I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, the promises of the future made by the past were not technological in essence – they were organizational. The appeal of science fiction was partly otherworldly, to be sure, but also in part the clean simplicity that came with streamlined gadgetry. Sadly, or perhaps inevitably, the twain were never to meet.
Two cities could hardly be more different – a historic town filled with decaying architectural wonders (overtly at an all-time low) and another booming and spreading (though eerily suburban outside of the downtown area). But what Detroit lacks in density it makes up for in potential – and Denver feels almost fake or temporary, surrounded by a sprawl of cabin-styled, wood-framed mini-resorts that serve as suburbs. Read the rest of this entry »
So how did you find this article? For that matter, how do you find anything online? In the case of this particular piece, it was probably a long and winding path – there are few roads to take folks here. But in other situations, perhaps you used a search engine, got a recommendation from a friend or followed a link on a site to which you subscribe (or which, at least, you regularly visit in some form). Now the question is: how is someone going to find your article? There are many roads you can take – the trick is not to carve a fresh path, but reverse engineer an existing one.
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There is no reason to either (a) be an employee and (b) be your own employer when (c) you can do both. While this is not always possible (particularly in high-powered, tech startup jobs that require 70-hour weeks) it is an option more often than many folks think. There is also the hybrid route of becoming a contractor or part-time worker, though even at 40 hours a week, well, there is a lot of time left for other things.
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The Long Tail (as both a book and a concept) has defined and described so much change in recent history, but some of its most fascinating phenomena are just now bearing fruit. The original paradigmatic champions of the long tail online – eBay, Amazon and so on – are slowly losing steam, becoming less user-friendly and otherwise relatively uninteresting. Meanwhile, some of the most engaging (and still-evolving) representatives of an even smaller slice of the tail are shaping up to be amazing not only for connecting consumers to products but for providing funding to entrepreneurs.
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A friend recently, and with a hint of sarcasm, suggested her goal was to write ‘The Great American Novel’ – but what, exactly, does that mean to us today? The meaning, usage and titles associated with the idea of a ‘Great American Novel’ have changed over time – from being applied to specific books to becoming revered as an unobtainable ideal. In a time when more content is produced and published in short form than ever before and the very nature of novels (not to mention books in general) is in flux, what is the role of either a real novel capturing the American Zetigeist … or even a fictional one to which authors aspire?
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It is fascinating to watch the faces of people when you try to tell them you wish to be rid of your mobile phone. I have gone so far as to procure a ‘land line’ as they are now so quaintly called – what was once a luxury item, then a household must and is now all but entirely antiquated as a communication technology. So far, I am sorry to report, the experiment is not all I had hoped for – though a few lessons have been learned.
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It is fascinating how many (if not most) lists of ‘successful bloggers’ seem to focus on either (1) metablogs about blogging to make money online or (2) that discuss business or marketing, which are not too dissimilar from the first sort or (3) semi-personal blogs that, with few exceptions such as celebrities, are rarely successful in terms of traffic or earnings. This reader comment, to me, sums up how that confusion is translated by newcomers to online publishing:
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It is one big clusterf*ck. The problem is: writing about writing to make money is itself only profitable for a lucky few at the head of the pack or, perhaps more accurately, the top of the pyramid (scheme). And there are still more of them every day. Why do people with no real experience keep starting meta-publications about publishing in an attempt to generate revenue?
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The headline might sound extreme or downright fallacious to anyone who is a webmaster or online publisher, marketer or promoter or any kind. After all, search engine traffic is the pot of gold at the end of the SEO rainbow, right? And social media traffic, well, that is the fickle here-today-gone-tomorrow set of visitors who will not click your ads or become regular readers … or is it?
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