July 01, 2007
Incident Blogging, What The Angora Fire Showed Us
The Angora Fire at Lake Tahoe sent tens of thousands of searchers to the web searching for information on the fire. Nothing new, it's where we go for breaking news, fresh information and photos.
What's new is how search engines are appreciating blogs and promoting some to the front page of the search results. Last week searchers seeking updates, maps and general information on the Angora Fire were served results mixed from local or national news agency websites and Blogs.
Firefighter Blog stood next to CNN.com and FoxNews.com on query terms like "Angora Fire Map", "Angora Fire" and "Lake Tahoe Fire". For the term "Angora Fire Map" Firefighter Blog held the top spot for a time on Google and MSN. Thousands visited daily and what they saw was a map of the fire, links to the map source, videos and links out to the news agencies with reporters on the ground.
In previous fire seasons blogs were relegated to blog search engine results on the back pages. Searchers had to be a bit more sophisticated to get the fresh information blogs provided, few searched there and that's a shame. Some of the best and most interesting information comes from persons blogging with insider perspective. One Lake Tahoe resident blogged on the fire coming towards his street, he described the wind, the ash and the general feel in his neighborhood. That's one way blogs are useful, providing front line personal observation.
Firefighter Blog and Cal-Fire Blog are not so much personal but oriented more for fact gathering for quick display. The thousands of visits both sites received from this incident prove there is a thirst for quick info. Now that the search engines are appreciating blogs we have to ask where does incident blogging go from here?
Incident command teams, like ICT 6 might employ a full time incident blogger. Who better knows the incident? The public information officer on most incidents generally comes out at varied times daily but that is not nearly enough information for a news hungry world.
FEMA CERT teams might want to consider adding a blogger as well.
Mainstream media outlets will have to adopt the term "blogger" at least to some extent. The most comprehensive news media source for the Angora Fire was the running commentary from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. They provided great "updates", sometimes hourly but each new update was archives as "past articles" that required too much mouse activity. It was a blog but they did not want to call it that. Stubborn old media! Old media must accept the term "blogger" is not a slur.
We are close to a point where blogging is becoming a go-to media for news hungry readers. I see the day when on scene blogs are consulted first by people seeking fresh information. Unless mainstream media gets with it they may find themselves viewed as Johnny-come-lately or worse a repository of old news.
Post update; Surfing the net about this subject I came across an interesting article from Editor & Publisher commenting on fire coverage by The Tahoe Daily Tribune.
What's new is how search engines are appreciating blogs and promoting some to the front page of the search results. Last week searchers seeking updates, maps and general information on the Angora Fire were served results mixed from local or national news agency websites and Blogs.
Firefighter Blog stood next to CNN.com and FoxNews.com on query terms like "Angora Fire Map", "Angora Fire" and "Lake Tahoe Fire". For the term "Angora Fire Map" Firefighter Blog held the top spot for a time on Google and MSN. Thousands visited daily and what they saw was a map of the fire, links to the map source, videos and links out to the news agencies with reporters on the ground.
In previous fire seasons blogs were relegated to blog search engine results on the back pages. Searchers had to be a bit more sophisticated to get the fresh information blogs provided, few searched there and that's a shame. Some of the best and most interesting information comes from persons blogging with insider perspective. One Lake Tahoe resident blogged on the fire coming towards his street, he described the wind, the ash and the general feel in his neighborhood. That's one way blogs are useful, providing front line personal observation.
Firefighter Blog and Cal-Fire Blog are not so much personal but oriented more for fact gathering for quick display. The thousands of visits both sites received from this incident prove there is a thirst for quick info. Now that the search engines are appreciating blogs we have to ask where does incident blogging go from here?
Incident command teams, like ICT 6 might employ a full time incident blogger. Who better knows the incident? The public information officer on most incidents generally comes out at varied times daily but that is not nearly enough information for a news hungry world.
FEMA CERT teams might want to consider adding a blogger as well.
Mainstream media outlets will have to adopt the term "blogger" at least to some extent. The most comprehensive news media source for the Angora Fire was the running commentary from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. They provided great "updates", sometimes hourly but each new update was archives as "past articles" that required too much mouse activity. It was a blog but they did not want to call it that. Stubborn old media! Old media must accept the term "blogger" is not a slur.
We are close to a point where blogging is becoming a go-to media for news hungry readers. I see the day when on scene blogs are consulted first by people seeking fresh information. Unless mainstream media gets with it they may find themselves viewed as Johnny-come-lately or worse a repository of old news.
Post update; Surfing the net about this subject I came across an interesting article from Editor & Publisher commenting on fire coverage by The Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Labels: Firefighter Bloggers
