Jens' Blog Roll

As I'm still working on my Ph.D. dealing with videogame perception in Germany and Australia my blogroll naturally differs from Parker's: It's pretty game heavy probably not as surprising or original. Anyway, here're some of my regularly frequented blogs: Gamepolitics: "Where politics and video games collide". The essential source for legal matters, censorship debates, game legislation issues, politicians' stand on digital games, all things Jack Thomspon and games trying to bring across a message. Well written and easily accessible despite the sometimes demanding subject matter.

Destructoid: Founded by hardcore gaming fans for hardcore gaming fans. Taking itself and the industry not too seriously yet surprisingly insightful, they are not afraid to advance unpopular opinions – out of conviction and not for the attention. Also features a community that is actually able to exchange interesting thoughts without adding too many insults. (One of the few sites whose users didn't threaten to kill my old lecturer and friend Jason Nelson after his project "Game, game, game and again game" got covered)

Screenplay: The Australian authority on digital games and my main resource for Australia related gaming news. Offers good interviews with those involved in the (Australian) industry and keeps a close eye on policy developments. Best enjoyed in combination with Tsumea, one of the main resources for Australian and New Zealand game developers.

Popurls: Technically not a blog but a feed aggregator collecting the latest stories from digg, delicious, reddit, metafiler, stumbleupon, slashdot, wired… Incredibly addictive yet also a great social graph of the web.

Twitter: a whole bunch of microblogs by a whole bunch of smart people.

Since I spend the longest part of my day either reading or writing I try and relate some of the stuff I come across in old-fashioned books to issues that are relevant to blogcampaigning, especially since whatever occurs in the tech/PR/game world are not isolated incidents but imbedded into a social frame, e.g. a post I still would like to work on is how social shopping is an expression of the aesthetization of everyday life caused by a shift of the fundamental semantic of society away from an economic paradigm towards a psycho-physical one… (Parker's note: I'm only letting you write that post if you use regular words)

-Jens

Ten years for the word Weblog

It’s the 10th anniversary of the word weblog! I’ve decided to post my contributions to the blog roll to celebrate! PR Conversations

Much like our own BlogCampaigning, the contributors of PR Conversations seem to take pride in their international perspectives. They have twelve different authors from all over the world. This blog was recommended to me by Ira Basen and that means a lot because he’s a pretty smart dude. What I think is particularly cool about PR Conversations is that they predominantly regard public relations as a profession and that seems to permeate their posts and comments. I like their stance.

Strategic Public Relations

I liked Kevin Dugan’s use of the word pwn in his post about Brandweek. His blog centers around public relations-meets-marketing tactics. I find it particularly pleasant to read because he writes in short bursts and incorporates lots of pictures. (Layout does a lot!)

Radical Trust

If you know anyone who is on the cusp of delving into social media, but has reservations, please direct them to Collin Douma’s blog, Radical Trust. According to Collin, what holds a lot of companies back from making the social media leap is a question of trust towards the consumer and a feeling of lack of control. Collin has a lot of experience in internet platform development and is currently the Chief Strategist with the Social Media Group, Canada’s first agency dedicated exclusively to social media. This guy knows his stuff. As a former philosophy student myself, I particularly appreciate his analytic tone.

Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York & Los Angeles

It’s about time we had a luxury lifestyle blog around here!

- Jess