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?

David Brazeal gets a 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.