More spring cleaning
More spring cleaning
In Webwriting Resources, over on the left, I've removed some sites that hadn't been updated in several months. Other old sites are still there. Even though inactive, they offer some useful materials. It's striking to see that most of the sites are lively and very up to date. If you're running a site of interest to webwriters, and you're not on the list, drop me a line.
In Webwriting Resources, over on the left, I've removed some sites that hadn't been updated in several months. Other old sites are still there. Even though inactive, they offer some useful materials.
It's striking to see that most of the sites are lively and very up to date. If you're running a site of interest to webwriters, and you're not on the list, drop me a line.
The tools of propaganda
Via Poynter Online: Here's your handy-dandy propaganda detector. Excerpt: No politician, Republican or Democrat, would admit he or she is in the propaganda business. And no journalist I know would admit to being an enabler of the propaganda efforts of a particular political party. Like it or not, every scripted moment of every convention, every syllable of every campaign speech, is an act of political propaganda. It follows that to...
Via Poynter Online: Here's your handy-dandy propaganda detector. Excerpt:
No politician, Republican or Democrat, would admit he or she is in the propaganda business. And no journalist I know would admit to being an enabler of the propaganda efforts of a particular political party.
Like it or not, every scripted moment of every convention, every syllable of every campaign speech, is an act of political propaganda. It follows that to cover politics responsibly, reporters must come equipped with a tuned-up, turbo-charged propaganda detector.
In an anthology of essays on language, I stumbled upon a pamphlet titled "How to Detect Propaganda," published in 1937 by a short-lived organization called the Institute for Propaganda Analysis.
As you can imagine, the years leading up to World War II frothed with propaganda. The Institute, co-founded by Clyde R. Miller of Columbia University, was an early advocate of what we now called "critical literacy."
The pamphlet begins, "If American citizens are to have clear understanding of present-day conditions and what to do about them, they must be able to recognize propaganda, to analyze it, and to appraise it."
Seventy-one years later, the lessons are as relevant as ever. I was pleased to see the IPA's propaganda devices mentioned in Poynter, because I tried for decades to teach them to my students. With political websites like memeorandrum working as propaganda geysers, we all need to be aware of what they're spouting.
On the same topic, I recently published an article on Blogs for Election Junkies in The Tyee.
Cartooning for the web
In his Online Journalism Blog, Paul Bradshaw argues that News websites should make more use of cartoons (and infographics). He describes how a cartoon on OJR got 40,000 hits from around the world. The cartoon was also widely translated. It's a point worth considering, especially for webwriters and bloggers who deal with worldwide audiences.
In his Online Journalism Blog, Paul Bradshaw argues that News websites should make more use of cartoons (and infographics). He describes how a cartoon on OJR got 40,000 hits from around the world. The cartoon was also widely translated.
It's a point worth considering, especially for webwriters and bloggers who deal with worldwide audiences.
The Politics of Cyberspace
The Tyee has published my article Winning Cyberspace in '08. Excerpt: ... the sudden advent of interactive media has changed propaganda into a two-way street, a conversation, a screaming match -- and a rock concert. One-way media and interactive media are themselves interacting, creating a political environment unlike any before it. The campaign of Barack Obama is not just thriving in this environment -- it's defining 21st-century campaign politics.
The Tyee has published my article Winning Cyberspace in '08. Excerpt:
... the sudden advent of interactive media has changed propaganda into a two-way street, a conversation, a screaming match -- and a rock concert. One-way media and interactive media are themselves interacting, creating a political environment unlike any before it.
The campaign of Barack Obama is not just thriving in this environment -- it's defining 21st-century campaign politics.
A US newspaper abandons print
Via Isthmus/The Daily Page: The end of an era in Madison, Wisconsin. Excerpt: Good luck, Cap Times. You'll need it. Converting from a six-day-a-week paid paper to an online news site is like jumping from a very high cliff into a very deep and mysterious pool. The paper might be killed. Or it might be transformed. One thing's for sure: The Capital Times that Madison has known for 90 years...
Via Isthmus/The Daily Page: The end of an era in Madison, Wisconsin. Excerpt:
Good luck, Cap Times. You'll need it. Converting from a six-day-a-week paid paper to an online news site is like jumping from a very high cliff into a very deep and mysterious pool.
The paper might be killed. Or it might be transformed.
One thing's for sure: The Capital Times that Madison has known for 90 years will be gone. Online publishing is a fundamentally different proposition for both journalists and readers. Experts consider it a classic disruptive technology that reorders daily life for just about everyone it touches and destroys what was thought to be a durable economic model for the eclipsed technology.
Newspapers won't die off as quickly as slide rules did when calculators were introduced, but the changes under way are so epochal you'd be foolish to believe anyone who speaks confidently of what publishing will be like in 10 years.
"Nobody knows anything," as veteran screenwriter William Goldman famously said of the secrets to successful movie-making. The newspaper business is even more in the dark as to how it will make its next buck.
Meanwhile, via the Editor & Publisher website: Steep Decline at NYT while WSJ gains. Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine also comments on the Madison metamorphosis.
A lot of journalists are becoming webwriters, but they don't necessarily like the idea, according to this post by Amy Gahran on Poynter.org. And a lot of webwriters, whether they know it or not, are becoming journalists.
Social Media Simplified: A Web 2.0 Workshop for Business Owners
I'm hittin' the road again. I'm joining Denise on the podium, this time we're speaking at Tom Antion's Fusion event. If you're in L.A., come join us! (Info here: www.theblogsquad.net/fusion) I'd like to say this is our last biz trip...
The Confident Leader by Dr. Larina Kase Launches
Well, a fantastic new book recently came across my desk... ...and I suddenly realized, wow this is unprecedented. This is new. This is groundbreaking. What is it? It's a brand new book (and teleseminar series...more on that in a moment)...
US Democrats waging web war
Via Netcraft: Clinton and Obama XSS battle develops. Excerpt: Following the recent cross-site scripting attacks against Barack Obama's website, Finnish security researcher Harry Sintonen has published an example of a cross-site scripting vulnerability on votehillary.org. Sintonen's example submits a POST request to the Vote Hillary website and injects an iframe, causing the site to display the contents of Barack Obama's website. Unlike the Obama incident, which redirected the user's web...
Via Netcraft: Clinton and Obama XSS battle develops. Excerpt:
Following the recent cross-site scripting attacks against Barack Obama's website, Finnish security researcher Harry Sintonen has published an example of a cross-site scripting vulnerability on votehillary.org.
Sintonen's example submits a POST request to the Vote Hillary website and injects an iframe, causing the site to display the contents of Barack Obama's website. Unlike the Obama incident, which redirected the user's web browser, Sintonen's method retains the votehillary.org URL in the address bar while displaying the opposing website.
Sintonen told Netcraft that he was inspired by the recent Obama attacks and first examined Hillary Clinton's official website at www.hillaryclinton.com. Sintonen did not find any cross-site scripting vulnerabilities on this site, adding that it looked quite secure, but subsequently found XSS opportunities available on the Vote Hillary website. Sintonen lives in Finland and has no strong interest in US politics.
While the example exploits have so far been relatively benign (limited to redirecting a user to the opponent's website, for example), future cross-site scripting vulnerabilities found on political candidate sites have plenty of scope to be much more serious. Obama's and Clinton's websites both accept monetary contributions towards their campaigns, so cross-site scripting vulnerabilities could be leveraged to steal money and identities from supporters.
Read the post on the Netcraft site to follow the links.
How we read online
Via Slate: Lazy Bastards: How we read online.. It's based on Jakob Nielsen's principles, and it's old stuff to veteran webwriters, but it could be useful in explaining to others why some webtext succeeds and other webtext fails. In this connection, see also Is Google Making Us Stupid? in the July/August 2008 Atlantic.
Via Slate: Lazy Bastards: How we read online.. It's based on Jakob Nielsen's principles, and it's old stuff to veteran webwriters, but it could be useful in explaining to others why some webtext succeeds and other webtext fails.
In this connection, see also Is Google Making Us Stupid? in the July/August 2008 Atlantic.
Blogging the Internet Marketing Conference
This morning I took part in a panel on webwriting, part of the Internet Marketing Conference. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned: Miss 604, also known as Rebecca Bollwitt, is a very speedy blogger. She summed up my presentation (on concise text) with admirable concision and accuracy.
This morning I took part in a panel on webwriting, part of the Internet Marketing Conference. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned: Miss 604, also known as Rebecca Bollwitt, is a very speedy blogger. She summed up my presentation (on concise text) with admirable concision and accuracy.
Webwriters, meet your great-grandfather
A fascinating article in The New York Times: The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web. Excerpt: On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels...
A fascinating article in The New York Times: The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web. Excerpt:
On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet.
In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files.
He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”
Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”
Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. “This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,” said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.
Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough.
“The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century,” Mr. Kelly said. “It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions.”
For more about Paul Otlet, visit Wikipedia.
But I still insist that the true father of the internet was none other than Mark Twain.
Client Stories Make the Best Content for Marketing
Donna Maria Cole Johnson writes a terrific blog called the Indie Business Blog, and never runs out of ideas for what to write. She says, "...it’s not about me. It’s about my audience, my listeners. I love them and I...
Content Marketing for the Entrepreneur: An interview with Des Walsh
How does writing content shape the course of your professional evolution? We've seen many entrepreneurs start off in one direction and discover new strengths and talents through writing online content. I think regular blogging where you document and share your...
Writing on the Web: A few "what if's" to consider...
What if you could spend 20-30 minutes a day writing 200-300 words on your blog and bring in hordes of first time visitors and regular subscribers? What if your words happen to resonate with someone who at that particular moment...
25 Great Websites From Which to Draw Inspiration
Written by Jon Phillips One of the pet peeves of being a web designer is that you sometimes end up not feeling very creative and in need of inspiration. Of course there are thousands of CSS galleries out there, but we thought we could just go ahead and make our own list of great website designs. [...]
Written by Jon Phillips
One of the pet peeves of being a web designer is that you sometimes end up not feeling very creative and in need of inspiration. Of course there are thousands of CSS galleries out there, but we thought we could just go ahead and make our own list of great website designs. Hoping this will help you get your creative juices flowing!
Creattica Daily
�
Design Disease
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Komodo Media
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Down The Fox Hole
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The Loria Family
Lewro
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Blogsessive
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Chris Spooner
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Design Work Plan
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Adii
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GoMedia Zine
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Stylized Web
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Jeff Croft
�
MonoFactor
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True Blue Titan
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Armen Thomassian
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Kreestal
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Tim Ferriss
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MatBlogg
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Positive Space Blog
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Matt Bango
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Viget Inspire
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Jeff Saramiento
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Pearsonified
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Playground Blues
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Your Turn To Talk
So, which ones are your faves? And why? See ya in the comment section!
Webwriting in Spanish
Cast your bread upon the waters... I just ran across a Spanish website called elclerigo! that deals with a lot of web issues, and there was a post on how to write for the web, based on the Spanish translation of my book. The examples given were by Spanish students, dealing with Spanish subjects. This cheered me up. When I first read Escribir para la Web, I realized at once...
Cast your bread upon the waters...
I just ran across a Spanish website called elclerigo! that deals with a lot of web issues, and there was a post on how to write for the web, based on the Spanish translation of my book.
The examples given were by Spanish students, dealing with Spanish subjects. This cheered me up. When I first read Escribir para la Web, I realized at once that the examples and links were those of the English version. Native Spanish speakers would be likely to find my links irrelevant to their own needs.
(The translator, however, did an extraordinary job of echoing my writing style...it was pleasant but odd to read myself in such fluent Spanish, when my command of the language is really pretty weak.)
Well, I'm glad that the teacher and students found the book useful, and it's given me more food for thought about the fourth edition. And I'm adding this site to the Foreign-Language Resources list.
Nielsen on Website Readers' Reading Habits
Via Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: How Little Do Users Read? His summary: On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. The conclusion he draws: Unless you're writing for really dedicated readers with a strong interest in your subject, you should keep your text to no more than 100 words per page. I'd be interested in...
Via Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: How Little Do Users Read? His summary:
On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
The conclusion he draws: Unless you're writing for really dedicated readers with a strong interest in your subject, you should keep your text to no more than 100 words per page. I'd be interested in your reactions to his argument.
posted by Insight for Authors at 12:15 PM
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