the blog on-air that equation immediately changed. That is, in resource terms, the blog was costly as just a blog but much more efficient as a driver of radio content.
* The best way to get noticed online is links and the best way to get links is to give good links yourself. That is, you have to play by the established rules of engagement and, online, that means linking prolifically.
Thanks Robin and Richard and good luck with whatever you do next.