Dundalk Blog

klong · 07-01-2005 9:08pm #1

Found about about this just a few minutes ago, apparently its been on LMFM and in papers and stuff....some pretty controversial stuff being said.

Anybody know anything more about this, as im down south at the mo?

oh and somebody wrote this:
There is a blog on Blogdrive that has been getting over a million hits per day. All by itself. It is by far the biggest blog that Blogdrive has at the moment. It didn't even exist two weeks ago.

I keep asking myself how the writer of this blog manages to out do this site, and me, by many orders of magnitude.

Here are a few of the ways.

Post stuff so controversial and possibly slanderous and libellous that you get threats of legal action within a couple of days of starting your blog.

Don't use your own name, but use the name of a senior government minister, and carefully hint that you actually are that government minister.

Name your blog after the constituency of the government minister you suggest that you are suggesting but not confirming that you are.

Know whereof you speak.

Hope that the national press, radio and other media get hold of the story, and demand confirmation from said Foreign office.

Become so controversial that the host of the blog in the USA gets inundated with messages and phone calls that the phones become jammed from calls from all the big names of UK and Irish Press.

Become so controversial that the blog host pulls the site after threats of legal action have been received from a famous mobile phone company and a member of the Irish Parliament.

Agree with the blog host to stop being so controversial and get the blog reinstated.

The American hosts of Blogdrive were reluctant to pull the site, as the spelling and punctuation did give the game away somewhat. The supposedly "responsible" UK and Irish press had insisted that Ahern (yea right) in fact genuinely wrote the blog. A dirty trick from where I sit. Eventually there was confirmation that the blogger was not the Foreign Minister of Ireland.

The site is still there, and very very active. At its peak earlier this week, it was receiving over a million hits per day, not the fifteen thousand in three days as the blogger claims. Though the figures have tailed off, it is still very active. One of the interesting blogs I have discovered while following this story has been Slugger O'Toole, though the Type pad system that it uses to allow comments seems not to work for me. They may well be interested in the facts presented here.

What big story were the media hoping to get from this when they pursued the Blogdrive angle? Did they really believe the bog to be genuine, were they so desperate for news other than the Tsunami that they were manufacturing some, or trying to? As it stands now, aside from potential libel actions, it is a non story from the press point of view. I like it though.

also look here

now so does newry

Dr. Dre · 08-01-2005 4:55am

Heh, yeah this has been great fun for the past few days, I meant to post a link here but forgot.
So far we've had entires (allegedly) naming IRA members from the town, naming drug dealers around town, discussing unprofessional conduct in the vodafone call centre in town, discussing various nite clubs and pubs (and their owners) and some more stuff, but the few I've mentioned would be considered the infamous ones. There were some serious allegations made about specific people, and threats of murder etc... The naming and shaming entries were mad, huge lists of names (and some addresses) ended up being posted.

The fairytale has ended though, and as a result of complaints to the blog hosts they've had to can it. Keep an eye out though, it may pop back into life once in a while.