Write, Write On (end Scene, begin Heard)
Hello friends and lurkers– **I made this post months ago but I bumped it**
I have a proposition for you, one that will probably eventually live as a SECTION of Buzznet, but before that happens, I wanted to get the wheels in your head turning.
See, we want the Buzznet Music & Pop Culture blogs to be composed of YOUR stories, YOUR commentary, YOUR polls, YOUR perspectives. I’ve added some of my Buzznet friends’ post in there now and again– a lot of your reviews, some of your polls, some of your news, etc.
But I scour all of your pages every day looking for things to feature… meanwhile, I’m not totally sure you even knew I was doing that. A few people caught on, and now message me when they have news and juicy tidbits, so I can give them some attention. But the rest of you probably didn’t know…
So, I’m going to tell you what I look for:
–New, relevant stories/issues/reviews/polls. I mean, it’s way cool that you met Billie Joe Armstrong 3 years ago at Coffee Bean, and mildly cool that you’ve rediscovered Led Zeppelin, but it’s unlikely that I’ll feature that blog. Pop Culture encompasses A LOT of things– celebs, movies, news, fashion, books, tv– so open your mind.
–YOUR voice/YOUR perspective. We can read straight-up news stories, announcements, etc on any other ‘ol site. We want your unique insight, your commentary. Which, hopefully, is not limited to “I think this is cool. Don’t you?” That being said, this is not Perezhilton.com– your comments need not be cruel. If you don’t have anything to say on a particular topic, then perhaps it isn’t the right topic to blog about. It should be something that moves you.
–Link your source. That means link to the exact URL where you found the story. Just like in old-fashioned book reports and essays, you must give credit where credit is due.
–Pictures. This is a very visually oriented community. Sticking at least one relevant picture in your journal makes it all the more attractive. (PS. Did you know you can assign thumbnail photos to your journals?)
–Decent spelling & grammar. I know this isn’t Rolling Stone, but make an effort. I am an editor and therefore happy to tweak here and there, but if you think I’m going to spend time converting your internet-speak, omg sorry2say, u r so wrng. idk if I cd deal w/ it. k?
What I DON’T want:
-Reposting stories from another site in full. While doing this and crediting the source is a good way to get the info distributed, I won’t feature it.
-Plagiarism. This means stealing other people’s content/ideas/commentary and claiming it as your own. It’s happened to me so I don’t take it lightly.
Not everything will be featured, obviously. And I don’t want you to be bummed if it isn’t. But a lot of you have been complaining about how Buzznet is “too focused on the scene” and I’m hear to help you be heard. But we have to kick it up a notch. I want people to start coming here because we have kick@ss bloggers, not just because we have pretty girls with pink hair.
Allllll that being said, I’m sure you have more questions/ideas. Let me have ’em.
