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| Europe |
| French World's leading bloggers |
| 2006-07-30 |
| Already famed for angry labor strikes and philosophical debates in smoke-filled cafés, the French have now brought these passions online to become some of the world's most intensive bloggers. The French distinguish themselves, both statistically and anecdotally, ahead of Germans, Britons and even Americans in their obsession with blogs, the personal and public journals of the Internet age. Sixty percent of French Internet users visited a blog in May, ahead of Britain with 40 percent and little more than a third in the United States, according to Comscore, an Internet ratings service. Likewise, French bloggers spent more than an hour in June visiting France's top-rated blog site, far ahead of the 12 minutes spent by Americans doing the same and less than 3 minutes for Germans, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. More than three million Internet users, or more than 12 percent of those online in France, have created a blog, according a study released in June by the ratings agency Médiamétrie. "You cannot be elected president of France without a blog," said Benjamin Griveaux, director of Web strategy for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister who in 2004 was among the first politicians to start a blog. "Blogs have not replaced traditional media, but they are absolutely necessary for every politician." "With so many blogs, I'm hoping for fewer protests and strikes in Paris this fall," said Loïc Le Meur, a pioneer French blogger and European managing director of the blog-hosting company Six Apart. "If people can express themselves online, then maybe they don't need to block the streets." French blogs stands out in other measurable ways. They are noticeably longer, more critical, more negative, more egocentric and more provocative than their U.S. counterparts, said Laurent Florès, the French-born, New York-based chief executive of CRM Metrix, a company that monitors blogs and other online conversations on behalf of companies seeking feedback on their brands. "Bloggers in the United States listen to each other and incorporate rival ideas in the discussion," he said. "French bloggers never compromise their opinions." Cultural explanations describe blogs as a natural outgrowth of the French national character. "It is clear that in France we have very large egos and love to speak about ourselves," Le Meur said. "If you look at Germans or Scandinavians - off- line and on the Internet - they really don't talk about themselves." "The Minitel was a classic, centrally controlled and top-down creation of the French elite," Billaut said. "Blogs have been embraced by ordinary people, and this will flip the rigid power pyramid of French society." Like elsewhere, the grass-roots freedom of blogs has proved problematic for French companies, with activist groups and skeptical consumers taking their strong views online, said Cyril Klein, marketing director of Scanblog, a blog-monitoring firm in Paris. "Consumers in France have few outlets to make their views heard, so blogs have become their counterpower," Klein said, citing as an example ChiennesDeGarde.org, a Web site that fights against sexist displays of women. "The difficulty for brands is that French culture encourages people to express unhappiness and criticize." But the French can be quirky as well as serious. One of the most popular video blogs, Bonjour America (www.bonjour-america.com), was started by Cyrille de Lasteyrie to explain France to foreigners - and to find a way for him to meet his hero, Clint Eastwood. Other popular blogs include a cooking diary called C'est Moi Qui l'Ai Fait and a journal by an advertising executive called Dark Planneur. Griveaux, the director of Web strategy for Strauss-Kahn, reckons the popularity of blogs comes down to France being a nation where each and every citizen thinks he or she should be in charge. "We had 16 presidential candidates at the last election, and we will probably have the same number next year," Griveaux said. "Every French person wants to run the country - a blog is the next best option." |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #17 "It is clear that in France we |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2006-07-30 21:27 |
| #16 'French worlds leading boogers' is more like it. |
| Posted by: Thronter Glaviting6505 2006-07-30 19:22 |
| #15 We'd caught up on the wine 35 years ago when the first tasting was done. Food prep? That's a matter of taste. I don't know how they can grill anything better than a Webber myself. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-30 19:22 |
| #14 Sgt Mom - all European wines are genetically American, much as they would like to deny |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-30 19:20 |
| #13 Food prep, and wine is about all they've been able to do better than us in the last fifty years, and we've caught up on the wine, and are getting closer on the food...Still, they used to be great and sometimes I am nostalgic about that old 'la belle France' thing... Come to think on it, though, they haven't come close to doing a proper breakfast taco, which is truely the food of the gods. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-07-30 19:13 |
| #12 Oops, hit post too soon. My point was that violent people rarely spend too much time "discussing" - they coordinate with others who lean to violence, of course, but they rarely (if ever) substitute discussion for violence. Kind of the opposite of the DU, Koskiddies, etc., who do nothing but run their mouths. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-07-30 18:24 |
| #11 "the guys blogging there WERE the ones torching the 20 000 cars in november 2005" I'll take your word for it, #4 anon, but that sort of negates Loïc Le Meur's |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-07-30 18:19 |
| #10 yep - that REALLY hurts them, too....like another Merkin winning the Tour |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-30 18:16 |
| #9 Our wine's better too. At least they agree with us about that. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-30 18:08 |
| #8 excuse me?... French food sucks - I'll take BBQ and Mexican food anytime. Our wine's better too. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-30 18:03 |
| #7 I read this whole thing in the local paper this morning, and thought "Oh, another installation of the old intellectual wheeze 'they do everything better in France'" Really, isn't it well past time we got up off our knees and stopped genuflecting towards that superior continental culture? Except for that food thing, of course, and I speak as a woman with three shelves worth of French cookbooks... ;-) |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-07-30 17:39 |
| #6 Sorry about that |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-30 16:48 |
| #5 Nimble, what's the link for this? |
| Posted by: JSU 2006-07-30 16:43 |
| #4 Hahahahaha! Sure, yewbetcha. The people who "espress themselves online" and the clowns who riot are exactly the same. Actually, a whole subset of blogs are the SKYBLOGS, IE the blogs hosted by the rap radio Skyrock. A whole lot of them, millions IIRC... reading them is a real insight into the "Youth" subculture, complete with phonetic writing, pics taken by cellphones, religious and cultural orientations,... very interesting, but also it makes you really wonder about the future of french culture... Btw, the guys blogging there WERE the ones torching the 20 000 cars in november 2005, they even used them to have a modicum of coordination. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-07-30 16:20 |
| #3 "Bloggers in the United States listen to each other and incorporate rival ideas in the discussion," he said. "French bloggers never compromise their opinions." I believe that trait is referred to in some quarters as simply arrogance and stupidity. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-30 16:16 |
| #2 I don't care for french blogs, most are made by leftists rehashing each other's and msm's talking points. IMHO, this is bogus. Froggies like to talk about ideas anyway, we're a Nation of theorists and words tossers. Just look at me, poser and pseudo intellectual ("intello"). Some conservative blogs are actually very good, though they cover a wide span of the french right, IE often anti-american and/or anti-israeli. Blogs written by french jews are also often interesting, in that they don't follow the pro-arab/ROP party line of 99,9999% of the msm. Some : http://www.ludovicmonnerat.com/ (swiss) http://www.precaution.ch/ (swiss, excellent, hosts a french online traduction of Spencer's Politically Incorrect Guide to islam somewhere) http://dahuvariable.blogspot.com/ (swiss) http://www.extremecentre.org/ (excellent, actually evolved from a yahoo groups where I used to lurk) http://balagan.blog-city.com/ (sort of french jew MIF) http://politiquearabedelafrance.net/ (excellent) http://observatoire-islam-europe.blogspot.com/ http://www.occidentalis-leblog.info/ http://jcdurbant.blog.lemonde.fr/ http://www.lmae.net/ http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/ http://www.peres-fondateurs.com/taranne/ (on stay; all the links in the blogroll are interesting, they're blogs from the Père fondateurs/Founding Fathers forum, a pro-Us freemarketers lair) http://zekii.blogspot.com/ (excellent, very caustic, and well written, but really depressed and a depressing) http://www.rechimot.blog-city.com/ http://voxgalliae.blogspot.com/ http://www.fdesouche.com/index.php http://www.ilikeyourstyle.net/blog/ etc, etc... |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-07-30 16:14 |
#1 "If people can express themselves online, then maybe they don't need to block the streets."Hahahahaha! Sure, yewbetcha. The people who "espress themselves online" and the clowns who riot are exactly the same. I'm sure that next car-b-que season, the "disaffected yutes" will just blog about their hatred of the West instead of attacking Jews and burning cars. "Bloggers in the United States listen to each other and incorporate rival ideas in the discussion," he said. "French bloggers never compromise their opinions." "It is clear that in France we have very large egos and love to speak about ourselves,"Quelle surprise. "French culture encourages people to express unhappiness and criticize."No, really, Bunky? Hooda thunk it? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-07-30 16:11 |