LA Times Articles on Most of You Guys

I noted last week that the LA Times, and Bloomberg, created a series of stories on the youth culture. I’ve uploaded it here, thinking it might be of interest to some of you. I’d be curious if the younger students agree or disagree or what the older ones think.

Subject matter includes: Computers, Cell Phones, and Multitasking: Look Inside the Entertainment Life of 12-24 Year Olds; Music and Passion is Always the Fashion: Look Inside … ; Jon Stewart? No way. Teens Stay Caught Up by Watching Local News: Look Inside … ; and Movies in Theaters, DVDs, and What Comes Next.

(Photo by LA Times)

I’ve uploaded a series of images and stories in the zipped file named LA Times.

Class Three Presentation

Just for reference, the Class Three Presentation has been posted here. The file is Emac 3326 Class 03.pdf.

We only followed this loosely in class, as we spent much time discussing our blogs. I will re-introduce the stuff at the end in the upcoming class.

The Economist on The Newspaper Industry

I know this is not a journalism class. We’re Arts and Technology and Emerging Media and Communications. Traditional journalism is not taught here. However, what is going on in journalism is of interest to us. Opportunities for new content, new relationships, a new work force, are beginning to pop up, and these are of interest to us who create content. Whose to say that the Dallas Morning News or local NPR radio and TV station would not publish or broadcast sketches from Jeffrey Miranda or Kyle Penn’s trials and tribulations as a women’s shoesalesman? Or Christi Nielsen’s About2GetSkinny photography and commentary or Mary Benedicto’s video painting. (Both Christi and Mary are ATEC students.) We must stop thinking 19th and 20th century journalism and look ahead.

The Economist just published an article on The Newspaper Industry that’s worth reading. It will give you a good view of the worldwide newspaper industry, not just the one in the U.S. One telling thought in the story was this: The danger for newspapers is that all their efforts on the internet may only slow their decline. Doing the obvious — having excellent websites and selling ad space on them — may not be enough. The papers with the best chance of seeing their revenues grow are those experimenting with entirely new businesses online and off.”

economist-newspaper-industrycom.pdf (follow link to article)

Tip for Paid Content

If you are ever searching the web and stumble upon an article you want to read — but lo and behold it’s from a content subscription site like the Wall Street Journal or Economist — get the name of the article and run a Technorati search. Chances are someone out there has an account, linked to the full article, or has a download available, and you can get the article you need at no cost. Of course, this does not work every time, but it’s not bad. If you find yourself using one of these sites frequently, consider subscribing, or having your office subscribe, but for one-off stuff, why pay $80 a year for one article?

Jeffrey Is Looking For …

Jeffrey Miranda is looking for a classmate(s) interested in making podcast animation. I wasn’t sure if he meant a podcast on animations, or making animations for not a podcast but a videocast. Anyway, it’s getting time that we mix and mingle, which we will do some this week. Please contact Jeffrey if interested.

Increasing Blog Traffic

Professor Terry, always looking out for us, send me this link on increasing blog traffic, which I suggest we all read and familiarize ourselves with. I’ve included a link to Seomoz.org in the Blogroll’s Links of Interest.

Some ideas I find important, many of which we have talked about — ever so briefly — in class.

• Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
• Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
• Tag Your Content
• Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later) [an interesting thought]
• Link Intelligently
• Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
• Cover Topics that Need Attention
• Use a Human Voice
• Reveal as Much as Possible
• Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
• Build a Brand

Nerdbooks and Podcasting Solutions

Janice was kind enough to send us information on a new bookstore that has the required reading, Podcasting Solutions. From Janice:

Here is the information for nerdbooks.com — http://www.nerdbooks.com —

As of Saturday, Sept 2, pm, they had 5 copies of Podcast Solutions for $
15.49.

1681 Firman Dr.
Richardson, TX
972 – 470 – 9600
Mon – Fri  9:00 – 6:30
Sat  9:00 – 5:00

(From the UTD campus, go east on Campbell, turn right on Collins, cross 75,
go about 1/2 mile or less, turn left on Firman.  The store is on the left
about a block down.)

You have three options:

1 – You can order it online and have them mail it to you for an applicable
shipping charge.

2 – You can order it online and then go pick it up at the store.  If you
choose this option, somewhere in the shipping instructions you tell them you
want to pick it up.

3 – You can go to the warehouse store in Richardson. The person there will
help you find the book and pay for it.  The price is still the same, but you
avoid the shipping charges and the delay.

Jeffrey’s Links

Jeffrey Miranda sent me a note about adding a blog to the class blogroll. It’s Jeffrey Miranda’s Sketch Blog. Dummy me, I thought he wanted to replace the first blog with this one, when what he wanted was to include this blog on the list. Duh.

But this brings up one thing to note: Jeffrey is obviously working on a strategy between his blogs, yet he doesn’t link between them or explain anywhere what the differences are and his purpose for doing so. At a minimum, I’d put a link to your sketch blog on Panoch’s Gallery, and likewise: a link for Panoch’s Gallery on Panoch’s Sketches.

Catching Up With Isabel Ghobrial

Isabel joined the class the second week but was absent last week due to a family emergency. Here is our opportunity to catch up with her.

Here blog is here.

My name is Isabel and I am a full time student as well as a full time business owner. I own and operate my own child care facility. I am majoring in Business with an emphasis on child development. I am 25 and my family is originally from Egypt making me an EGYPTIAN. I am not just any Egyptian; I am a Coptic Orthodox Egyptian. For those of you, who have no clue, look into it, its pretty interesting stuff? You can check out a little more at one of my personal favorite sites.

For those of you not interested, you should be, like I said its interesting stuff.

I am a complete idiot when it comes to computers and only utilize computers to keep pace with up to date business and educational applications. Hopefully I will learn more by attending this class. I am obsessed with the ocean, scuba diving and all marine life. I like to check this out from time to time and see whats going on down under at ScubaGeek.

Isabel, while you do not have much experience with technology or blogs, that should not hinder you. As I’ve said many times in class — it’s worth repeating — if you have interests, you can have a blog. You’ve written several items here that would be interesting for others to read about: a small business owner, child case, being an Egyptian, a Coptic Orthodox Egyptian, and a scuba fan. All good subjects. If you need help narrowing these down, let me know and we’ll make time to talk in class.

Anybody have an thoughts for Isabel?

Commenting and Contributing

There seems to be some confusion on commenting on a blog, editing comments, and contributing.

If you want to comment on someone’s blog entry, please do so there rather than writing an email to that person. An email is fine, if you want to take the conversation “off line”, but it’s best to comment under the post so all can see the comments made and how they build, argue, take the conversation in different directions. Sometimes there is as much value to gain from the comments as they are from the posts.
Unfortunately, I do not know of any blogging software that allows you to post a comment then, once it’s posted, to go back and edit if you want to change the comment. You can, however, post an update to your comment. If there are several comments in between your new one and the original, copy and paste the passage in question into the new post as a way to direct a reader’s attention to the point in question. Misspellings and grammar error, as long as they are not horrendous, can be left alone, but that’s a personal preference.

As far as contributing, several of you are correct: In most instances, blog software (either free, hosted, or self-hosted) require you to register, not only to make comments, but to contribute as well. For me to invite you as a contributor to this blog, I need to send an invite to your WordPress account, not to your email, blogger account, or MySpace

I’ve purposely held off doing this as I wanted you to have a few weeks to get used to the process. Now that you have some experience moving around blogs, I will probably invite you to contribute to this blog. This invitation will be a separate post, however.

The chief reason registration and invitations are done is spam. The logic goes that if someone is going to take the time to register, he or she must be serious and not a spammer. Also, this protects against automatic bots finding blog sites that allow anonymous posts so it can spam them. In most cases, or at least the softwares I’ve used, turning on and off comments are a user option. If you’re comments are off, check the dashboard and preferences for a way to turn them on.