AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

Did you know that’s what blog stands for? That was a definition mentioned Monday afternoon at a seminar on aviation blogging at AirVenture, initiated by Rob Mark, who maintains the Jetwhine blog. I’m not sure if I believe it, but certainly understand that’s one of the results you could achieve with an effective blog. Mark’s Aviation Blogfest, the first of its kind–at least to my knowledge–drew more than two dozen people, including many active bloggers.

What makes a blog successful? “Blogs are successful because their authors are passionate about what they’re writing about,” said Todd McClamroch, who writes MyFlightBlog. It was a pleasure to meet McClamroch after talking with him several months ago while writing a column in AOPA Flight Training.

Paul, a flight instructor, maintains a blog called Ask A CFI.com where he answers questions about flight training. Although Norman, a Boeing 777 captain, could not attend the seminar, Mark displayed a photo and said “he’s here digitally;” Roach’s blog is The Digital Aviator.

Rod Rakic is building something interesting, a social networking site (think Facebook or Myspace) for aviators. The site, myTransponder, is in “closed beta” testing now. That means you have to have an invitation to participate in the beta test. “We’re still finding bugs and squashing them,” Rakic explained. (If you e-mail him through the site and ask, I bet he’ll invite you to participate.)

I just saw an interesting link on Mark’s Blogroll, to a blog named FAA Follies. That sounds like it could be interesting…and as soon as I get a chance, I plan to give it a read.

See how blogging works, and check out some other aviation blogs. Look at the Blogroll on Jetwhine for some good starting points.

Tags: Mike Collins

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under Mike Collins, Oshkosh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.