Here’s one use for blogging of which I’m particularly fond: I love it when people who are attending a conference post blog entries describing what’s being presented and discussed there – while the conference is happening.
Here’s a great current example…
(Full story, with links…)
Heads up – on Tuesday, April 6, 2004, I’ll be moderating a panel entitled Alternative Media: Attack of the Blogs. If you happen to be in Boulder on that day, please drop in! (See end of this item for location and time.)
I’m pretty jazzed about this opportunity – even though, as moderator, I’m only supposed to let the panelists talk and manage the Q&A, not present my own perspective or answer questions. That’s OK, since I’ll definitely be blogging about this in CONTENTIOUS after it’s over.
This panel is part of the annual Conference on World Affairs, a unique weeklong event at the University of Colorado, Boulder, that’s free and open to the public. I love this event – it’s my yearly local brain-food festival. Check out the schedule – the list of topics and speakers is extensive, diverse, and provocative.
More details about my panel…
(Panelists and logistics, with links…)
Over the past few months I’ve received a few comments from CONTENTIOUS readers that basically say, “I love your content, Amy – but this RSS stuff is a bit too technical for me.”
I can sympathize with this to some extent. I’m primarily a “word geek” by nature too, not a technology geek. I’m not a programmer, and learning new software is never on my list of favorite things to do.
But there’s a very good reason why I’ve been presenting so much “technical” material…
(Full story…)
Lately I’ve found a few interesting articles and resources about weblogs offered by businesses. Here’s a quick roundup.
Consider this an update to my earlier article (the all-time most popular article on CONTENTIOUS, “Persuading Bosses to Allow Weblogs.” I’ll be expanding this list later.
In my work as a writing coach, one of the most common difficulties I see is this: People often don’t recognize when they have a clear, compelling idea. Consequently, they churn out volumes of muddy, convoluted writing in a labored attempt to get to the point. Sadly, they often fail to arrive at that destination despite all their hard work.
A big part of the problem, I’ve found, is that many writers try too hard to shoehorn their very first attempts to grapple with their topic into language that would sound appropriate for the finished piece. This is rather like trying to apply varnish before designing the table. It also pretty much kills a writer’s potential for clear, creative thinking.
Relax, folks. All good writing is really just good editing. Your initial rough draft is supposed to be rough, so don’t worry about whether it sounds appropriate. Just focus on letting your ideas form and flow. Here’s a trick to help you do that…
(Full story…)
Today, while flipping through a local newspaper, I happened across a reprint of this column by Joan Silverman, “To truly grasp the printed word, you gotta hold it.”
Silverman writes about how, for awhile, she abandoned print news almost entirely in favor of online news: “When I canceled my subscription to the hard-copy edition of the newspaper, I never looked back – that is, until a recent morning. I opened my e-mail headlines from the daily paper and spotted a half-dozen stories of interest. As I looked at the articles, however, I found that several were fairly long. Suddenly I felt a sense of dread, as if reading had become a form of punishment. And there’s the rub. For anything beyond casual browsing or skimming, I think I may hate the computer.”
Believe it or not, I can really relate to this…
(Full story, with links…)
While RSS feeds are currently popular with weblogs and many news sites, they aren’t yet commonplace on many other kinds of sites that could benefit from them.
I’ve just created a list of some Web sites I regularly consult for my professional work and personal interests that I wish offered some kind of RSS feed. I’ve described how each could specifically be using RSS to offer unique value to its online audience. I’ll be updating this list periodically, and will announce developments here in CONTENTIOUS.
RSS is definitely not just for announcing news stories or weblog items. You can use it to announce ANY kind of information that gets updated periodically. In Overlooked RSS Opportunities I enumerated several kinds of content that would be perfect to announce via RSS feed.
I’m currently contacting these sites using my form letters (announced yesterday) to request that they start offering RSS feeds, and to give them resources for getting started. These form letters are free for anyone to use:
— General RSS request form letter (for anyone to use for any site)
— Special version for journalists
Apparently, the server that houses CONTENTIOUS was down from midnight to 6:45 am mountain time on Thursday, March 25. If you tried to access this site between those hours, you probably got a “page not found” error.
CONTENTIOUS is now back online. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Earlier in CONTENTIOUS I wrote about the controversy that erupted recently over a video news release (VNR) created by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a public relations campaign to increase public support for new Medicare legislation. This VNR took the form of a fake news broadcast, complete with fake reporters asking scripted softball questions that yielded equally scripted softball answers.
Apparently, these spots aired on dozens of US newscasts. The source and nature of the footage was not identified. That’s outraged a lot of journalists, and many journalism organizations and publications have recently given voice and weight to that outrage.
I’m glad to see this outrage, since I’ve long believed that when news organizations air or publish any PR-supplied materials without clearly identifying the source, they are misleading their audience as well as abdicating their public and professional responsibility.
In my opinion, VNRs are not evil — unscrupulous journalists are.
Airing an unidentified VNR falls into the same ethical pit as reprinting a press release as a straight news story. It’s bad journalism, plain and simple. And it happens far too often, in all kinds of news outlets.
I do wish that, in general and on an individual level, journalists would be more forthright about acknowledging the news media’s longstanding complicity in this particular ethical problem…
(Full story, with links to resources and updates…)
Are you as frustrated as I am at how many top-notch online venues still fail to announce their fresh content by RSS feed?
If so, I’ve just made it easy for you to ask them to start publishing RSS feeds. I’ve written a form letter that anyone is free to copy and use in order to [...]
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