Here’s a great detailed summary of WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco, which is organized by the folks at Automattic, the creators of the best blogging software available, WordPress.
Archive for the 'Content' Category
For those of you who belong to a social network (who doesn’t), you have to watch this hilarious video.
The folks at Common Craft have created yet another interesting video, this time teaching concept of podcasting. For those of you who want to understand what podcasting is and how it could be useful to you as a producer of content or consumer of content, then watch the video below.
Another great video from the folks at Common Craft, which explains in simple terms the web technology of Wikis. Like their previous tutorial, RSS in Plain English, they offer an easy-to-understand and concise explanation of the technology.
Dan Gookin of PC for Dummies fame and numerous other best-selling computer books created a handy downloadable HTML quick start guide for bloggers. The guide covers all the simple codes required to format text, insert web links, add pictures to your posts, etc. The Bloggers Guide to HTML is a PDF formatted for printing so you can stash it by your computer for quick reference.
Here’s a nice video explaining the fundamentals of RSS and its benefits for the average user.
The LA Times runs one of the few remaining stand-alone book sections in a daily newspaper. (The others are in The San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times and San Diego Union-Tribune.)
Dwindling ad budgets are eating away at many of the unique features that only some newspapers offer. I can only hope that most of this specialized content survives the transition to a working digital revenue model. More details here…
It appears that the video is sometimes not working at YouTube, so here’s another link that is still active:
http://www.devilducky.com/media/57946/
Check out OriginalSignal when you have a moment. Pick you signal(s) and go. Pretty cool…
The main purpose of the site is to provide a quick glance on what’s happening without using your desktop/web RSS reader. New headlines (since your last cookied visit) come in pretty orange, visited ones are grey.
I came across some interesting information at Colin Crawford’s blog on IDG’s continued transformation from a print publisher to an online publisher. Colin is VP, New Business Development and Operations at IDG. Aside from research and expos, IDG is a publisher of technology industry magazines targeting audiences from the B2B market to the Consumer Technology segment.
Colin shared some numbers that are quite telling of where segments of the magazine print industry are shifting:
In the US, our online revenue now accounts for over 35% of our total US publishing revenues. Next year, for many brands online revenues will be greater than print revenues, if fact they already are at some of our key brands and by 2009 – approximately 50% of IDG’s US revenues will come from online.
With its shift away from print publishing, IDG has also retooled it’s business mission:
Going forward IDG Communications will define itself as a web centric information company complemented by expos, events and print publications.
Colin also points out that new competitors exist, which weren’t part of the print-only world:
In the past media organizations controlled content and pushed it out to subscribers, today’s media has to deal with a world of social connections, networking and collective actions enabled by the Internet.
And he also has the wisdom to see his audience is changing along with their demands for how they want their content delivered and their need to participate:
We have to become facilitators as much as content creators – our brands are trusted, they have quality content and loyal audiences – these are our competitive advantages but we’ll only hold onto those assets if we truly listen to our communities and provide appropriate environments for user initiated conversations and user created content.
IDG’s new strategy should be a signal to all print publishers (no matter the reader audience) that the shift is happening. It may not be clear what the path forward should be or what business models will work best with each publisher or publishing segment, but now is the time to start preparing for the shift by ensuring content is “repurposed” for the digital world and exploring new methods and platforms for content delivery.