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February 29, 2004
Journalists, their blogs and their bosses
Steve Outing writes in Editor and Publisher about how journalists and their employers deal with personal blogs. Most journalists let their bosses know. A few keep it secret and write as anonymously as possible.
Some papers, such as the N.Y. Times, are strict about limiting blogs by their news staff. Other papers follow similar rules to their free-lancing guidelines.
A personal look at a reporter's blog and his paper's reaction is Daniel Weintraub's article in Online Journalism Review. His blog covered politics, which is also his job with The Sacramento Bee. His blog become part of his work with the paper, and there was close cooperation with his editors. His column created a debate among bloggers about whether blogs should be edited.
Posted by eubie at 9:06 PM permalink
The millionaire how-to
From the N.Y. Times: Vaulting to No. 1, a Truism at a Time. "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach catches my eye. But the advice is simple -- avoid debt, curb impulse buys, invest regularly and early. But these books continue to be hot sellers.
"Mr. Bach and his ilk have tapped into a basic need that seems to run deep in the culture: the need for reassurance."
Most of the advice can be summed up in something Motley Fool's 10 Lessons to Teach Kids About Money, which includes (10) Money can't buy happiness, or love, but it can help you avoid many kinds of misery.
Posted by eubie at 10:07 AM permalink
10 Writing tips from Elmo Leonard
All are good tips, but the tenth is the best.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Tip from Boing Boing.
Posted by eubie at 8:45 AM permalink
Rewards of blogging
Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) responds to someone who is considering quitting blogging:
Really the weblog metaphor lets you do some really interesting things.
1) It lets you share. I bet you know OneNote tricks that no one else does. Tell us! We'll hang on every word. (If you are doing a personal weblog, it lets you share your life with other people, say, your family members).
2) It lets you reveal. You could tell a world-wide audience about the next version of OneNote. Why on a blog? Because of the influence of who reads here. Mary Jo Foley, for instance, tells me she reads all the Microsoft blogs looking for information about Microsoft. (If you're writing a personal blog, you might reveal something cool about your life. A photo of the sunset out your front door, for instance).
3) It lets you reward others. Do you know the social power of a link? I've had people come up to me at conferences all giddy saying "do you realize what happened after you linked to me?" Certainly I'm aware of the GooglePower that I send someone when I link to them. But it's more than that. I've made powerful friends after I've linked to them. It's a social thing. Dave Sifry, the guy who founded Technorati, is right. It's a social gesture. (Personal bloggers, it's a far more powerful act of friendship to link to someone on your blog than it is to say "that guy's my friend" in Google's Orkut).
4) It lets you have conversations. One thing I'd say to Chris is to put "OneNote" and "Pratley" into Feedster.com and subscribe to those two feeds. Then, when someone says something about OneNote or Pratley, respond. By showing you care about people's opinions, they are far more likely to give you feedback that'll make your product better. (Personal bloggers, if you respond to people who talk about you, you'll find you build real and lasting friendships).
Posted by eubie at 8:10 AM permalink