Archive for the ‘Blogs’ category

6 February 2010 Brad Scott

My favourite blogs

Which blogs are the most useful and inspiring sources for digital publishing? Some of the publishing students at University of the Arts asked me what I read recently, so I trawled through and was quite surprised to see which blogs I’ve been bookmarking most; some of them are not necessarily the obvious candidates. Still, this is what has been getting most of my attention:

  1. Tools of Change for Publishing: The great O’Reilly blog.
  2. ReadWriteWeb: useful, if slightly overwhelming, analysis of products and trends.
  3. The discovery blog: The blog of my old company, Semantico, always contains really useful and practical posts. Recent posts have been on online identity, accessibility and QA.
  4. eConsultancy blog: digital marketing in the broadest sense, and they publish some very good reports.
  5. Copyblogger: because writing for the web is so important.
  6. if:book: Institute for the Future of the Book.
  7. A List Apart: “explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.”
  8. InfoDesign: Understanding by Design: News items relating to information design, user experience etc.
  9. Museum 2.0: Not obviously relevant, but I love the parallels and connections between publishing and the museum world and Nina Simon’s blog always makes me think about other ways of doing things.
  10. History Compass Theory & Methods Blog: Again, it might not be a “digital publishing” blog, but the different perspective is refreshing, and it is one of my connections with digital humanities and history which I’ve enjoyed for years.

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10 June 2009 Brad Scott

Let the blogging commence

When I was a publisher it felt like I was drowning in information about online publishing, and that was back in the 90s. Since I started my freelance digital publishing activities a few months ago it’s been interesting to see that many publishers still don’t really have enough time for reading about the industry. It can be a surprise to those of us who work on the digital end of things that there are lots of publishers who need some useful pointers and guides through the maze.

So, as I was reading, I started making some notes and passing them on to a few publishing friends. In the back of my mind I knew there was a blog trying to get out, and so here it is. I’ve had a bit of space at last to sit down and get it up and running.

Thanks to everyone who has been feeding my interest and enthusiasm these last few months. Do let me know what you’d like to see here.

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15 May 2009 Brad Scott

Blogs and blogging

As you might expect, blogs are now being used extensively by book reviewers, which means there is another channel that book publicists and marketers need to engage with. Clearly, this isn’t just about promoting digital content either. A good start is the Book Publicity Blog, by Yen Cheong, Assistant Director of Publicity at Viking and Penguin, which not only gives useful advice about how best to engage with blogs1 and other online media for book promotion, but also includes a very valuable list of book-related blogs.

Even so, when it comes to corporate engagement with blogging, the medium can be misunderstood and misapplied. What people don’t want is to be marketed at all the time (or maybe even any of the time). EContent magazine included a short piece about basic blogging,2 though Chris Brogan’s hints and tips3 are probably a better place to start. As he suggests, blog pieces need to give you something to think about, but also give you some useful practical information too, ie how to do something. He’s often written some very valuable summaries and crib sheets, not least on how best to use and write for a blog.

I’ll follow this up with more on publishers’ use of blogs and social networking in a future item.

  1. Cheong, Yen. “Sending review copies of books to bloggers, Part III.” 14 May 2009. The Book Publicity Blog. http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/sending-review-copies-of-books-to-bloggers-part-iii/
  2. Howard, Jessica and Justin Evans. “Blogging: Why the Basics are Eluding Many Marketers.” 28 April 2009. EContent blog. http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=53624
  3. Brogan, Chris. “My Best Advice About Blogging.” 11 August 2008. Chris Brogan blog. http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-best-advice-about-blogging/

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10 April 2009 Brad Scott

Feed frenzy

Is a daily routine possible when faced with interminable data feeds? For at least a decade some of us have had continual information overload; initially from newsgroups, email and chat, and now from RSS, blogs and Twitter. How do you cope with it all, and make the best use of what is available?

You can certainly find some very practical, technical suggestions, such as those from Craig Sherman four years ago1 or Amit Agarwal in 20072 and they can give you useful strategies for managing your feed reader. But one’s engagement with reading all that information is not just a tools issue.

Even with filters and other machine mediators you still need to do some sort of sifting with eyeballs, be it on the train, at your desk or in a meeting. You will never read everything you think might be interesting. You know you will discard things that could change your life. (Maybe.)3 Francine Hardaway picks up on this and her media consumption appears to be largely online4.

These blog posts hint at the discipline you need with all this data that you have chosen to have flung at you.

It comes down to boundaries, which end up defining one’s entire online presence. Your online interaction and persona (”Me 2.0″) can and should be as conscious as your first (real) life.

Increasingly, I’m developing new disciplines and structures to my day, with spaces for reading the feeds, and also those for sitting on the sofa with the (physical) paper, book or magazine, and even being conscious of the differences in the engagement.

You will read the important information when you need it; only then will you be ready for it anyway and will make the most of what you have in front of you.

So, don’t get hung up on the feeds. Let them go.

[Thanks to James McCabe, whose conversation in the Swan in Forest Row tonight sparked this off, and who suggested the title. He's a copywriter; I'm not.]

  1. Sherman, Craig. “Managing the Firehose of Real-Time Information.” 17 November 2004. Search Engine Watch. http://searchenginewatch.com/3436591
  2. Agarwal, Amit. “How to Reduce RSS Stress In Your Online Life.” 19 January 2007. Digital Inspiration. http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-reduce-rss-stress-in-your.html
  3. “Coping with RSS Overload.” 4 February 2009. Remixing Libraries blog. http://librarymix.blogspot.com/2009/02/coping-with-rss-overload.html
  4. Hardaway, Francine. “RSS, Twitter, and Information Overload.” 28 February 2009. http://blog.stealthmode.com/2009/02/28/rss-twitter-and-information-overload/

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