Category Archives: around the web

Pencils down means pencils down

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If you can’t tell by what I’m reading (see previous post), I’m sort of obssessed with the WGA strike. I think secretly (not so secretly now) my dream job is to be a television show writer. I should say, a good tv show writer. I don’t want to write cruddy lines. I want to write good ones. Ones that Glenn Close or Meryl Streep would want to say. I’m really interested to see how this plays out. As a TV watcher I’m less concerned with, “oh my no more new episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives'”. And if there is anyone out there who is concerned that their favorite TV show isn’t going to continue if there is a strike, well he needs to set his priorities in order. The studio executives are fretting, I suspect, because I should hope that most people are like me, and will tune out.

At this point I’ll say, if you are unfamiliar with why the Writer’s Guild is striking, read any one of the WGA story links in the previous posts, or read this article from Forbes.com.

Their job is TV. My job is the Internet. So I’m interested in how the outcome will playout on the Web. The networks see the dollar signs coming from online advertising. They see the appeal (previous posts show that even I, who never thought I’d ever watch an epi of anything on TV, could get hooked.) There is no turning back there. If the writers get more in the name of programming, how do you measure it? And does this somehow trickle down to me in Seattle/Redmond? What will the outcome do to groups in my organization that work to bring video content (be it original programming or television programming) to the Web? How does this affect our advertisers who, ultimately contribute to me being able to succeed in my job?  

There is no doubt that the advances in technology has made this strike more visible than the strike of 1988. Cell phones, instant messaging, blogging, YouTube and the ease to get the word out has turned an LA/NY-centric situation into a worldwide discussion.

BTW, check out the video created by United Hollywood. One of the writers interviewed here is someone I went to middle school with in Connecticut. What are the odds.

what i’m reading 11/6-7

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11/06

11/07

And 2 more …

What I’m reading – 11/05/07

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I’m busy editing the monthly newsletter for my rowing club, so I’m not posting anything tonight. However, I did keep a tally of articles I read online today. These are the cream of the crop. In no particular order:

no, but seriously. what’s the race plan?

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From Drew Ginn’s blog (sic):

“We have in our minds key point of a race where certain things can take place, certain opportunities realised. The race plan should keep your options open which is exciting and creates anticipation and is a great source of energy. On the other hand a poorly conceived, ill considered and unrealistic plan can have an effect in opposition to every athletes desires.”

His words hit the mark when referring to racing. It’s interesting how close it comes to life outside the boat, too.

BTW, the four-miler is tomorrow. Will report back on results.

Squirrel-o-ween

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From flickr.com

And I thought my jack’o’lantern was impressive (I didn’t really, but I sure do like it).

Check out this one, which as seen on CuteOverload.com.

Our puppy Max looooves squirrels. He even knows the word, squirrel. To disguise what we’re talking about in front of him we have to say ‘chipmunk’ instead. Soon he’ll probably learn that word, too. If this pumpkin was sitting on our stoop, he would attack it every five minutes.

Insert shameless plug here

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My neighbor Rick has a new blog up and running, to go along with his food site, CalorieLookup.com. If you’ve ever wondered how many calories are in those vanilla wafer cookies you wolfed down yesterday afternoon … you can look it up on his site.  Actually … I just looked it up and those particular vanilla wafers that I – er, I mean you – ate yesterday aren’t on there right now, but the cool thing about CL is that I can add my own foods to the list if I don’t find it. That is, you can add your vanilla wafers if you don’t find them. Because, I certainly didn’t eat any cookies yesterday. Right.

Rick is doing some other cool stuff … like tagging your foods, and saving your favorites. Cheers.

Tiny dancer

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Take this test, as pointed to by the super blog, Freakonomics. Which way is the dancer spinning? Are you a left-side brain person or a right-side?

The first five times I went to that site, no matter what I do, the dancer always spins counter-clockwise to me. I just went back to write this post and it’s going clockwise now. I just turned it back. Now it’s back to counter. The cynic in me believes it’s just a trick, that the maker of this little animation just makes it randomly go clockwise and then counter, to try to trick people.

What do you see?

Wha’ Happen?

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So as part of my scintillating job as a Web site editor, I get to examine fun web traffic reports. Like any editor I try to find good stories to promote, hope that a lot of people read the story, and then try to repeat this over and over again. I check traffic reports at work on a daily basis to see if we are succeeding. I had yet to visit the Web statistics of this blog until today, so I thought I’d report on it.

Total “hits” for Sept.: 11,064
Average for the month: 369
High: 1473, on Sept. 8
Low: 49, on Sept. 23

Thanks to anyone for the “steady” stream of traffic.  I’m going to guess some of this traffic is coming from RSS readers, that are continuously coming to the site to fetch anything new. Thank you, RSS. 

The high is curious. It’s far higher than the average, as you can see. Came on a day when I posted about my new toy, the Nano. What made it popular? Trying to figure it out. One speculation … I teased the post with a short one, saying look here I’ll write more later. Perhaps the crowds of readers that I have kept returning, waiting impatiently for me to post? What readers? Where are you? Speak up. If you happened to peruse the site on 9/8 (think back. I think it was a Saturday), please let me know why, so that I can repeat.

As for the low, well Sept. 23 was a day I did not post, exhausted by a weekend of activities that required me to be somewhere other than in front of my laptop. I think it’s reasonable to assume that with nothing new posted, perhaps my faithful readers, whoever you are, didn’t bother to go to the blog because the RSS feeds indicated no new stories, on top of the fact that there is a good chance that my readers are the same people I was hanging with that weekend, also exhausted from a flurry of activities.

Graphical representation of September traffic:

Later on, I’ll have to see what the weather was like on these days. See if there is any correlation between good weather in Seattle (where I’m going to guess a lot of you are from, maybe?) and fewer page views. Stay tuned.

Friend me! But only if I know you

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Great piece from Slate today, about the etiquette of Facebook. On occasion (it’s happened to me twice), I’ve been given a friend request, when I don’t know the person. Especially if they do not add the personal note, reminding you where you know each other, what is a girl to do? I’m pretty specific about my friends. I’m glad to see I followed the writer’s advice, even though this story came out just recently and I was faced with this dilemma sometime ago.

Similarly, O’Reilly Radar presents “Social Networking Invitation Etiquette” (via Lifehacker ). Useful tips from a tech guru, with plenty of social networking contacts, offers ways to get noticed. Again, sending the invite blindly, without a reminder of how you might know each other is the not the recommended route.

Having lots of fun on the Facebook. See you there.