Harry Yack’s had a Teletext makeover! Get down to the Retro Yakking Today blog and check out its new, tweaked header. The change marks a wider revamp for the site, which will start to focus on the retro subjects promised in the title as well as a variety of new topics including opinions and such thinly disguised as parody news stories. Currently updated with two posts per day, but I don’t know how long this will last for.

Go there now.

I’ve been doing a little bit of guest blogging for Wigan Athletic media site [Thas] Not a Patch On Harry Lyon, which recently unveiled its new user blogs.

It coincides with the launch of my new football blog, Jesus Was a Wiganer, which you may remember I mentioned a week or two ago on this very blog.

Not sure if there’ll be much difference between the types of posts featured on each blog, but I plan to share them out somewhat, with the longer, more detailed stuff mostly reserved for the NAPO blog.

Expect my activity on those blogs to fluctuate through the course of the season as and when I find stuff to write about or feel the urge to blog and, of course, when I have the time.

Incidentally, that picture is one of mine. There is a possibility you may recognise it as it has been syndicated around the internet:

• Exhibit A
• Exhibit B

It’s on my Flickr account in its highest quality, so feel free to use it for your own devices – a plug might be nice, though .

I watched with interest Newsnight’s Wenesday night special on citizen journalism. Since all Iranian professional reporters have been barred from commenting on the country’s recent conflicts, the world has turned to Twitter, YouTube and blogs for updates on the Iranian situation.

It just goes to show that in the age of the Internet, it’s nigh on impossible to completely stifle journalism. Life goes on regardless, and even news sources as well-respected as the BBC are turning to the man on the street — or should that be, the man in front of his computer or speaking on his mobile phone — for their informational fix.

People tuning in to tonight’s BBC News could see pixellated, mobile phone-shot footage taken straight from YouTube in the place of regular crystal clear, polished reportage. It may have been lo-tech, but was it necessarily any worse off for it?

You may say that this new age source of news has the capability to be infinitely more biased than your typical centre-right news channel, and this is undeniably true. But is it any different from Jeremy Clarkson’s newspaper column, or a typical review on last night’s television? Well, only in the medium by which it is transmitted.

The truth is that, from time to time, we want bias. We want gritty, real-life stories from people that have experienced this stuff first hand – content undiluted by the need for neutrality and sanitisation.

Like it or not, the blogger is becoming as much a part of journalism as the newspaper editor, the television researcher and that bloke with the deep voice that reads the news on Five Live.

Spot the deliberate error

The BBC recently launched a new programme which attempts to seek out Britain’s best young orator. Among the issues raised by the series is that of technology (read: the Internet and texting) and its effect on the English language. Whilst some champion tradition and mourn the death of grammar in the country’s youth, I say we should stop being so wary of change.

After all, I’m sure Shakespeare received much criticism for his habit of making words up, and look where we are now — hundreds of words coined by the Great Bard are in widespread use in modern English.

I’m not saying that poor grammar and spelling should be encouraged. How many times have you tried to read a page of text but utterly failed to comprehend the meaning behind it due to the God-awful sea of indecipherable text language? In my view, once too often.

You will always get these — it’s an inevitibility that a medium as open as the Internet would be filled with incomprehensible blog posts and utterly unfathomable essays. We should instead look at the good parts associated with such a medium, namely kids getting into writing as a medium whereas before they would just sit in front of Chucklevision or something.

The point I am trying to make is thus: find your own style and stick to it. Proofread your work, but don’t send yourself absolutely batty with endless revisions of the same old posts. If grammar is not your strong point, don’t sweat it: as long as you are understood and can get your point across, that’s all that matters. Perfect Oxford English is, for most of us, an unachievable fantasy.

Ten things to keep in mind when starting out on the blog path.

1. Content is King. Blog about a variety of different topics within your specialist area in general terms so as not to be overly exclusive.
2. Write about your passions. What are your secret/not so guilty secret loves?
3. Adopt a conversational rather than formal style. Address people personally and speak directly to the reader as if you were talking to them in the pub.
4. Be an organised blogger. You can be as haphazard as you like behind the scenes but make sure people can find and understand the content you post.
5. Use concise headings and a snappy first paragraph to suck the reader in.
6. Make effective use of bullet points and ‘top ten’ lists.
7. Keep posts relatively short. Too many words intimidate people – split your posts up if necessary.
8. Linkify. Allow people to navigate the web via your posts and link to similar posts on other peoples’ blogs. Who knows – maybe they will reciprocate.
9. Use bookmarking widgets. Include ‘Add to favorites’, Technorati and Digg links encouraging people to spread the word about your blog.
10. Above all, work work work. Keep plugging away – make use of the seemingly infinite Internet outlets to promote your blog and it will happen, even if it takes a long time.