Bloggasm

We’ve already reported that Glenn Greenwald was bought up by Salon.

Now, his new blog is finally up and running. Be sure to update your bookmarks and/or feeds.

Glenn Greenwald, arguably one of the best political bloggers out there, will be moving his blog to Salon.com:

Beginning next Thursday, February 8, this blog will be moving to Salon, where it will be a featured front-page blog. I will also be a Salon Contributing Writer and will write at (least one) feature article per month. I am very excited about this move. It will substantially increase the readership and enhance the visibility for the blog, and I think Salon is the ideal venue for both blogging and for writing. A few observations about the move:

I can’t explain why, but I felt a sudden pang of saddness when I read this. I guess it’s better than going to work for one of the major mainstream publishers like the NYT or Time.

UPDATE: Greenwald becomes somewhat irritated with criticisms that he’s “selling out”

Related posts: Political thuggery, Interview with Liewcf, Why Google News shouldn’t include blogs in its search results

Just in case you care, here’s a link to my personal journal. It’s not very exciting, just an ongoing account of my life, but thought I’d provide a link just in case: Simon Owens’ livejournal

LiewCF.com is a personal tech site on latest technology, gadgets, softwares, computing tips and tricks, product reviews and some interesting stuffs. The author, Liew Cheon Fong, is a full time blogger, one of the first few Malaysians who blog for a living.

Simon Owens: Do you get a lot of feedback from your readers in regards to technology news? How active is your readership in communicating through your comments section?

Liew Cheon Fong: Generally, my readers are reading my blog for tech news but they will take part in discussion for some interesting topics. Basically, I get less than 10 comments for each post.

Simon Owens: What are some of your main sources for the latest gadget and technology news? Do receive a lot of press releases and tips from techology companies?

Liew Cheon Fong: News feeds. I subscribe to a lot of website feeds as my news sources. I seldom receive press releases from technology companies.

Simon Owens: Would you say that your blog is mainly geared towards a tech-geek audience or do you have a lot of readers from a more mainstream audience?

Liew Cheon Fong: My target readers are general computer users, not tech geek. The initial purpose of the blog is telling some interesting tech news and some useful computing tips to computer home users. That’s why I usually write blog posts in simple language and complete with screenshots.

Simon Owens: I’ve noticed you’re part of the Gadget Blog Network. How did you become part of that network and do you find that it’s good at directing advertisers towards your site?

Liew Cheon Fong: I was invited by the BlogAds’ Gadget Blog Network founder, methodshop because I am one of the gadget blog in BlogAds. Joining the network has increased the BlogAds sales on my blog.

Simon Owens: I’ve noticed that your blog partly focuses on making money through blogging. How successful have you been at this and which niches do you think are the most profitable?

Liew Cheon Fong: I am now a full time blogger (a.k.a problogger). All of my income is generated from my blog. In my opinion, tech related niches are still the most profitable but the competition is very high. You need to do some research for low competition tech niches.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Liew Cheon Fong: It is difficult to suggest a blog for everyone. Personally, I recommend the following blogs:
- http://www.performancing.com/
- http://www.problogger.net/
- http://www.lifehacker.com/
- http://adsense.blogspot.com/
- http://www.engadget.com

Colbert Low: My name is Colbert Low

I am the first Malaysian blogger to join an international blog network at Weblog Empire and we are now part of b5media as of 31 Oct 2005.

I am the editor for The Gadget Blog and I do reviews on cool new gadgets and related stuff. I also guest blog at Realtechnews.com and ohGizmo.com when I have the time.

The b5media.com Blogging Network that my Gadget Blog is a part of, was founded by the 3 greatest blogger right now. And we are growing like MAD….With over 150 blogs now!

Duncan Riley
Darren Rowse
Jeremy Wright

We’ve even been featured by big gadget websites like Realtechnews.com, Gizmodo.com, OhGizmo.com, theGadgetizer.com, Treehugger.net and Engadget.com, etc since June 2005.

Simon Owens: Whenever companies are working on new forms of technological gadgets, how much time do you think they focus on the look and style of an object compared to the technological aspects of it? Have you ever purchased a cell-phone or other technological device almost soley based on its look?

Colbert Low: Look and style does play an important factor. I guess they probably come out with it first and only then add in the functions. They probably spend the same amount of time designing it and adding features to it.

Simon Owens: As a gadget blog do you get a lot of press releases from technology companies? What do you think of blogs that simply print press releases without original content?

Colbert Low: I do get swarms of emails from PR agencies and newsletters every week. I try to sort them out every Friday as I do have a full time job as a Linux System Engineer too. I guess it’s important to add some comments to those press releases as some of them are quite bland and blogs are supposed to be more human-like and not regurgitate out the same old press release. If blogs do that, then we are moving backwards to the dinosaur age of text browsers.

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Next to Crooks and Liars, my favorite liberal blog is Sadly, No!. It has almost no practical use whatsoever, and perhaps that’s why I like it so much. Instead of attacking the most influential conservative pundits, this blogger manages to find the most outlandish wingnuts out there and tear them to pieces. What makes the blog interesting isn’t the way he takes them down — that’s just too easy to do — but his unique talent for actually finding these whackjobs.

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