Guardian launches new weblog...
If you go to the front page of the Guardian today, the third story down isn't a story at all. In fact it's nothing less than a link through to a new weblog that the Guardian are supporting - KickAAS - designed as a resource and platform for activists campaigning against agricultual subsidies. Now from what I remember, the OnlineBlog was set up as a bit of a sideline and didn't initially go through normal brand-control channels (I could be completely wrong on that), but this one must have been approved. I'll be interested to see how it develops - will it be brand-enhancing, will it be brand-destroying, or is it going to pod itself off from the main site and take on a complete life of its own - the first of many weblog projects? [Thanks to Jones for the link]
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I'm not sure if I've read you correctly, but I don't really think that the Guardian were thinking of their brand when they launched this one. I mean, agricultural subsidies really are indefensible, and the Guardian are doing the right thing here. They deserve respect for taking a stand.
→ Posted by: Gareth at August 18, 2003 2:52 PM
I'm just interested in it as a model and whether it's the start of a trend or an abortive experiment. Their motives are clearly pure. I wonder whether they're running it like this because they'd like to keep the blatant campaiging site distinct but parallel from the news resource. That would be a fascinating model, but I'd love to haev been a fly on the wall in the marketing meeting. Most large organisations are obsessively careful about uses of their brand...
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at August 18, 2003 3:30 PM
One interesting thing is that it's using the seemingly fantastic Typepad!
Oh and kudos to the Guardian, because Agricultural subsidies are a vital, outrageous subject...
→ Posted by: Matthew at August 18, 2003 4:12 PM
Slightly off topic, but have you seen all the PDFs of the documents from the Hutton enquiry here:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/documents/0,13758,1003078,00.html
Some security person has crossed out some of the lines (too sensitive presumably), but you can still (just about) read them
Look at this file:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2003/08/19/powell_no_threat.pdf
I can make out "The document says nothing about these and TB (Tony Blair) will...blah blah ... different .... US ...once ..."
I'm sure someone with time on their hands could work out what all the crossed-out lines are.
→ Posted by: Von Klimpel at August 19, 2003 6:49 PM