It’s Nice That Issue #2

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Following the success of their first sold-out printed publication, It’s Nice That announced Issue #2 which will be released on Thursday 1 October. Inside the publication you’ll find 128 pages of advertising-free content, documenting the best of the work they’ve featured on their site in the past six months in more depth, alongside a series of interviews and features written by current practitioners that have never been seen before. If you didn’t get the chance to see Issue #1, all the details and images can be found here.

Armin is Cracking Down on Comment Crime

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Like any person who runs a blog, I enjoy seeing the comment counts rise to 50, 70, 100 and more, but the truth is that no more than a quarter of those comments are worth reading. The main trend in comments is to say “this sucks” or some other alternative mode of pithy, ruthless offense. This stops now. Unless you have a substantiated and thoughtful response to why something, in your mind, “sucks” please do not comment at all. From now on all comments along the lines of “fail,” “this looks like student work,” or “the designer should be fired,” will be deleted at my own discretion without notification or explanation.

Read the entire post: Cracking Down on Comment Crime

Writing For Bloggers

Writing fro Bloggers. A quick Guide on Style, Substance and Strategy (PDF), by Kendall CopyWriting

(via twittering CreativeTechs)

Blogger’s Code of Conduct

Tim O’Reilly’s Draft of a much needed Blogger’s Code of Conduct.

(via tom)

After Police Relent, Bloggers Get Press Credentials

Three bloggers who had sued New York City after the Police Department denied them press credentials because they work for online or nontraditional news outlets were issued credentials on Friday after the police relented, the bloggers’ lawyer, Norman Siegel, said.

“This step recognizes that bloggers are 21st-century journalists,” Mr. Siegel, a noted civil liberties lawyer who has announced plans to run for public advocate next year, said in a phone interview. “It’s an important first step, but only a first step, because we still need to address the constitutional problem of who gets press credentials in New York City. The Police Department should not be in the business of determining who’s a journalist.”

After Police Relent, Bloggers Get Press Credentials

Oh, grow up

Gone, in other words, is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted, and this upsets some of its pioneers. Confirmed, however, is the idea that blogging is useful and versatile. In essence, it is a straightforward content-management system that posts updates in reverse-chronological order and allows comments and other social interactions. Viewed as such, blogging may “die” in much the same way that personal-digital assistants (PDAs) have died. A decade ago, PDAs were the preserve of digerati who liked using electronic address books and calendars. Now they are gone, but they are also ubiquitous, as features of almost every mobile phone.

Blogging is no longer what it was, because it has entered the mainstream. From The Economist print edition.

What is a Blog? The Lines Continue To Blur

Wikipedia defines blogs as:

A Blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

The Blogosphere is the collective community of all blogs. Since all blogs are on the Internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked. Discussions “in the Blogosphere” have been used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues.

Taken from Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere.

Abandoned Blogs

According to the Technorati 2008 State of the Blogosphere, of the 133 million blogs the site tracks only 7.4 million have been updated in the last 120 days. (For those that don’t feel like doing the math, that’s 125.6 million abandoned or at least unloved blogs.)

(via Noah)

A visual history of 11 successful blogs

Ever wondered what engadget or boingboing looked like in the early days? Check this link: A visual history of 11 successful blogs, by Pingdom (Interesting: They all started out somewhat clean and are now cluttered with ads etc.)

(via designobserver)

State Of The Blogosphere: Get To 100K Uniques, Make $75K/year

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The average blog that runs ads, according to Technorati, is actually making money: Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it’s paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

State Of The Blogosphere: Get To 100K Uniques, Make $75K/year

i’m talkathon | 30 days of e-mailing and IMing for the common good.

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Parker is a guy with a computer and good intentions. A couple of months ago, he found out about the i’m Initiative. It’s a Microsoft program that gives to a social cause every time you use Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live Hotmail. He saw an ad that said, “The more you talk, the more we give.” So he thought, if he gets a bunch of people talking for 30 days, how much will they give?

Hmm… I have a slightly icky feeling knowing that is is sponsored by Microsoft. Marketing people are trying hard to cash in on the blogsphere, aren’t they?

bloggers are dangerous

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Bloggers are dangerous

some people have too many ideas.

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Free Idea Factory is a repository of free ideas. Some people have too many ideas, some people like to work from a prompt. Here is a place where the two can attempt to equalize the uneven pressures in the fluids of their creative minds. These ideas really are free, you are invited to use them, abuse them, twist them, turn them, shake them, bake them, make them your own. Really. …

(thank you dan)

ampersand, the blog

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A blog entirely devoted to the ampersand.

(via cameronmoll)

swissmiss = 3

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It’s a big day over here at swissmiss. Three years ago, today, I started this blog with this quote and it could not have been any more adequate for what was ahead. Little did I know that blogging would become such a big part of my life and that I would meet talented, fabulous people from all around the world because of it.

Thank you Internet! Time to put my party hat on! “Happy my blog birthday to you”!

Comment Designs for Web Designers

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Comment design is often overlooked by a lot of web designers when they are designing their blog. This list shows 30 blogs where the web designer didn’t just throw together the same old comment design and put extra effort into their comment design. Comment Designs for Web Designers

Update 10/2014: That link does no longer work. Here’s a new one.

(thank you john)

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

Mr. Lam said he has worried his blogging staff might be burning out, and he urges them to take breaks, even vacations. But he said they face tremendous pressure — external, internal and financial. He said the evolution of the “pay-per-click” economy has put the emphasis on reader traffic and financial return, not journalism.

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop, by Matt Richtel

Uhm, ok, guess I am shutting my computer down now and relax.

50 powerful blogs

The world’s 50 most powerful blogs, according to The Guardian

(via gjones)

Need to send this to my mom.

(via webregrad)

Who Is Blogging And Why

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Who Is Blogging And Why, by Alex Iskold

Top 50 graphic design blogs

Swissmiss made it on David’s list of the Top 50 graphic design blogs. YAY!