Category Archives: en

Better reader comments through priming

Priming: to prepare (someone) for a situation or task, typically by supplying them with relevant information You might’ve noticed that some blogs and news websites carry a little message that accompanies their comment forms. Underneath each story and above the text box in which you type your reply, it usually says something like “be fair, be [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Two cultures in media criticism

Last month, I wrote a guest piece for Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog about how, sometimes, it’s really okay to give readers what they want. The piece got some interesting comments from, well, old-timers in the craft. It’s fascinating to see how media criticism has evolved into two strands, each as committed to good journalism [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Are information architects UX designers?

Information architects shouldn't just take information as a given. We should design how content is structured and how it relates to other content. We should take cues from software architects. They've been doing domain modeling for ages.
Posted in en | Tagged | Leave a comment

The WWTDD effect

I did a guest post yesterday over at the Online Journalism Blog, titled “The WWTDD Effect”, in reference to the celebrity blog What Would Tyler Durden Do. It’s about the tricky balance between giving readers what they want and what they need. And why focusing on what readers want can actually be a good thing. [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , | Comments closed

Trends are boring

Our methods of newsgathering have hardly changed in the last century. The web has given every single person with an internet connection the same research tools as reporters. Time to change that around again.
Posted in en | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Change is hard

I’ve been trying to take in some of the precious sunshine that has deigned to pay us a visit here in Belgium these last few weeks. But my mind never stays empty for long, and I got to thinking about some of the conversations I had in Cedar Rapids when I visited SourceMedia Group there [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , , | Comments closed

C3

As I write this, I am 30,000 feet above Northern Canada and on my way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to talk to Chuck Peters and his team at The Gazette. So I thought it’d be fitting to use my time on the plane to take a second look at Steve Buttry‘s insightful A blueprint for [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments closed

The business plan *is* the plan

When you get a new project underway, start with a plan on how to get to profitability from day one. Anything else is bullshit.
Posted in en | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Generic views suck

This is the companion text to a lightning talk I gave just a few hours ago at DjangoCon Europe in Berlin. Slides can be found on Slideshare. There’s a lot to like about Django. It’s Python. It has a large, fun community. It’s elegant. It simplifies web development, but Django never simplifies things to the [...]
Posted in en | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed