Make them dance, make them dance.
There is still no Wi-Fi on the northeast corridor Amtrak trains that carry hundreds of thousands of business travelers each day. So quit whining and get a USB 3G modem. It’s free with monthly service, which is tax-deductible. For the $60/month I pay Verizon, I can connect my laptop to the internet from any train, bus, boat, lounge, lobby, conference room, coffee shop, or just about any other environment to which modern business takes me.
THE DEATHS of Leslie Harpold and Brad Graham, in addition to being tragic and horrible and sad, have highlighted the questionable long-term viability of blogs, personal sites, and web magazines as legitimate artistic and literary expressions. (Read this, by Rogers Cadenhead.)
Cool URIs don’t change, they just fade away. When you die, nobody pays your hosting company, and your work disappears. Like that.
Now, not every blog post or “Top 10 Ways to Make Money on the Internet” piece deserves to live forever. But there’s gold among the dross, and there are web publications that we would do well to preserve for historical purposes. We are not clairvoyants, so we cannot say which fledgling, presently little-read web publications will matter to future historians. Thus logic and the cultural imperative urge us to preserve them all. But how?
The death of the good in the jaws of time is not limited to internet publications, of course. Film decays, books (even really good ones) constantly go out of print, digital formats perish. Recorded music that does not immediately find an audience disappears from the earth.
Digital subscriptions were supposed to replace microfilm, but American libraries, which knew we were racing toward recession years before the actual global crisis came, stopped being able to pay for digital newspaper and magazine descriptions nearly a decade ago. Many also (even fancy, famous ones) can no longer collect—or can only collect in a limited fashion. Historians and scholars have access to every issue of every newspaper and journal written during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, but can access only a comparative handful of papers covering the election of Barack Obama.
Thanks to budget shortfalls and format wars, our traditional media, literature, and arts are perishing faster than ever before. Nothing conceived by the human mind, except Heaven and nuclear winter, is eternal.
Still, when it comes to instant disposability, web stuff is in a category all its own.
Unlike with other digital expressions, format is not the problem: HTML, CSS, and backward-compatible web browsers will be with us forever. The problem is, authors pay for their own hosting.
(There are other problems: the total creative output of someone I follow is likely distributed across multiple social networks as well as a personal site and Twitter feed. How to connect those dots when the person has passed on? But let’s leave that to the side for the moment.)
A suggestion for a business. Sooner or later, some hosting company is going to figure out that it can provide a service and make a killing (as it were) by offering ten-, twenty-, and hundred-year packets of posthumous hosting.
A hundred years is not eternity, but you are not Shakespeare, and it’s a start.
Thousands of … filmmakers and writers around the country are operating with the same loose standards, racing to produce the 4,000 videos and articles that Demand Media publishes every day. The company’s ambitions are so enormous as to be almost surreal: to predict any question anyone might ask and generate an answer that will show up at the top of Google’s search results. To get there, Demand is using an army of [impoverished filmmakers and writers] to feverishly crank out articles and videos. They shoot slapdash instructional videos with titles like “How To Draw a Greek Helmet” and “Dog Whistle Training Techniques.” They write guides about lunch meat safety and nonprofit administration. They pump out an endless stream of bulleted lists and tutorials about the most esoteric of subjects.
via The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model
In Issue No. 297 of A List Apart “for people who make websites,” Erin Scime explains how the principles of museum curatorship can inform and shape how we approach content on the web: “The Content Strategist as Digital Curator.” And Bjørn Enki describes how electronic contracts can speed workflow and acceptance, and tells how to create just such a contract with a little time and PHP in “Letting Go of John Hancock.”
A List Apart illustrations are by Kevin Cornell.
Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3234
Someone could write a study on how moving and changes in marital status can cause a domain to lapse, and that someone could be me.
Sent from: The Palace Hotel. Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3178. Tweet reference: 6372740541. Why are you reading this?
You are a shameless self promoter!” he said.
I can’t speak to the “shame” part, but for the rest: guilty as charged.
Self-promotion may appear revolting, but it’s the only promotion that’s guaranteed in this business. Do it right, and only haters will hate you for it. To get, you must give.
If you write or design, you must believe in what you do. If you don’t believe you have something to express, there are plenty of other jobs out there. If you believe in what you do, and if you’re doing it for real, you must find ways to let people know about it.
Sometimes this takes the direct form of a case study. The assumption in publishing such a study is that someone out there might be interested in the service your team provided, the thinking you brought to the problem, and so on.
There is a difference between being arrogant about yourself as a person and being confident that your work has some value. The first is unattractive, the second is healthy and natural. Some people respond to the one as if it were the other. Don’t confuse them. Marketing is not bragging, and touting one’s wares is not evil. The baker in the medieval town square must holler “fresh rolls” if he hopes to feed the townfolk.
But direct self-promotion is ineffective and will go unnoticed unless it is backed by a more indirect (and more valuable) form of marketing: namely, sharing information and promoting others.
Is your Twitter feed mostly about your own work, or do you mainly link to interesting work by others? Link blogs with occasional opinions (or occasional techniques, or both) get read. The more you find and promote other people’s good work, the more in-the-know and “expert” you are perceived to be—and the more you (or your brand, if you must) are liked.
You can’t fake this. If you’re linking to other people’s work as a ploy to make others link back, it’s obvious, and you’ll fail. If you’re sharing half-baked information half-heartedly, nobody will stick around.
This may sound Jedi-mind-trick-ish, but never create a blog or a Twitter feed with the explicit idea of promoting yourself. Create for the joy of creating. Share for the joy of the sharing, and because the information you’re sharing genuinely excites you. Do that, and the rest will follow.
A LONGING for love and approval. That’s the dirty little secret of success.
Yes, you must make something people want. Of course, you must improve and extend it. Certainly, you must give 110% where customer satisfaction is concerned. Definitely, you must convert your customers to evangelists. All of that is true, always has been and will be.
BUT.
But you won’t be able to do those things, not really, not all the way, not as they must be done, unless there is a brokenness in you that continually craves attention and affection you somehow missed out on.
You have to have been abandoned, betrayed, ridiculed, unsupported at some point when you needed it most.
This sounds terrible and it is. But it’s the facts.
A contented person with a whole heart, who has never doubted for a moment that she is loved by God and the universe, should not bother trying to succeed as a creative entrepreneur. She should get a job working for someone else, turn it off at 6:00 PM, and come home to the people who love her.
Only a restless, broken heart can drive you to do what is necessary.
And that’s how to succeed in business without really crying.
In Issue No. 294 of A List Apart, for people who make websites: learn what usability testing is and isn’t good for, and discover the five warning signs of a bad client relationship (and what to do about them).
by ROBERT HOEKMAN JR.
Usability evaluations are good for many things, but determining a team’s priorities is not one of them. The Molich experiment proves a single usability team can’t discover all or even most major problems on a site. But usability testing does have value as a shock treatment, trust builder, and part of a triangulation process. Test for the right reasons and achieve a positive outcome.
by GREG HOY
A bad client relationship is like a bad marriage without the benefits. To avoid such relationships, or to fix the one you’re in, learn the five classic signs of trouble. Recognizing the never-ending contract revisionist, the giant project team, the vanishing boss and other warning signs can help you run successful, angst-free projects.
Illustration by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart.
Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=2725
An Event Apart Chicago has sold out. If you wanted to join us in Chicago on October 12–13 for two days of design, code, and content, we’re sorry to announce that the show has completely sold out. There’s not a spare seat to be had.
That means, if you don’t already have a ticket, you won’t be able to watch Jason Santa Maria, Kristina Halvorson, Dan Brown, Whitney Hess, Andy Clarke, Aaron Gustafson, Simon Willison, Luke Wroblewski, Dan Rubin, Dan Cederholm, and your hosts Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman share the latest ideas in design, development, usability, and content strategy.
We’re sorry about that.
But, hey. If you can’t be with us in Chicago next week, please join us in San Francisco later this year. Or come see us in 2010 at any of these fine cities:
Tickets for all our 2010 shows go on sale November 2nd, 2009, and are first-come, first served.
To keep up with the latest AEA doings, become a fan on Facebook, join our Ning social network, or subscribe to our mailing list.
Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=2651
In “New Publishing and Web Content,” a proposed panel for SXSW Interactive, I will lead book and new media publisher and entrepreneur Lisa Holton, designer, writer, and W.W. Norton creative director Mandy Brown, novelist, web geek, and Harper’s editor Paul Ford, and writer, editor, and content strategist Erin Kissane in an honest and freewheeling exploration of the creative, strategic, and marketing challenges of traditional and online publishing—and how content strategy and design can help.
Topics covered will include:
If this sounds like a panel you’d enjoy seeing, vote for New Publishing and Web Content via the SXSW Interactive Panel picker.
ShortURL: zeldman.com/x/55
Now the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. Happy Cog™ and Airbag Industries announce the merger of our firms, effective today, August 3, 2009. The resulting super-agency will be called Happy Cog, and will maintain studios in three cities:
The connection between our agencies goes back years. Greg Storey tells that tale.
From an internal perspective, this merger of people and resources, freely shared across all three agencies, means we can now bring boutique-style craftsmanship to any size job. If you’re a client, you no longer have to choose between “big enough” and “good enough” when selecting a vendor. You can hire a big agency that designs and cares like a small one.
With the mix of people now at our disposal, you can expect exciting product development as well.
Staffed up and pumped up, Happy Cog East and Happy Cog West will specialize in client services, web design, and development. Happy Cog Studios in New York, while also designing selected websites, will focus on business strategy and content development via A List Apart Magazine, An Event Apart design conference, and other ventures.
None of us knows exactly where all this is going. But we like who we’re going with—and we trust them with our lives. More than that, we trust them with our reputation.
Onward!
[tags]airbag, happycog, merger, webdesign, greghoy, gregstorey[/tags]
Designed by Happy Cog and launched today, The Amanda Project is a social media network, creative writing project, interactive game, and book series combined:
The Amanda Project is the story of Amanda Valentino, told through an interactive website and book series for readers aged 13 & up. On the website, readers are invited to become a part of the story as they help the main characters search for Amanda.
The writing-focused social media network is designed and written as if by characters from the Amanda novels, and encourages readers to enter the novel’s world by joining the search for Amanda, following clues and reading passages that exist only online, and ultimately helping to shape the course of the Amanda narrative across eight novels. (The first Amanda novel—Invisible I, written by Melissa Kantor—comes out 22 September.)
The site developed over a year of intense creative collaboration between Happy Cog and Fourth Story Media, a book publisher and new media company spearheaded by publishing whiz Lisa Holton. Prior to starting Fourth Story, Lisa was was President, Scholastic Trade Publishing and Book Fairs; managed the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; and oversaw development of The 39 Clues. Before that she spent nearly a decade developing numerous bestselling, franchise-launching series at Disney.
Happy Cog‘s New York office developed this project. The team:
Equally vital to the project’s success were Fourth Story’s leaders and partners, including:
Today’s launch is not the end of our relationship with Fourth Story Media. The Amanda Project will continue to evolve, and Happy Cog will remain an active partner in its direction and growth. We thank our brilliant collaborators and congratulate them on today’s milestone.
[tags]amanda, amandaproject, theamandaproject, TAP, happycog, design, webdesign, contentstrategy, userexperience, publishing, books, aarongustafson, lizdanzico, erinkissane, whitneyhess, mattgoldenberg, kellymccarthy, jasonsantamaria, jeffreyzeldman, lisaholton, dalerobbins, davidstack, JillEllynRiley, ArielAberg-Riger[/tags]
Update: The position is now closed. Thanks to all who applied.
We’re looking for one good intern. If you love web design, writing, and publishing, this is the gig for you. You’ll work with Aaron Gustafson, Erin Kissane, Ethan Marcotte, and Jeffrey Zeldman on the new edition of the industry-changing Designing With Web Standards, and possibly another great publishing project as well.
NYC area location is ideal, but not required—what matters most is your commitment and professionalism. Must be willing to work with Microsoft Word, have access to one of the latest versions of it, and be a Word styles ninja. We’re looking for 6–8 hours per week through September or mid-October. The right person will see this as an opportunity to experience the publication process from first draft through galleys and launch, and to learn from industry and community leaders who are funny, smart, and nice.
Apply by e-mail to internquest at happycog dot com. Send a short note selling us on you. All queries will be handled with discretion.
[tags]jobs, internerships, intern, wanted, webstandards, designingwithwebstandards, DWWS3e, 3rdEdition, HappyCog, ErinKissane, AaronGustafson, EthanMarcotte, zeldman, JeffreyZeldman, employment[/tags]
Found in my in-box on this gloriously muggy morning:
Typical day.
Over the weekend, as thoughtful designers gathered at Typecon 2009 (“a letterfest of talks, workshops, tours, exhibitions, and special events created for type lovers at every level”), the subject of web fonts was in the air and on the digital airwaves. Worthwhile reading on web fonts and our other recent obsessions includes:
Responding to a question I raised here in comments on Web Fonts Now, for Real, Richard Fink explains the thinking behind Ascender Corp.’s EOT Lite proposal . The name “EOT Lite” suggests that DRM is still very much part of the equation. But, as Fink explains it, it’s actually not.
EOT Lite removes the two chief objections to EOT:
Essentially, then, an “EOT Lite file is nothing more than a TTF file with a different file extension” (and an unfortunate but understandable name).
A brief, compelling read for a published spec that might be the key to real fonts on the web.
@ilovetypography tackles the question we’ve been pondering. After setting out what web designers want versus what type designers and foundries want, the author summarizes various new and old proposals (“I once heard EOT described as ‘DRM icing on an OpenType cake.’”) including Tal Leming and Erik van Blokland‘s .webfont, which is gathering massive support among type foundries, and David Berlow’s permissions table, announced here last week.
Where does all of this net out? For @ilovetypography, “While we’re waiting on .webfont et al., there’s Typekit.”
(We announced Typekit here on the day it debuted. Our friend Jeff Veen’s company Small Batch, Inc. is behind Typekit, and Jason Santa Maria consults on the service. Jeff and Jason are among the smartest and most forward thinking designers on the web—the history of Jeff’s achievements would fill more than one book. We’ve tested Typekit, love its simple interface, and agree that it provides a legal and technical solution while we wait for foundries to standardize on one of the proposals that’s now out there. Typekit will be better when more foundries sign on; if foundries don’t agree to a standard soon, Typekit may even be the ultimate solution, assuming the big foundries come on board. If the big foundries demur, it’s unclear whether that will spell the doom of Typekit or of the big foundries.)
Applauding HTML 5’s introduction of semantic page layout elements (“Goodbye div soup, hello semantic markup”), author Jeff Starr shows how HTML 5 facilitates cleaner, simpler markup, and explains how CSS can target HTML 5 elements that lack classes and IDs. The piece ends with a free, downloadable goodie for WordPress users. (The writer is the author of the forthcoming Digging into WordPress.)
Just like it says.
[tags]@font-face, berlow, davidberlow, CSS, permissionstable, fontbureau, webfonts, webtypography, realtypeontheweb, HTML5, HTML4, HTML, W3C, WHATWG, markup, webstandards, typography[/tags]