Emily Gordon writes:

This is the panel proposal I submitted for potential inclusion in next March’s South by Southwest Interactive festival. If you click on the PanelPicker, sign up in a flash, and click on the little thumbs-up button, you’ll be helping me get there! Voting ends Friday, so if you do it now while you’re thinking about it, you’ll be helping out a lot. Thanks so much!

Why Keep Blogging? Real Answers for Smart Tweeple

Organizer:
Emily Gordon, Founder, Emdashes.com; Editor-in-Chief, Print magazine

Description:
Now that we think in 140-character strings and live through Facebook, it’s tempting to throw out the blog baby with the bathwater. These seasoned bloggers explain the vitality of this still-revolutionary medium—the resources, community, continuity, and space for real ideas that only blogs can provide—and its infinite future potential.

Questions Answered:
1. Why blog when there are newer, shorter, quicker mediums to express myself in?
2. If there’s no barrier to blogging, what makes any blog special?
3. Which blogs are going to be worth reading in 2, 5, 10, and 50 years?
4. What can blogging do for my life—creatively, socially, professionally, and intellectually?
5. What techniques do the bloggers with the most staying power use to keep their readers—and themselves—informed and inspired?
6. Why blogging during a recession is the smartest thing you can be doing with your time
7. What works as a blog post and what works better as a tweet or status update, and why?
8. How do veteran bloggers avoid the 10 blog traps that rookies always fall into?
9. Why is it so important to keep commenters happy and engaged—and how do I do it?
10. Is it worth it to revive a dead blog—and should I kill the one I don’t love anymore?

So far, the people I’ve asked to be on the panel if we make it to the show are:

• Daniel Radosh, blogger, radosh.net; contributing editor, The Week; author, Rapture Ready! Adventures In The Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture

• Book-writer and blog-writer Lizzie Skurnick, who writes the blockbuster Fine Lines column at Jezebel, which turned into her new book, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading; her book blog, The Old Hag; and, of course, www.lizzieskurnick.com.

• Scott Rosenberg, author, Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters; blogger, www.wordyard.com

• Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan; bloggers, Go Fug Yourself; authors, Go Fug Yourself: The Fug Awards

• Ron Hogan, blogger, Beatrice and GalleyCat; book critic; author, The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane! American Films of the 1970s

• Paddy Johnson, blogger, Art Fag City

• Josh Fruhlinger, blogger, The Comics Curmudgeon

And if we do make it—and you’ll be in Austin for the festival—come on by and I’ll thank you in person!