Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

Writing. The simple act of putting symbols together to form words, sentences and paragraphs on whatever surface and with whichever tool you have available. Writing is not impressive because of the tool you use or the way that you get the words to paper. The power of writing is in how you combine those words. The power is in what emotions you inspire and what thoughts and ideas you create. Writing is one of the most important gifts we are given. The ability to put a sentence together, connect it to the next and send it to so many so easily is a power many take for granted.

Did Greek Papyrus used so many thousands of years before make words…

…any more important than those written by Shakespeare with a quill and ink?

Or did the typewriter Mark Twain used to give us Huckleberry Finn make the words…

…more memorable than those typed on the laptop I use to write with everyday?

I’ve never felt a typewriter stick below my fingers halfway through my article, the frustration of ink spilling over half the page, or the brittle touch of papyrus as my writing crumbled in harsh hands. I don’t know what it was like to have to cross out words or get new paper because I didn’t like where the article was headed. I can’t imagine what it was like trying to get a 300 page story to be noticed, with only one handwritten copy to show off. What I can imagine is the heart that it took to continue writing even when no one wanted to read it. I understand the feeling of words falling on deaf ears. I know the desire to give up writing forever only to find someone who convinces me to keep going. I can completely comprehend the need, desire and passion that writing drives into you. Writing gives us the ability to share whatever we want, in whichever words we choose.

Writing gives us freedom.

Today’s challenge from problogger is to write a ‘review’ post. He includes some great suggestions for what to review and how to make the reviews relevant to your readers. At the end of the day, the point of a review is to share something with your readers that can help them. Don’t review a product that only a limited group could ever own (like a Lamborghini), and make sure the price point is appropriate for your readers as well (again, no reviewing a Lamborghini unless you run a car site, or your readers are all celebrities).

I decided to review one product that has changed the way that I use the web and a pre-review of the newest book I am going to read. It covers both bases of my readers – creative and web savvy!

The product that changed my life? Roboform Password Manager. It saves me from having to remember a million passwords, and stores them all securely on my computer, with just a plugin that makes them accessible online. It can also store multiple users credit card, address, and personal details so you never have to fill forms in again. Obviously, the one down side is that it stores it on one computer, so if you need the same information multiple places you have to update them both separately. But honestly, for just under $30, it is a huge time and I couldn’t imagine not having it!

The pre-review of a book? Okay, first; what is a pre-review? It is a review of why you’ve chosen to read a certain book and what you hope to learn from it. Then when you finish, you can go back and review it and comment on your pre-review. The book in question is Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. It was suggested to me by Peter Quill, the owner at Motor Creative. He and I have known each other for a few years, and have recently started working together on some social media projects. He knows how much I love to read and immediately suggested this as a must read. Hopefully, I can gain a little more insight into the world of social media marketing, as well as refresh the ideas that I already know. If any of you haven’t read it, and would like to, lets read it together! Send me updates as you get into it of your favorite parts and I will be sure to include it when I write a post reviewing it later. If you have read it, let me know what you thought too!

Oh, just in case your keeping track, yesterday’s challenge was an internal blog fixing thing, not a post. He suggests to check through all your pages and old posts for dead links. Takes a lot of time, but definitely worth it!

There is nothing like the feeling of a newspaper between your hands, sitting on the couch with a hot cup of coffee on Sunday morning, reading the important stories of the week (or the comics ). But, with the influx of blogging and social sites like twitter – what is happening to the news?

I remember the earthquake in California a few months back. What I remember was not the shaking of the ground but the thousands of tweets that were all talking about it….at least 30 minutes before the first news story hit. Even then, the first news stories were via blogs, not print. If you wanted to read about the earthquake on real newspaper, you had to wait until the next day. With all that in mind, it is no surprise that the journalists are turning to social media. Although there tons of newspapers that have blogs and twitter accounts, there is one in particular that has been doing a great job – and is continuing to improve – the OC Register. *I admit I may be a bit biased, since I live in Orange County, but that’s beside the point. Since I am always the curious one, I got in touch with the leader of the OC Register online task force – @KSablan – to ask him a couple questions about how they are using social networking. He explained that they started with blogging and the network grew from there. Each of the top reporters manages their blog on their particular topic and then starting working with Twitter. He explained that the OC register has their main twitter feed, @OCReggie and many of the reporters manage their own twitter as well, integrating their posts with some personal tweets. What I found so interesting was the fact that it was real people – unlike some other newspapers *who will remain nameless*, when you reply to the reporter or to @OCReggie, you get a real answer, from a real person. As Kevin said, “We like to manage it ourselves, see what people are saying. Get real feedback and be involved”. And isn’t that what social media is all about?

The reality for newspapers is that social media is just a creative way to market themselves. It isn’t a replacement for news – it is a creative addition, a way for more stories to be available for the public.
What market or business do you see as the next to get the most out of twitter?