Interesting little post at Slate on how people read online (and how to write for them). Readers tend to be "selfish, lazy and ruthless." When you arrive on a page, you don’t actually deign to read it. You scan. If you don’t see what you need, you’re gone.
Category Archives: Blogging
“This blogging stuff”
Springfield Mayor Tom Carlson got all Rottweiler’y on the local press recently and among his complaints, anonymous bloggers:
“On top of that, we have this Internet thing that’s going on now, this blogging stuff. Used to be, if you wanted to say something, you had to put your name it … now, there’s this anonymous character assassination that’s encouraged, in order to sell newspapers or other media outlets.”
It’s been a while since I heard/saw “this Internet thing.” One of my favorite expressions. But His Honor and I do agree on the anonymous blogging issue. He has no way of knowing if the blogger who is ripping him a new one is his opponent. And we have know way of knowing if the blogger who supports his every action is his press secretary.
Citizen journalists
Lightning started a fire at the Magellan Petroleum factory in Kansas City, MO and uber-blogger Chuck Zimmerman share this video shot from the downtown Marriott hotel.
Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest
Congratulations to Ron Gould, first place winner the Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest. His winning entry:
“Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.
Second place honors went to Anthony Juliano:
“Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.”
Thelonius Monk took third place for:
“When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven.”
The challenge was to write a story in exactly 140 characters. I fear my humble submission was too… belittling? Too pissy? We’ll never know.
“To my immediate left, a hipster dwarf leaned into his urinal, cleverly achieving a haunting reverb for his “big” finish to Unchained Melody.”
Blogger’s High
E-Media Tidbits points us to an article in the May 2008 Scientific American, by Jennifer Wapner (Blogging: It’s Good for You):
“Blogging may make us feel better because it acts as a substitute or placebo for real satisfaction. Or, according to one neuroscientist cited by Wapner, our limbic (primitive) brain may have an innate need to communicate — akin to our drives for food or sex. Thus, as we blog, our bodies may release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.”
I feel better already.