Today, one of my favorite bloggers, Ethan Zuckerman, explores an intriguing way to gauge the popularity and audience of online news venues: link per thousand circulation (LkpC). Here’s how you calculate this nifty metric, and what it might mean…
There’s been a bit of fuss in the blogosphere lately over the issue of character blogs: weblogs that are “written” by a fictional character. That is, the entries are presented from a rather allegorical perspective, as opposed to a realistic one. Some very smart people (such as Steve Rubel) hate character blogs. Others like them, or at least aren’t inherently opposed to them. Personally, I think character blogs have their uses – depending on motives, goals, topics, and (most of all) audience…
Oh, I wish I could be in London tomorrow! I just found out about an intriguing event happening Tuesday, Apr. 19 at the Dana Centre: a salon discussion called “Venus Rising.” This meshes serendipitously with my current exploration of problems and issues associated with the predominance of “argument culture” in many spheres of life and work, including technology. ARE YOU ATTENDING THIS EVENT? If so, I’d appreciate it if you could raise the following question on my behalf…
My career involves many kinds of content work, including e-learning content development. I’m pleased to announce that an online course I’ve been working on for the last year, Covering Water Quality, is now available via the Poynter Institute’s News University. Curious? Visit NewsU and sign up (it’s free). This is a completely self-paced online course, no instructor involvement, so you can work through the lessons comprising the course in your own preferred order and on your own schedule. There are lots of exercises and interactivity, too. The target audience is journalists from any beat who are interested in covering (or who find they must cover) drinking water quality issues…
I’ve been reading another book by the sociolinguist Deborah Tannen: “The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words” (1998). It’s making me think hard about how people interact online and elsewhere; what’s assumed to be “the norm” for interaction, and how different groups experience interaction differently. Later on I’ll be posting some articles exploring the implications of Tannen’s observations to the blogosphere, online discussion forums, and journalism. But for now, to set the context, here’s an excerpt from the first chapter which encapsulates the book’s premise…
This week I’m too swamped to focus on writing for CONTENTIOUS, so I thought I’d highlight an article I wrote last year: “Finding Content Pearls Within Your Organization.” It explains why creating online content for your organization needn’t be torture. If you approach this task with the right mindset, it can be more like harvesting pearls. I’m drawing your attention to this piece because so many organizations are blogging these days – much more so than when I wrote that article last August…
If you’re struggling to tighten up a flabby or unruly sentence, where do you start? Generally, I get the best — and fastest — results by focusing on the verb…
On Dec. 1, 2004, The Kitchen: How to Cook a Weblog posted an intriguing open question: Why Do You Blog? Several bloggers have already answered that question. I promised myself I wouldn’t respond until I could think of something more meaningful than “Because I can’t shut up.” Well, here goes my attempt: I blog to explore, and to enhance and share my explorations…
Whether this audio post is a bonus or penalty depends on your musical taste, and your tolerance for minimal recording technique and unprofessional behaviour. Still, I had fun doing it. Listen, if you dare…
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