“Crafting pages that work well with search engines and users is a black art. Chris Sherman sheds some light on the subject, and offers some SEO writing resources. Dr. Dennis Jerz, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire also has some excellent blurb and headline writing advice.” Andy King —Writing for Search EnginesWebReference)…
“Ridiculous comments, such as Dan Gillmor’s claim that ‘with the advent of weblogging, the readers know more than the journalists’ only stoke the fires of hyperbole and do not help us understand this new tool. | Blogging is not journalism. | Often it is as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with…
“It is becoming clear that millions of people are turning to weblogs for news, information, commentary and entertainment -? just for the pure joy of taking in writing that’s vivid, vibrant, telegenic, emotion-laden, and driven by personal experience rather than the formula of detachment that deadens far too much traditional journalism. | What does it…
“Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months, according to Brightmail Inc., a major vendor of anti-spam software. By the end of this year, industry experts predict, fully half of all e-mail will be unsolicited.”…
“During the course of this semester, you’ll have ample opportunity to explore the Star Trek Universe, beginning with an essay about your journey through hyperspace, an involved research paper, and a final assignment either comparing the Star Trek Universe to another area of Sci-Fi, or creating your own part of the Star Trek Universe by…
“My personal business card says I’m a Digital Medievalist. | It’s the best way to describe my training, my occupation, and my interests. | I am trained as a medievalist. I started studying medieval English literature as an undergraduate, and am currently completing a doctoral dissertation in Medieval English and Celtic literatures (I’m writing about…
My book, Technology in American Drama, will be published shortly. I have no intention of flogging it endlessly on my blog, but as I was doing some final (I hope) paperwork and checking the page my publisher devoted to the book, I spotted the “printer friendly book flyer” link. When you click it, the browser…
“Teens and twentysomethings usually do not bother to set a time and place for their meetings. They exchange as many as 5 to 15 messages throughout the day that progressively narrows in on a time and place, two points eventually converging in a coordinated dance through the urban jungle. To not have a [portable phone]…
The world’s first brain prosthesis – an artificial hippocampus – is about to be tested in California. Unlike devices like cochlear implants, which merely stimulate brain activity, this silicon chip implant will perform the same processes as the damaged part of the brain it is replacing. | The prosthesis will first be tested on tissue…
“Everyone say it with me. I will not get bad luck lose my friends or lose my mailing lists if I DON’T forward an e-mail…” —The SoapboxSmilePop) An amusing flash animation. Thanks, Danielle. Similar:Apparently, I needed to watch a supercut of doors and corridors from Star Trek.I did in fact search YouTube for videos …AestheticsIn…
“The Web is only limited by the hard drive(s) your site is stored on, print is strictly limited by story inches. Have you noticed a tendency to ramble on a bit online? If you want to retain your readership you’ve got to curb that urge, at least on your front page. The way around that…
—I Will Use Google…The Flow?) We’re in midterm crunch time… I don’t want my students to read anything into the timing of this posting. I just thought it was funny. I’m unsure where this is “really” from. While using Google in the hopes of tracking down the source of this image, I found this creative…
“You’ve never seen anything like St. Patrick’s for bringing the Irish out in people,” said P.J. O’Doyle, owner and proprietor of O’Doyle’s Pub in Pittsburgh. “For one magical night, all the wonderful things you hear in all the grand old stories come true: the glorious thirst for drink, the endless singing, the pining for the…
“According to a videotaped message airing exclusively on CNN, media mogul Ted Turner has sent himself back in time to January 2000 to avert the catastrophic merger of America Online and Time Warner.” —Ted Turner Sends Self Back in Time to Prevent AOL Time Warner MergerThe Onion) Similar:Deadline seems to have briefly published, then taken…
“Benetton’s Sisley line of clothing will contain a Philips Electronics radio frequency ID tag that will replace ubiquitous bar codes, which have to be manually scanned…..While there is no indication Benetton intends to track its customers with the tags, privacy advocates are worried that the technology could lend itself to unauthorized customer monitoring.” —Benneton Clothing…
“Losing your clean credit history is one thing; losing your freedom is another. And victims of America‘sfastest-growing crime are discovering they often have much more to worry about than the hundreds of hours of paperwork necessary to clean up the financial mess associated with ID theft. Sometimes, they have to worry about ending up in…
“Trying to compare the blurbs on a book of poetry to the contents is like trying to compare a description of angel wings to actual angel wings. The blurbs employ extravagantly unverifiable descriptions of the contents (what is ?intensely somatic?? a ?one-hundred ring verbal circus?? who says it‘s?brilliant? and why?) to contents that are themselves…
“This time around, many observers predict that the U.S. will also deploy viruses, government-trained hackers, and special electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out Iraq’s computers and other sensitive electronic equipment. But if the U.S. wants to cut off Iraq’s access to the Internet, it need only give a nod to operators of a satellite farm…
“The great majority of the readers who adore the warm and relaxing bath of their accustomed New Yorker were very upset by the ‘shock treatment’ of my covers. Those readers will feel more at ease with the calm and submissive New Yorker of the tradition which, since the 1920s, mixed intelligence, sophistication, snobbery, and complaisance…
“The mood at the Game Designers Conference this year was, fundamentally, one of despair. To even the blindest apologist for the silly, if monstrous, construct the game industry has become, the handwriting on the wall was clear. Ten years ago, you could find a dozen publishers to pitch to; today, perhaps five. And of the…