Blogging often sounds like a great idea: sharing thoughts and expertise, becoming a part of a community, and taking the first few steps to wider recognition as a writer. But many bloggers quickly get disillusioned.

IBM's internal records show, for example, that only three percent of the company's employees have posted to a blog at all. Of those who have, 80 percent have posted only five times or fewer. Many of the people interviewed for the study say they stopped blogging--or never got started--because they didn't think anyone would read their posts.

In an effort to fix this problem, IBM researchers have been experimenting with a tool called Blog Muse, which suggests a topic for a blog post with a ready-made audience.

"We saw this disconnect between readers and writers," says Werner Geyer, a researcher at IBM's center for social software in Cambridge who was involved with the work. The writers surveyed often weren't sure how to interest readers, and many of their posts got little to no response. Readers, on the other hand, couldn't find blogs on the topics they wanted to read about.

So Geyer and his colleagues built a widget to bring these two halves of the problem closer together. Readers use the widget to suggest topics they want to read about, and they can vote in support of existing suggestions. Those suggestions then get sent to possible writers, matching topics to writers by analyzing his social network connections and areas of expertise.

The researchers found that writers were most likely to post on a topic suggested by a sizeable audience, and that audience members followed up by read posts on requested topics. Blog posts resulting from the system also received about twice as many comments, three times as many ratings, and much more traffic, says Casey Dugan, another researcher at IBM's Cambridge center.

The effort didn't substantially increase the quantity of posts however. The researchers speculate that this is because users who planned to write blog posts anyway simply chose suggested topics rather than coming up with their own.

The researchers want to do a larger, longer-term deployment of the original tool (their research was done over four weeks with 1,000 users). And they plan to present their results in April at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Atlanta, GA.

In a twist on medical record keeping, a group from the University of Washington has developed a tool called Baby Steps, which lets parents put their (often overwhelming) collection of baby pictures to practical use.

Baby Steps is a computer program that collects and organizes photos and other information on a child in a virtual baby book and baby calendar. Importantly, the software also encourages parents to record key developmental milestones--significant moments in the first five years of life, such as a baby's first step, first word and the like. Parents can also use the software to send customized newsletters to friends and family.

Researchers found that parents who used the program recorded nearly twice as many of these milestones as those who used a basic medical record-logging program instead. Pediatricians urge parents to monitor these milestones so they can be aware of early warning signs of developmental disorders, like autism or deafness.

Julie Kientz, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Washington, presented the paper at CHI 2009 on Wednesday, showing that parents who used Baby Steps had more useful information to present duringt visits to pediatricians and were more confident about their record keeping.

"Making medical record keeping more fun and less medical actually motivates people and can have positive influences," said Kientz during her talk.

The UW researchers also synched a wireless video camera to the program. The camera took snapshots of the baby at regular intervals. That way, if parents or doctors need to look back for developmental progress, they have a readily-accessible log. The team is now working on an online version.

Candidate Barack Obama built up something unique in its scale and power: a 13 million-strong email list of supporters, together with data on their beliefs and history of campaign volunteerism.

As the presidential campaign progressed, his staff proved adept at dispatching specific and geographically targeted instructions to the masses: "Call ten people in Ohio today", "Donate $5 by midnight and anonymous donor will match it", "Get out to vote" These were jobs anyone could understand. And the goal was straightforward: get the man elected.

Now we have a president who is trying to mass-email his way to a legislative victory. President Obama--more accurately, his campaign organization, now using the moniker "Organizing for America"--is deploying that list to rallying support for the stimulus package.

But you can almost hear the behind-the-scenes debate: How, exactly, is Lucy in Des Moines supposed to take action on an $800-odd billion stimulus package? What would you have her do--join in an email campaign aimed at nailing a particular Congressman to the wall? And how can we expect Frank in Utica to understand a massive bill whose contents are murky even to the people who are supposed to vote on it? Should we sell him on the fact that the stimulus bill would allow him to deduct the sales tax on his next Ford F-150?

No, the outcome has been a more nebulous campaign. Organizing for America provided a place for people to post their stories of recession angst, and encouraged them to spread their stories around to each other. This morning's missive from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe explained: "Ordinary people are telling the real story of the struggles and pressures families are facing right now. They drive home the importance of this recovery plan and the need to put it into action immediately."

The site promises: "As the recovery plan takes shape, we'll be checking back in with some of those who've shared their stories here. They'll report back on their progress, and on the progress of America's recovery from this crisis."

It can hardly be said that any of this has a bearing on the actual legislative process. There are no simple and concrete actions to take, and no way to measure its efficacy. So why bother? For one, it keeps his supporters engaged, if only by giving them a place to vent. And more importantly, the act of story-sharing will mean yet more email address accrue to the Obama organization.

So maybe next time, when Obama pushes his next bill, we'll see something more focussed. "Frank, remember when Lucy sent you her story of recession woe? Well, here's a list of ten people to call right now. We need your help nailing Congressman Jones to the wall...."