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Google Dives Into the Blogosphere
From: www.writerswrite.com

" The blogosphere got another boost yesterday when Google launched its blog search engine. The Associated Press claims that blogging is now "in the mainstream" -- whatever that means.

"There really has been a need for a world-class search product to expose this dynamic content to a worldwide audience," said Jason Goldman, who came to Google in the Blogger deal and is now the company's product manager for blogging search.

Over the past two years, blogs have become an increasingly popular vehicle for sharing opinions and information, sometimes breaking news and more often prodding the mainstream media into reconsidering how it has handled some big stories. First word of Google's new searching tool was, in fact, disseminated by a blog.

A few people have been able to make a living largely off their blogs, or parlay them into book deals. Blogs also have been a source of embarrassment and angst, resulting in the firings of several workers, including a Google product manager, who angered their employers with revelations posted on their sites.

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"This sort of feels like 1995 when the Web was just starting to explode. Now it feels like the same thing is happening to blogging," said Bob Wyman, chief technical officer for PubSub, which offers a Web feed subscription service.

"I think what I'm really trying to say is people should do what works best for them and shouldn't be constrained by gender. If there are women who want to go out and work and be the breadwinner, that's great," she says.

Women don't need men to provide "self-esteem, self worth, a sense of purpose," she says. "If I were a man, and a woman was looking at me for those things, it's too much pressure! No wonder men freak out. It's too much pressure."

Michael Kinsley, the high-profile editorial page honcho and columnist at the Los Angeles Times since 2004, has been forced out at the paper, ending on what he called a "bitter note." The Times announced Tuesday that Andres Martinez will take on full responsibility for the editorial and Op-Ed sections at the paper.

Kinsley, who had lost his main managerial duties several weeks ago, found the latest turn of events unexpected, writing in a memo to colleagues today that publisher Jeff Johnson wanted a "clean break." Johnson used the same phrase himself a little later in announcing the exit.

"For whatever reason," Kinsley wrote from Washington, D.C., in the memo posted at the blog L.A. Observed, "Jeff isn't merely uninterested in any future contribution I might make, but actively wants me gone. So I'm off, with some regret and some excitement, to the Washington Post, duties TBD but including the column. I hope it will continue to appear in the LA Times as well, but that is beyond my control.

"I'm sorry this has ended on a bitter note. I've loved my brief time at the Los Angeles Times. I've learned a lot, and made (I hope) some friends for life. Even the frustrations have been fascinating frustrations. And I think I've done some good for the paper, though others may not agree. The LA Times has some of the nicest people and finest journalists I've ever worked with, starting at the top with Dean (Baquet). And even Jeff will have to give me credit for bringing in Andres. I expect great things from him, and from you."

After doing some rigorous editing, Kenneth and Talita Paolini, who had experience self-publishing educational books, decided to publish Eragon on their own in 2002. They then spent a year traveling the country with their son, doggedly promoting it at schools, libraries and grocery stores. Even Christopher's younger sister, Angela, helped out.

The Paolinis sold more than 10,000 copies of the book before it came to the attention of author Carl Hiassen, whose stepson read it while vacationing in Montana. Hiassen passed it on to his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, which published Eragon in 2003. It has gone on to sell 2.5 million copies in North America alone and is available in 38 countries.

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"Eragon is a coming-of-age story and this whole process of publishing and writing books has been, in a lot of ways, my own coming-of-age story," he says. "I had to leave home and go out into the world. And while I didn't have to get involved in any sword battles, I was placed under a certain amount of pressure." Make that a great deal of pressure. During the year his family spent promoting the book on the road, his parents had no other income. Eragon, essentially, was their meal ticket.

"I was doing three or four presentations a day, and it was a do-or-die sort of thing," Paolini recalls. "It makes for a great story after the fact, but when you're living through it, it's incredibly nerve-racking. I never want to be in that position again. There was just too much at stake."

Seattle Times: You were a financial journalist before you started writing novels. Were you surprised at the "Shopaholic" series' success?

Sophie Kinsella: I was amazed. Somehow it resonates with people all over the world. I find that bewildering, I really do. I get so many people telling me they are Becky Bloomwood, including men -- often in pairs, it has to be said -- well-dressed men in Italy or Paris. There was one girl who said to me, "I know I won't enjoy your book; I'm not into fashion." And then she [read it and] said, "Oh, my God, I'm just like that with craft materials!" Everyone has their own soft spots.

"Shoes, always shoes. I have a whole cupboard that was custom-built for them. Somehow I feel, with shoes, oh, I'll be able to wear them for 10 years, so they're an investment. They're so easy, you just pop them on your feet and there they are. You don't even have to go in a dressing room."