Professional
Blogging
CNET has a thoughtful and informative article describing blogging
in the workplace. The authors claim private employers often
practice employment-at-will, which means that employees can be
fired because they post critical comments about the company or
their boss. Although the First Amendment protects citizens from the
government, it is very possible that public declarations against
your company can get you fired. The article also points out that
disclosing company secrets in your blog is prohibited by
confidentiality agreements. The article recommends that
professionals who wish to continue blogging avoid criticism and
sensitive information, or that they publish anonymously.
Slashdot is one of the most popular computer news blogs. This blog
has a very large and enthusiastic reader base that comments on
“Stuff that matters”. Most computer professionals read
some of its articles at least once a week. It often takes a very
critical viewpoint on current technologies and products. This
viewpoint makes it slightly anti-corporate. Most of the Slashdot
readership dislikes Microsoft and digital rights management (DRM)
instead advocating Linux and other open-source alternatives to
commercial products. However, in general Slashdot articles are
often very optimistic about future technologies that are still in
development. Slashdot news is often a few days behind the initial
announcement, but it frequently has more than one source for its
news articles.
Works
Cited
McCullagh, Declan.
"FAQ: Blogging on the job." Media 2.0. 08 March 2005. CNET. 03 Feb.
2006 .
"Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters." 03 Feb. 2006. OSTG.
03 Feb. 2006 .
1 DRM is a system that
places limits on the way digital information such as movies, music,
and software is used. DRM is intended to prevent piracy, but it
often troubles well-meaning users.
2 Open-source software is given freely by the authors to anyone who
has non-profit uses for it. Most open-source software can be freely
modified by anyone and re-distributed. Some popular examples of
open-source are Firefox, GAIM and VLC. Sourceforge
(http://sourceforge.net/)
is part of the OSTG network and a very popular open-source
webpage.