What’s your profile online - 27 Oct 2008

When I was in the United States in July 2008 at the American Society for Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) annual conference, a journalism professor said in his presentation that when interviewing candidates for its prestigious journalism course, it was considered an advantage if students had a personal URL (their own name domain), and a presence on the Internet already - whether it was through blogs, their own sites, networking sites and so on. One of the reasons for this, obviously, was that the students were entering a whole new world of communications, where technology and the internet underpins everything, and a certain ‘benchmark of knowledge' need to be assumed upfront. How many times haven't we Googled someone to find out more about them? In fact, it's quite a shocker when nothing comes up about someone online or you can't find them on one of the numerous business networking sites, or even Facebook - you wonder what indeed they've been doing with their career to date! It is going to become an indication of how to measure how digitally equipped people are. It is great to see our local online industry starting to promote the medium more too - first up we have the Online Publisher's Association (OPA) Bookmark Awards to promote innovative local sites and advertising that pushes the boundaries online; and then the blogging fraternity is getting organised with Speak Up!, the first South African blog research survey through 24.com, with Afrigator, Amatomu and PushPlay. If you have a blog, please participate at http://blogs.24.com/blogsurvey/start.htm.