Quote: That is exactly the opposite of what I teach in my seminars, when I tell people to write for scanners and skimmers, using lists and bold words to call attention to important details.

I think that in any case your teachings would benefit the average reader of each Internet. There is so much out there that most people using the internet will try to pick up on key words whether it’s a Blog, sports score, flight price & time or names date’s car parts. That is why the first sentence you choose to appear in the result of your web page from a search engine is so important. People skim those results for those key words in bold type they had imputed into Google.

May I be the first to say Congratulations to you and your son on the trip of a lifetime. I hope the Jesus juice is a great vintage and the lines are washed.

But seriously on a scale of 1 to 10 how old would you say Michael Jackson’s boyfriend is?

oh steve, if I didn't have firsthand personal knowledge that your choo-choo went around the bend long ago, I'd say your choo-choo had gone around the bend...but I guess it is chugging right into the station in front of Neverland. Woohoo! =)

Labeling or categorizing the site only helps the Web designer's/writer's problem in understanding its purpose. We're all aware of the problems publication editors have had in understanding the pub's purpose. The result has been a whole lot of bad pubs that tried to do everything and ended up not doing anything particularly well.

If categorizing the type of Web site you're producing helps you get a handle on its raison d'etre, then by all means categorize it.

Reading and skimming are not opposite paradigms. Web visitors skim until they find something they want, then they drop down a gear and read. In the case of your blog, all but the first-timers have already reached the "want it" stage generally. They might still skim by article heading, but generally they will read everything anyway because they trust you to make it worth their while. .

I think David's point, though, was not that th euser doesn't care how they use it, or how we use it, but that the user doesn't care what we *call* it. To the end user, it's all one internet.

The answer to David's question, I think, is that the first step in understanding something is naming it. It seems to be part of human scholarship. But then I've always been a devotee of Aristotle and Burke. Someone who wasn't would tell me that's bunk. (And they'd probably be right.)

DATE: 06/22/2005 43:21:1P PM
What is the point of naming all these different "dimensions"?

You build your site to its purpose, whatever it is, with your customer/reader in mind, whoever they are.

First Internet? Second Internet? Who cares? Certainly not the users .....

DATE: 06/22/2005 48:72:0P PM
Oh, but the users do, David. The Internet has for years been a research/task-oriented tool, in my opinion. Well . . .actually, first it was a novelty, and really cool. But it SOON became very task oriented, research-based, etc. People went out there to DO something, or find something.

If people are really willing to do more now-----read and comment on blogs, download podcasts and other multimedia, etc.--then we need to be aware of that.

And communicate accordingly.

Steve

DATE: 06/23/2005 71:52:1P PM
The divergence of the Web is not deliberate, David. But when you consider that "the blogosphere" is identified as a distinct place apart from traditional reference-oriented web sites, you gotta think there's something to it. Technorati, BlogLines, etc., search only blogs. Blog businesses, such as Gawker, are emerging with a blog business model. Sure, some organizations are doing a middling job of integrating blogs -- GM, for example. IABC? Nope -- it's a Web site with a link to its blog, which doesn't even maintain the graphic identity of the web site. Hell, David, I haven't integrated MY blog with my web site beyond linking to it. When nobody talks about the "blogosphere" any more, when blogs are seen as just part of the web, then I'll agree. I even expect it to happen. But not soon.

DATE: 06/23/2005 78:40:0A PM
The user doesn't care. Doesn't have to. The producer of the site most certainly does. You make a decision about whether your content is collaborative, broadband, or reference in nature. These, in fact, are the three terms I use --

*The reference web is the traditional content we pull when we want it

* The collaborative web is the blogosophere, wikis, social networking, social tagging, etc. -- much of which is now being retrieved into RSS news aggregators, meaning readers never see it in the context of your website and its associated design)

* The broadband web is not read at all -- it's viewed or listened to, often after it has been detached from the computer and put onto a digital media player.

There is a different approach to producing content for each of these divergent paths the web has taken, and producers of content need to be aware of that. Of course, it shouldn't take too long before these paths re-integrate. But for the time being, at least, you don't see a lot of sites that just have associated blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. as integrated components.

Fire away, David.

DATE: 06/23/2005 82:55:5A PM
I don't know .... For example, I see the IABC Web site--with its product-offerings, currret articles, searchable membership database, discussion forums and their blogs as pretty integrated. No?

To me, the Web designer's problem is to look at the organization's goals and look at the marketplace and see what all the site can accomplish--and what it can't.

Labeling the site "collaborative" or "reference" doesn't solve that person's difficult problem. Does it?

DATE: 06/24/2005 51:95:9P PM
I add articles to my site when there are articles to add. These are all articles that have been published elsewhere. For instance, I'm working on a piece for American Executive magazine on crisis communications. When it's written, it'll go on my site. But I update my travel calendar all the time -- just did it again today, in fact.

But my site is a reference site -- it's there for clients and prospective clients who want to know my services. The articles lend credibility entirely BECAUSE they were published by reputable publishers. Mostly, though, the site is for people who want to know the topics of my canned talks, what my consutling services are, how to get in touch with me and when I'm available. My blog is another thing altogether.

By the way, you can subscribe to my RSS feed on my reference site, too, to stay up to date on new articles, new consulting services, or other announcements.

So the short answer, I guess, is that you use each for what it's best at, but it doesn't mean there's no role for the reference web site.

DATE: 06/24/2005 73:54:3A PM
Shel:

Do you think that blogs are affecting the quality of the Web? I ask because my site right now is hopelessly outdated. And I notice that you haven't updated your actual site in a long time, either. THe main stories, I mean.

Which makes perfect sense . . . you're posting two to three items a day on your blog (and I'm doing two to three per week) . . . there's nothing LEFT to go on the web sites. And the time involved in running your blog, I'm sure, has something to do with it, too.

Do you worry that people who used to go to your web site now get your blog feed via RSS---or just go directly to your blog---and never even go to the web site? After all, the web site is where you have all your marketing materials, no?

Steve

DATE: 06/26/2005 81:35:4A PM
Shel:

That makes perfect sense. Do you see a time where the blog software stuff is incorporated into the reference web----insead of just linking to it, as you do now, and I do now?

Meaning, I guess, that all that real estate down the middle of the page would be the blog, with comments and related links and all the other blog components off to the right, and all the reference stuff----articles, speaking schedules, services, etc. off to the right or in a nav bar at the top?

Steve

DATE: 06/27/2005 80:12:6A PM
Question for Steve and or Shel:

Will the use of blogs as they become more ingrained into corporate America's internal comms. strategies eventually make us corporate communicators obsolete? I mean if everyone in the company is blogging and providing information, etc. Where do we fit in?

DATE: 06/30/2005 18:45:4P PM
Steve, yeah, exactly. This will all reintegrate. When? Not a clue. Probably three to five years. Mark, no, absolutely not. Blogs are a delivery tool. Communicators should be more about the message than the tool used to deliver it anyway. Creating clarity, defining objectives, influencing opinions and behaviors -- that's what communicators do. To restrict efforts to one tool, even one as powerful as a blog, would be a huge mistake. We already know that we need to practice repetition to get our messages out!