I have been asked to write a chapter on blogging for an entry level internet marketing textbook for South African University Students. It seems ironic, me the useless blogger asked to write an academic piece on blogging.... 7500 words nogal! It should be Rich…! doing this, he is probably the best SA blogger I have come across.

Anyway I’ve gotta do it and more poignantly I have to do it in 12 days (it has to be submitted by the 22…. Yikes!). Now I know from our stats that there are at least a few readers of this blog and because you’re likely to be pretty smart I’m going to try and blog the process and hopefully elicit some constructive feedback… which will be accredited of course. I’d really appreciate any input or ideas from anyone, no matter how harsh. Open source textbook writing – how exciting!

Very simply, here are my intended sections:

Title: Citizen Journalism and Blogging

(Is this a shit title? I am trying to find the correct term for the bigger picture of blogging and CJ doesn’t really do it for me)

• Intro to CJ and how the internet has allowed for the ease of self publishing
• What is a blog
• History of blogs
• The current scenario
• RSS
• Podcasts
• Videocast/Vlogging (I hate that word)
• The future? (bound to get caught out here)
• Tracking these things
• CJ and Marketing
• Blogs and SEO
• Blogs and viral marketing
• Resources

If you know of anyone who could provide relevant input please get them in touch with me (rob{at}quirk.biz), I am open to any suggestions and criticisms as I want this to be as useful to students as possible.

Thanks.