For the past century or so, professional journalists and the companies they work for have pretty much assumed that they owned “the news.” That is, they believed that the very concept of “real news” was defined primarily by the type of organization publishing it. Print and broadcast venues offered by traditional newsgathering organizations and staffed by professional journalists and editors created “real” news that could be trusted – everything else was idle chatter or propaganda of one form or another.
But the media landscape evolves. As the Internet (especially the blogosphere) continues to expand and mutate, it’s bringing the field of participatory journalism to the fore – and about time, too!…
(Full commentary, with links…)
Tightening up flabby sentences can seem more difficult than firming up flabby thighs. However, polishing and trimming your finished writing doesn’t have to be such hard work. There are several easy tricks that can help any writer tone up the most awkward, sprawling sentences.
Here’s one little gem that I often share with my writing coaching clients: Spotting and eliminating unnecessary prepositional phrases.
Here’s how it works…
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All right, apologies for the previous entry that was at this address. I got fooled (via a link from a software site I found during other research) into thinking I saw something on the Apple site that had nothing to do with Apple.
I’ve accordingly removed my mistaken rant. Apologies to Apple.
Everyone ends up with egg on their face sometimes. This just appears to be my day. So be it.
For awhile now, webfeed fans have been hoping that one of the major Web browsers would integrate a feed reader into its core functionality.
Well, the newest version of the Opera Web browser (7.50, available for all major operating systems) does include a feed reader. (They call it “newsfeeds.”)
My review…
Forget “reality shows.” I’d like to applaud some actual reality that made it onto the air a few months ago.
One of the greatest achievements any content creator can hope for is to portray a human experience in a way that resonates strongly with millions of people.
…Like the intense frustration of getting screwed over for months on end by a major company and its dehumanizing “customer service” machine…
(Full story…)
Sometimes a picture says a thousand words. Sometimes it leaves you stunned and speechless. Sometimes images and other content become a part of the war, bringing a tidal wave of reaction and backlash.
The furor over the photos and videos of Iraqi prisoner abuse perpetrated by American soldiers is escalating fast. Then comes the video of Al Quaeda members beheading an American civilian. The notorious Taguba report is now online, as is Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker feature “Torture at Abu Ghraib.” News media, discussion forums, and weblogs around the world are aflame with these events.
Technology has enabled a newly vivid, volatile, personal, and immediate level of communication about war. When simple video, digital, or cell-phone cameras are coupled with the Internet; when secret documents can be disseminated to the world in an instant; we have a war of content. Anyone who posts anything, from a comment to damning photographs, is a potential combatant – or target…
(Full commentary, with links…)
In a comment to my earlier entry, Real Content Management: Consider the Process, CONTENTIOUS reader Rene commented:
“The problem from the point of view of the CMS software designer is: users are unable to specify the functionality they require. What typically happens is that interviews and workshops produce specifications with cookie-cutter functionality. Then the system is built and tested. Once the content staff starts using it, they come up with the ideas how the CMS should have worked. But unfortunately, the resources for the CMS development project are also limited.”
That’s an excellent point. Lack of clarity on specifications is indeed a huge problem in CMS development – but I think that could be addressed if developers and content professionals understood each other better and talked more.
Here are some thoughts on how that thorny issue might be addressed…
(Full story…)
So far, the vast majority of weblogs (including CONTENTIOUS) offer mainly text as content. Technically speaking, text is very easy to create and publish, and it consumes little bandwidth or memory. However, audio weblogs (audioblogs) are emerging in a big way, largely thanks to the introduction of a couple of major new services that are accessible and affordable for the average weblogger.
More on these new developments, and general thoughts on audioblogging…
(Full story, with links…)
For a long time now, one of my major complaints about content management systems is that most of them are not well-suited for (indeed, appear to have been designed by people without the slightest clue about) the editorial process. Similarly, too often the people responsible for the budget and major planning for Web sites and intranets don’t understand what it takes to create great content on an ongoing basis.
Well, today consultant Gerry McGovern published an article, “Web content management a process, not a project,” that addresses the core of this problem.
McGovern observes: “I sometimes come across organizations that every couple of years decide to redo the graphic design of their websites. They know that their websites aren�t working very well. Deep down, they know it�s not because of the graphics; it�s because content is badly organized and badly written. However, creating a new graphic design is so much easier because it can be treated like a project with a nicely defined budget and timeframe. The manager can say they have delivered something and everyone can be happy for a while. Seeing your website as a process creates a lot more challenges, yet it is the only way to go if you want to deliver quality results.”
Absolutely.
Here is what I wish content management vendors and Web site/intranet owners would understand about the editorial process. They might then adapt their technological tools accordingly…
(Full story, with links…)
The May 2004 edition of Learning Circuits, a publication of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), features this article: RSS: A Learning Technology, by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson.
It begins with a basic overview of what webfeeds are, but then goes on to talk specifically about possible e-learning applications for webfeeds, such as:
- Subscribing to feeds on certain topics to stay current.
- Publishing syndicated content on course Websites or blogs.
- Having learners create their own blogs and then subscribing to the feeds of all those blogs to check new content on them.
- Notifying learners about new available courses.
- Updating learners on new internal or external resources available on a training topic.
- Subscribing to feeds from learning object repositories to see the newest objects added or objects added in a topic they’re developing a course on.
The article includes a resource list of six repositories around the world that offer RSS feeds of learning objects to the public.
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