Monthly Archives: April 2007

Fictional Software: Spider Repellent

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“You loaded the software and typed in the search words. Say you’d been arrested for drunk driving or soliciting a prostitute, or you’d been in a gossip page biting the ear of some pretty young thing in a nightclub. Or, for that matter, you had been charged by the SEC with swindling your shareholders. You typed in your name, along with “drunk driving” or “prostitute” or “ear” or “embezzling.” Spider Repellent found all the references to you on the Web and –deleted them.”

— Page 117, Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley

Voice-to-text-to-blog?

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Planet Nelson points to Jott: “…is a free service (to the extent that your cell can call anywhere in North America for free) that allows you to dictate a 30-second message into your phone and then have it sent as a text email to a friend/colleague/self/offending politician/anyone whose email address is in your Jott address book.”

From Jott.com: “Using Jott, yoau can either Jott your blog directly or just jott yourself and post later. Better yet, your readers can listen to you too — a great way to connect?”

Blog with Jott

If I understand this correctly… a news reporter could be posting audio and text reports directly from their mobile phone to their blog. And given the evolving definition of “reporter,” this tool could be used by anyone, whether they went to J-School or not.

Update: Jamie at Planet Nelson Jott’ed back on this post. The voice-to-text was close. “Blogroll” became “blog rule” and “Gnomedex” showed up as “noon desk.” But pretty slick all the same.

Five Common Headline Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

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The headline of a blog post is arguably as important as the post itself. Digg points us to this handy list at copyblogger:

1. No Reader Benefit – Ask yourself “what’s in it for them?” If the headline doesn’t tell you, it’s missing a benefit.

2. Lack of Curiosity – Does your headline make you have to know what the promised answer is? Use questions, numbers, challenges and statements that compel the prospective reader to explore the beneficial content you’re offering.

3. Lack of Specificity – Use variations of the “list” headline, use words like “this,” “these,” “here is” and “here are” to refer specifically to your content, and also use hard numbers and exact percentages when appropriate.

4. Lack of Simplicity – Stick to one concept, eliminate unnecessary words, and use familiar language.

5. No Sense of Urgency – Check to see that items 1-4 above are truly present. If so, try reworking the headline to make it more compelling without stepping too far into hyperbole. If all else fails, examine the premise of the content itself. Is it really “need to know” information?

Another one bites the Mac

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Learfield pal David Brazeal has looted his son’s college fund to buy himself a new MacBook Pro. He’ll be Mac-dazed for bit, unlearning the thousand things you need to know to make a PC go, but we’ll try to keep up with his progress here.

On the off chance my own Mac experience contributed to David’s high dive into the Mac pool, I’ve added him to the Mac Gallery.

The X-Files

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The X Files Chemistry. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn had it. Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd had it. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson had it. Who has that kind of chemistry today?

Just watched the last half of the movie and was reminded how good Scully and Mulder were together. Where are Duchovny and Anderson now? Duchovny became something of a parody of himself but I don’t recall seeing much about Anderson. Good for her.

Gillian Anderson was white hot. She was put-a-sparkler-on-your-tounge hot. She wasn’t Victoria’s Secret beautiful…but she was leave-a-note-and-run-away-from-home sexy.

Donkey Basketball

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“This 12 to 10 score is amazingly high when you consider that you have to be mounted to shoot and the donkey is usually moving, so you’re hanging on with one hand and both catching and shooting with the other. That’s not to mention that the gym in the old armory is so loud that you can’t hear yourself think. If you’d like a simulation, stick your head and a boombox (turned up loud) into a 55-gallon drum.  Have two friends beat upon it savagely with baseball bats. To add essence of Donkeyball, add a scoop of horse-manure to the drum. (And they say there’s nothing to do in this town.)”

Read the rest of Dr. Mobley’s hilarious account. Makes a boy homesick.

NAB keynote: Broadcasters still don’t get the web

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I keep looking for signs that broadcasters are beginning to understand the importance (an potential) of the Internet. I’m sorry to say, I’m just not seeing them. And, based on Steve Safran’s (lostremote) summary of the keynote at this year’s NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) meeting, I won’t find it there:

“The internet did get a shoutout at the National Association of Broadcasters keynote speech Monday morning in Las Vegas. David K. Rehr, CEO and President of the NAB, said “internet.” He mentioned it once. In passing. During his discussion of issues about radio. It came 47 minutes into the keynote session and was the only time anyone said “internet.” That’s really all you need to know about the keynote. The NAB is simply not interested in the potential of the web, and what little interest it may have is only in terms of saying how broadcasting is better.”

Working for a company that provides services to broadcasters, I really hope they have a bright future. Mr. Safran’s summary of the keynote is worth a read.

Are you eating your own dog food?

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Media Guerrilla has advice for companies or organizations trying to choose a ‘partner’ to help produce new media content. He has a series of questions to ask potential partners, including this one:

“How are they using new media in their business? It’s a fairly straight-forward question, right. Is the company or the consultant you’re talking to eating their own dog food? What you want to hear is of course yes, but I think what you also want to see is a degree of variety in how they’re active across the web. Having a personal blog, for example, is great, but at this point in the game, it’s practically a must-have. How else are they immersed?