internet publishing

Google buys Feedburner

May 24, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Google has shown good taste in buying up Feedburner for $100 million. I’ve used the service for my RSS feeds and found ti to be reliable, and offer decent tracking etc.

And as of May 23, 2007, Feedburner is responsible for 721,074 feeds from over 422,717 publishers.

Staying creative…

January 17, 2007 By Dan Thornton

There are times when any person can struggle to be creative. If you’re of a literary bent, you get to say you have writer’s block, a luxury which isn’t normally allowed to electricians or plumbers…

“Sorry, I can’t fix your toilet today luv….got a bit of plumbers block”

The normal answer is to walk away, do something else entirely, and not to worry about it. If you force it, then it won’t be worth reading… Good advice.

You can always take some time to read something inspirational. For instance, the gapingvoid guide to being creative. The Gaping Void is always an interesting read, and the business card cartoons lighten the mood.I think creator Hugh McLeod is pretty much in the ‘A’ list of bloggers, and most web people have encountered something he’s done.

But….and I do like a nice but… I do have a slight problem/query/paradox about one of his rules of creativity concerning keeping your dayjob. While I agree it’s easier to make something valid and worthwhile if something else covers the bills, I would add the caveat that it depends on your job.

The examples of Hugh himself, running his blog and art away from the marketing day job etc works, as he obviously does a job that he can enjoy, and which can feed into his passion. Alternatively, if you work as a waiter/waitress and paint/write/act in the evenings, it’ll be relatively easy to forget about your day job once you walk out of the door.

But when you’re involved in a job like internet publishing, and you also run a blog, that’s where the balancing act becomes more difficult. If you’ve had a bad day, and seen decisions made which you don’t agree with, do you write honestly and risk getting fired? Do you keep quiet, and leave the blog empty? And with most media companies offering contracts which own your thoughts as soon as you think them, should you be blogging anyway? What happens when your day job is eating away at your net enthusiasm?

For the record, and for the moment, I’m committed to blogging. I’m going to take the step of declaring that I won’t be refering to the specifics of my day job, but that I may post lessons I’ve learned from what happens. I’ll happily post in more detail about projects like Disposable Media (New issue should be online tonight), as they’re in my personal space, and I’m fully aware of everything that goes into the decisions made for that project. And, at the moment, the idea of reinforcing my positivity is rather attractive, as I do have a lot of options to explore at the moment.

The ‘Mob’ mentality of the Media

January 15, 2007 By Dan Thornton

I get the impression many of my print, and even some web-based, colleagues are feeling like Tony Soprano at the moment.
I don’t mean they’re beating up rivals and taking money from running strip clubs (most media types contribute to the lapdancing industry, rather than withdrawing anything). I’m referring to the feeling that Tony talks about in the early episodes of the series. The feeling that everything is coming to an end, the old ways are dying, and old values are being lost.

There’s an obvious reason for this feeling in the print world. It’s the realisation that the internet isn’t a passing fad or a hobby, and that it;s going to be more and more difficult to separate the ‘normal, cool stuff’ from that which most people dismissed as geeky, nerdy stuff.

The more unusual phenomenon is the feeling of despair amongst those who are either web savvy, or tasked with one of the many internet projects currently being rushed out around the world. Many people who are interested in the net still see threats to the current print methods of publishing, advertising and revenue, with no clear answers. And those who have a deep passion and interest can find themselves overwhelmed with the influx of senior management claiming they are hip and down with the homies of the web ghetto.

Still, “If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs”, I think you’ll be in a far better position when the dust eventually settles in 12 months time. But the challenge in the meantime is to stay positive and focused on delivering those elements you can control, and not worrying about the fumblings of others.