Arseblog, Modern Marketing & We Think

One or two readers of this blog may have seen me at live events combining web strategy with my passion for Arsenal Football Club.  Sometimes I read out two match reports about the same game, one from Arsenal.com, the official, but dry, website and one from Arseblog, an unofficial, but massively blogger.  The intention is to demonstrate how restrictive official-ese can be in networked media.  Last week I noticed that Charles Leadbetter, who came to an event I spoke at last year, had included the little gimmick and the example I used that evening in his new book We Think.  If you are interested it's the introduction of the second chapter...now complete with an (online) attribution.  Leadbetter picks up on the fact that Arseblog has a thriving community and real influence among the Arsenal faithful, despite being the work of one man.  How?  Well, while Arseblog offers insightful, balanced football analysis his colourful language is very much of the terraces - not the boardroom.  For instance, here's a description of the morning-after his return to Dublin, following a long stay in Barcelona : "My brain is discombobulated and I have had to send Blogette off to her new school wearing my runners which are at least 4 sizes too big for her because all of our stuff is in a box coming from Spain. I now have no shoes at all but I am wearing her fleecey red dressing gown. So all of you who might have a hangover today at least be thankful you have some shoes. I have no shoes.  I am like a bag lady in a red dressing gown without any bags."  You would be forgiven for thinking that such rhetoroic wouldn't ingratiate him with the club, a famously conservative organisation.  In fact, the opposite is true and the Arsenal Chairman, an old-Etonian, and Amy Lawrence, a journalist at the Observer, are both regulars on the blog's Arsecast podcast.  Of course, the language used isn't the only secret to its success.  Arseblogger has created a forum with a life of its own and huge Ooomph Factor by bringing together a disparate community.  As Leadbetter notes in his book, "Sir Tim Berners Lee was probably not anticipating Arseblog, when he wrote the original software for the web at CERN...Yet in some respects it is a realisation of his vision that the web could be a platform for collaboration not just a new way to publish information."

Comments

[Rich Benson]

Kudos for mentioning Arseblog again!

[Mark]

When Worlds Collide!

I'm a huge Arseblog fan and was shocked to see your post today. My Arsenal feeds are usually separate from my Marketing feeds. But it fits so well with your message. My Arsenal experience and my attachment to the club is so much stronger because of Arseblogger and his work. It seems strange to support a football club halfway around the world but bloggers like Arseblogger make it real.

You mention the rough language -- true -- but the quality of the writing is superb. So much better than any corporate-speak.

Go Reds!

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Rich and Mark - keep the faith!