SES Chicago V ideo Interviews
SES Chicago V ideo Interviews
SEO tips form the speakers each day this weekI am at SES Chicago 08 with the video crew from Firebelly Marketing in Indianapolis. We'll be talking to keynote speakrs and panelist today and tomorrow and the vidoes wil be postedon YouTube and on htis blog every day this week.
So if you were not able to attend, at least you'll get some of the highights.
Stay tuned.
And follow me on Twitter for updates during the the day
http://www.twitter.com.sallyfalkow
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.
UK PR Firms Missing Digital Opportunity
Study shows almost 80 % have no social media services
It would seem that most UK PR agencies missed the Cluetrain.
According to a study of 100 major PR firms 79% have not yet developed online PR and social media services. And half of those that did get the clue are based in London, says the BigMouth Media report. 28% of the London based PR firms offer Internet PR services and 14% of them blog.
"If PR is to properly address the challenges and opportunities that new media offers, the industry must invest in relevant services and training at all levels. Those failing to do so run the long-term risk of losing out in the inevitable battle for the online communications market." Adam Parker, Chief Executive of online news distribution company webitpr.
See Also
- Online PR and Social Media Training
Specially crafted social media and digital PR training sessions taught by industry expert
Reading speed on computer screens
As I'm pulling together materials for the fourth edition of Writing for the Web, I'm finding it hard to update one important issue. For decades, it's been a given that reading text on a computer screen is harder than reading it on paper. The effect is that we read online text 25% more slowly than text on paper. Jakob Nielsen made that critical point back in the 1990s, and said...
As I'm pulling together materials for the fourth edition of Writing for the Web, I'm finding it hard to update one important issue.
For decades, it's been a given that reading text on a computer screen is harder than reading it on paper. The effect is that we read online text 25% more slowly than text on paper.
Jakob Nielsen made that critical point back in the 1990s, and said it was a problem with screen resolution. By 2009, he predicted, resolution would be equivalent to print on paper.
But Nielsen hasn't addressed the issue recently, and when I search for other studies, I find little or nothing published since about 2003. Can anyone point me to recent studies that indicate how quickly people read onscreen, using recent computers, compared to reading text on print?
Which search engines to target?
Some search engine ti
Obama's wisdom about email
Via CNN Political Ticker: Obama thinks he can keep his blackberry. Excerpt:President-elect Barack Obama told CNN Friday he thinks he may be able to “hang onto” his BlackBerry after all. In an interview with CNN’s John King, he talked about the privacy issues that threaten his ability to maintain normal communications – and his optimism that, unlike his predecessor, he’s going to be able to keep using e-mail after he...
President-elect Barack Obama told CNN Friday he thinks he may be able to “hang onto” his BlackBerry after all.
In an interview with CNN’s John King, he talked about the privacy issues that threaten his ability to maintain normal communications – and his optimism that, unlike his predecessor, he’s going to be able to keep using e-mail after he enters the Oval Office.
Then there’s the BlackBerry. “You like these,” said CNN’s John King. “I was just with you before this, and you had a couple of them. And there are a lot of people who say, because this will end up in the presidential library, because you don't have privacy any more. Your life's about to change Tuesday noon. You have to give this up.”
“Yes,” conceded Obama.
“You going to do it?” asked King.
“I think we're going to be able to beat this back,” Obama responded. “….I think we're going to be able to hang onto one of these. Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure that — to think before I press ‘send.’”If only the rest of us would think before we press "send."
Tips for a New Website
It\'s not easy not easy to promote your website or get sales initially. Following the tips given in this column can at least give your Web site ..
Welcome to the White House—and the 21st Century (updated)
Back in 2002, giving a workshop in Sao Paulo, I showed my students the current White House website. It was pretty dull, but it did offer a page in Spanish. Politically smart, I guess, except that the links on the Spanish page were still in English. Politics on the web was still pretty primitive.Last year I wrote an article about the gorgeous Barack Obama campaign website. Clearly, the upstart understood...
Obama: The first hypertext inaugural speech?
I'm not a huge fan of Stanley Fish, but today in the New York Times he did the best parsing I've seen of Barack Obama’s Prose Style. Excerpt:... if you look at the text – spread out like a patient etherized on a table – that’s exactly what it’s like. There are few transitions and those there are – “for,” “nor,” “as for,” “so,” “and so” – seem just stuck...
... if you look at the text – spread out like a patient etherized on a table – that’s exactly what it’s like. There are few transitions and those there are – “for,” “nor,” “as for,” “so,” “and so” – seem just stuck in, providing a pause, not a marker of logical progression.
Obama doesn’t deposit us at a location he has in mind from the beginning; he carries us from meditative bead to meditative bead, and invites us to contemplate.
Of course, as something heard rather than viewed, the speech provides no spaces for contemplation. We have barely taken in a small rhetorical flourish like “All this we can do. All this we will do” before it disappears in the rear-view mirror.
But if we regard the text as an object rather than as a performance in time, it becomes possible (and rewarding) to do what the pundits are doing: linger over each alliteration, parse each emphasis, tease out each implication.
There is a technical term for this kind of writing – parataxis, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the placing of propositions or clauses one after the other without indicating . . . the relation of co-ordination or subordination between them.”
The opposite of parataxis is hypotaxis, the marking of relations between propositions and clause by connectives that point backward or forward. One kind of prose is additive – here’s this and now here’s that; the other asks the reader or hearer to hold in suspension the components of an argument that will not fully emerge until the final word.Parataxis is what hypertext is all about: individual ideas, with no connections between them except those that the reader chooses to make. For much of my forty years as a teacher of writing, I pushed my students to make connections.
The 2008 Weblog Awards
The polls are now open for The 2008 Weblog Awards: Polls Archives. Even if you're not a fan of such competitions, you may find some worthwhile blogs in unexpected places.
A new edition of Writing for the Web
I dropped in to see my publisher yesterday, and he blindsided me by reporting that Writing for the Web 3.0 has practically sold out. But he doesn't want to reprint it—he wants a fourth edition. Well, that was welcome news, and I can think at once of several areas that deserve fuller treatment. Writing for blogs is an obvious one. Maybe some concrete advice on search-engine optimization. And certainly some...
I dropped in to see my publisher yesterday, and he blindsided me by reporting that Writing for the Web 3.0 has practically sold out. But he doesn't want to reprint it—he wants a fourth edition.
Well, that was welcome news, and I can think at once of several areas that deserve fuller treatment. Writing for blogs is an obvious one. Maybe some concrete advice on search-engine optimization. And certainly some more exercise material, both in the book and here on its blog, would be useful.
But this is an interactive medium, so I'd be grateful for your suggestions on what you'd like to see in a new edition of the book. Even if you haven't read it, tell me about what your concerns and interests are. If the present edition already deals with them, great. If not, even better—I'll be sure to address your issues in the new edition.
Why the Print Media Still Don't Get It
We're having a federal election here in Canada, and The Globe and Mail is covering it very well. But this story by one of the paper's top reporters, Michael Valpy, shows why print text doesn't work online: Outlook gets gloomier for Tories, polls suggest. Here's an excerpt from the end of the story, with my comments and revisions between paragraphs: There have been a number of theories offered for Canadians'...
We're having a federal election here in Canada, and The Globe and Mail is covering it very well. But this story by one of the paper's top reporters, Michael Valpy, shows why print text doesn't work online: Outlook gets gloomier for Tories, polls suggest. Here's an excerpt from the end of the story, with my comments and revisions between paragraphs:
There have been a number of theories offered for Canadians' growing coolness toward Mr. Harper as the campaign progresses, most focusing on his response – or perceived absence of response – to the gathering economic crisis.
[A sentence of online text should normally run to 20 words maximum. This is 34 words, starting with the dead word "There."]
Observers suggest several theories for Canadians' growing coolness to Mr. Harper. Most focus on his poor response to the current economic crisis.
But a leading social scientist, speaking for background, suggested yesterday that Canadians see in Mr. Harper a Robespierre-type character, the French revolutionary leader who at first was embraced by the people for his unflappability, control and appearance of towering moral rectitude and then rejected by them for the same reasons.
[Fifty words in one sentence! Three sentences convey the same meaning more clearly:]
A leading social scientist, speaking on background, said yesterday that Canadians see Mr. Harper as a Robespierre. In the French Revolution, the people embraced Robespierre for his calm, control, and apparent morality. Then they rejected him for the same reasons.
“Because there was no sense that if he took his clothes off, he'd be the same as the rest of us,” the social scientist said.
[You've got to quote your sources word for word. I wish the source had said:]
"They didn't think he'd be the same as the rest of us if he took his clothes off," said the social scientist.
Pollsters said the possibility exists that the gap between the Conservatives and Liberals will widen again before voting day but it's less and less likely.
Pollsters said the Liberal-Conservative gap may widen again before election day. But they consider it unlikely. [25 words in the original sentence. Revised: 17 words in two sentences.]
In Quebec, the Liberals now have replaced the Conservatives as the federalist option to the Bloc. “There are no rabbits to be pulled out of the hat for the Conservatives,” Mr. Donolo said.
In Quebec, the Liberals have replaced the Conservatives as the federalist choice. "The Conservatives have no rabbits to pull out of their hat," said Mr. Donolo.
There are signs the Green vote, which is as high as 14 per cent in B.C., is becoming unstuck. And Mr. Graves said the three groups with the most aversion to Mr. Harper – young voters, low-income voters and NDP supporters in Ontario – have historically shown a willingness to swing to the Liberals.
[Another boring "There" sentence, plus a 33-word sentence. Consider this version with two sentences and 33 words total:]
The Green vote, up to 14 percent in BC, is weakening. Mr. Graves said three groups hostile to Mr. Harper are historically likely to vote Liberal: young voters, poor voters, and Ontario New Democrats.
Michael Valpy is a fine and thoughtful writer. But if his paper won't edit him for online readers, he won't reach the readers he deserves. And his paper won't survive online as long as it should.
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.
A Handy Reference
I recently ran across a useful little book, The Elements of Visual Style: The Basics of Print Design for Every PC and Mac User, by Robert W. Harris. While it's aimed at print-based writing, webwriters can also draw some lessons from it. Harris gives us a quick guide to typography, layout, and the use of art in print documents. The illustrations show bad and good examples, and the book itself...
I recently ran across a useful little book, The Elements of Visual Style: The Basics of Print Design for Every PC and Mac User, by Robert W. Harris. While it's aimed at print-based writing, webwriters can also draw some lessons from it.
Harris gives us a quick guide to typography, layout, and the use of art in print documents. The illustrations show bad and good examples, and the book itself is pretty well designed. I wish it were more "hypertextual": We get no references to other books on document design, and no links to sites dealing with this and related issues.
Still, it's a compact, concise, and inexpensive handbook. Even if you find most of the advice very familiar, the book could help you back up the points you're trying to make to your clients.
Split Run Testing
If you are a webpreneur, split testing is a definite recommendation. Not only it increases sales but also lets go of unnecessary graphics and copy. A ..
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.
Worst websites of 2008
I haven't visited Web Pages That Suck in a long time, but I did so this evening. Not sure it was a good idea. I clicked on the button for Contenders for worst web site of 2008 group 1, and no, it was not an exaggeration. I looked at the first ten, and decided not to go further. While HavenWorks.com ranks just #3, it was the only site that made...
I haven't visited Web Pages That Suck in a long time, but I did so this evening. Not sure it was a good idea.
I clicked on the button for Contenders for worst web site of 2008 group 1, and no, it was not an exaggeration. I looked at the first ten, and decided not to go further.
While HavenWorks.com ranks just #3, it was the only site that made me cry out in horror.
Here we are, well into the web's second decade, and people are still creating sites like this?
Not only that, people are still providing Websites That Suck with plenty of new material.
posted by Insight for Authors at 7:15 AM
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