HMS buena Hope (1901)

Skyblog is a service launched the December 17th 2002 by the French radio Skyrock, making it possible to create a Blog very easily. Its simplicity and its sobriety compared to others blogs is worth to him a certain success near the French-speaking teenagers and of the young adults.

In 2006, Skyblog bears the new name of Skyrock Blog , the initial name having to be abandoned following an action of BskyB.

The platform targets a public younger than its main competitor, Over-Blog, second French-speaking platform.

Process

Page layout

The page layout of Skyblog is much simpler than other systems of blogs, which makes surely its popularity. In top of the page, one finds a banner with the Logo of skyblog accompanied by a Publicité.

The menu is on the left with the description and the personal logo of the blog, the statistics of the blog (many articles, of comments, creation date and date of the last modification), “skyblogs preferred” (which makes it possible to post bonds towards appreciated blogs), “my friends” (which makes it possible to post bonds towards blogs friends), commercial links and a bond to announce an abuse the charter on the blog present.

The articles are in the medium, separated by executives: they have a title, a text of description (with various alignments) and possibly a space of comments and an image or a video (since the return to school 2006).

Each page contains 5 articles. One can easily change page thanks to the navigation system into bottom of the page.

Since end March 2007, one finds on Skyblog of flows of Syndication (RSS) and of the Permalien S for each article.

Administration

Any Net surfer can create his own Skyblog. For that, it is enough to create an account Skyrock. To activate or modify its blog, it is necessary to be connected directly on the gate of Skyblog to arrive at the platform of edition. Each Skyblog can be personalized (Design, order of the articles…). The number of articles is unlimited, but there are rules to respect. The images accompanying the articles are charged since the computer with the user and are lodged on the waiter. The vidéos, they, come from Youtube, Dailymotion, veoh, Metacafe, Google Video, or, of its webcam. one can put gadgets of Google maps or Album jamendo. One can also add to Skyblog a text message recorded thanks to a Mobile phone and to send an advertisement by SMS, which will be published on the site of Skyblog or of the music has to send (to be registered voter has skyblog music) on the blog. It is also possible to visualize the number of visits of the skyblog, per month and day. The simplicity of the platform extends according to the point of view from some with a limitation from the tool: impossibility of managing the articles of categories, unjustified use of the Javascript and the Pop-up S (for the comments), a too stereotyped page layout, publicities around the contents…

Users and contained

The users are for the majority of the teenagers or very young adults. The contents published are often a means of introducing in photograph its close relations or his environment; its range then remains limited to photographs of the friends, his car, its college, in a way sometimes little opening out (photographs of canteen or professors). Some make use of the platform to publish poems or to make state of their current mood.

It is generally allowed that the style of writing of a skybloggor is not very respectful French orthography and that the Langage SMS is used in a more or less intense way - some make sometimes rare exceptions. The expression “releases your coms” (with the varied orthographies) is recursive within the community; one indeed notices there a research of popularity through these comments and the statistics of each one. Communities tend to be formed, by means of Skyblogs “friends” and “preferred”, whether it is by real or virtual meetings.

Skyblog contains sometimes elements under copyright without the agreement of their owners, or of the photographs of people not having been advised of their presence on this site (photographs of class, etc). Certain skybloggeurs go even until carrying serious remarks on certain people; several colleges had to deal with problems as for pupils using the platform to attack the personnel, involving the exclusions and the alarms largely diffused with the pupils and the parents . The skybloggeurs themselves, in particular youngest, seem not to be conscious, on the one hand, of the dangers of the Diffamation (whatever the support), and on the other hand, of criticism external of a certain community of impassioned data processing and bloggeurs (using more serious and powerful platforms considered, like the free software Dotclear) vis-a-vis Skyblogs.

Skyblog star and classifications

The concept of skyblog star was created by the platform of lodging of blog Skyblog, to clarify, among the 12 million skyblogs, a particular blog, which changes each week. The fact of being skyblog star in addition makes it possible significantly to increase the number of visits as of comments because the visibility offered is single (the skyblogs star being directly connected to the banner page of the site).

The selection criteria are not public. There exist also several classifications, Top100, “Signal Skyblogs Vocaux”, Top 60 minutes, Top 24:00 and the Signal 7 days.

Skyblog is according to Alexa Internet, the second French site more visited (just after google.fr) and the 32ème with the international scales (also 7th Belgian, and 11th Switzerland).
La bars of the 10 million blogs was crosses on June 19th, 2007.

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