Intro to the Blog Matrix Model

The blog matrix is a variant of a multi-author blog designed to facilitate collaboration on topics yet maintain the individuality of the authors. It is ideal for groups of bloggers that want to generate discussion around common interest or expertise. The vast majority of blogs on the internet are single author efforts that are wholly focused around the life and personality of the author. Team blogs are becoming a popular format for business, academia and social groups where a team of topical thought leaders all collaborate on a common set of topics. An example of a great team blog is http://fastlane.gmblogs.com. Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman, is the power personality behind the blog, yet others GM execs regularly post. The team blog can be a powerful way to leverage group thinking to generate large volumes of high quality content. It is a good way for busy executives and experts to maintain a regularly updated blog without the responsibility of continual posting falling on one individual. The team blog is also a great way for a “high profile blogger to leverage name recognition to generate exposure for others on the team. The problem with a traditional team blog is that individual personalities are diminished. Bloging is about online personal conversation. Authors need to be able to express their individuality and readers need a way to follow their favorite authors. The Blog Matrix model enables a team of authors to promote themselves as individuals and simultaneously promote their collaborate work. Readers can focus on individual authors or discussions based on topic. A Demo A Blog Matrix is not that different from a standard blog with multiple authors. The main difference is you can focus navigation and features on a topic (category) or author. The LevelTen In-Site blog is a good demo for the Blog Matrix model. If you go to the site via the blog root, it looks like a standard multi-author, multi-category WordPress blog: http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/ However, if you link in to an author's root (or click on an author's link), all the side bar elements change to focus on the author. This is what Ken's blog looks like Ken's Blog (http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/ken) Notice how when you click on Ken's link you only see his posts, the calendar show only days he has posted, only categories he has posted to, only his links/blog roll, etc. If you click the RSS feeds, you get a feed for only Ken’s posts. Now click on a post permalink. The calendar, categories, links, previous post, next post, etc. all stay focused on the author, Ken. Also notice the author's link box now says "Related Authors". The Blog Matrix calculates which authors are most like Ken and links to them here. Most related is calculated based on what categories he posts to most often and where other authors post. Now go to the topic Blog Beat Blog Beat blog (http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/blogs) Notice that the calendar shows only days Blog Beat posts have been made. Only authors that have posted to Blog Beat are shown in the author box, etc. Now click on a post permalink. The calendar, categories, links, previous post, next post, etc. all stay focused on the category/topic, Blog Beat. The goal of the Blog Matrix is to facilitate perspective. You can visit Ken's blog http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/ken or visit LevelTen's log Beat blog http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/blogs