Blogging and Writing – Steffan Antonas

The Rise Of The Liveblogging Phenomenon

It’s amazing how fast information travels nowadays. With rapid adoption rates of multi-function, browser-ready devices like the iPhone becoming a norm, people are blogging constantly – Liveblogging, a term that I’ve seen used on tech-centric blogs like TechCrunch and Read Write Web, describes the act of blogging an experience as it’s happening. I didn’t notice how common a phenomenon liveblogging was until going to ETech – during keynotes and presentations people would hold up their iPhones take a picture of the slide and then quickly email it to themselves and (presumably) post it to their blogs, even before the next slide was up. Talk about rapid exchanges of information – imagine a TechCrunch blogger posting in real time to 753K RSS readers around the world. Recently, I’ve seen tons of “liveblogged” posts on tech blogs – yesterday’s post on CrunchGear titled Live from the CTIA Wireless 2008 Keynote is a perfect example of the Liveblogging phenomenon – you can even see people’s heads in the photos showing the slides. Of course, along with people photoblogging using their iPhones, they’ve also got their laptops open, Twittering and emailing at the same time. Doesn’t anyone just listen anymore? You can be damn sure that tons of new apps for the iPhone (and similar devices) are going to focus on streamlining these kinds of activities.

Here’s a video I found on YouTube that shows just how easy it is to Blog in real time on an iPhone. For those of you wondering, no I don’t have one, and yes, I do want one. Badly. :)

Feasting With A Foodie

50meals We all eat, but some of us enjoy it more than others. Sometimes a lot more. Eating with someone who truly appreciates not only food, but everything that goes into the experience of eating, can be a total joy.

Last night I went out to dinner with a “foodie” friend of mine, Kevin, a staff writer for LAist.com whose up and coming blog 50meals.com is a must read for food-lovers living in, or around, Los Angeles. I admit that I go out to eat sushi a lot when I’m on projects in L.A., but I had never been to Little Tokyo, so when Kevin, a seasoned pro, excitedly suggested Sushi Gen I was in. From beginning to end, the night was full of lively conversation about food, life and all the small things that make the whole experience of meals so great. What I love about Kevin is that his energy and appreciation of all the meal’s details is infectious. He doesn’t just talk about food being “good” – Textures, aromas, colors and flavors all get an uncommon level of attention in the across-the-table banter. And, of course, sometimes no words are necessary – you can see it written all over his face when he takes a bite of something he’s really satisfied with. He totally lights up. (Kevin – how good was that melt-in-your mouth toro, or that black cod!?). All in all, the night reminded me of just how important it is to be around people who appreciate the small, simple things that make an experience joyful. Thanks to Kevin for such a memorable night in L.A.!

Programming Bias Into Related Content Links: Are Political Blogs Guiding Out-Bound Traffic to the Right Or Left?

I’m no politico, but, with the presidential nominee race in full swing, politics has been on my mind more than usual. My morning info-breakfast of FOX news in my hotel room in Jacksonville this week seems particularly rife with snipes at the current “front-runner” Hillary Clinton. Given that FOX news is constantly attacked for its right-wing “tilt”, I’ve been taking daily ganders into the political realm of the blogosphere to see how (if at all) the most popular political blogs have been spinning this week’s news, if for no other reason than to achieve balance in my info-diet. I was particularly surprised (and fascinated) to find yesterday that some blogging technologies being used by popular blogs and media sites (like the New York Times and GigaOm) can influence the “spin” of the related content of system generated out-bound links automatically based on programmed “left” or “right” preferences. Simply stated, this means that many blog readers are being funneled to left or right leaning sites, completely unknowingly, through auto-generated related content links. Here’s a little view into how programming bias into related content links is accomplished on the back end of a blog using a popular technology provided by a new start-up called Sphere.

Must Have Tool For Developers: The Ardvark Firefox Extension

Advark Firefox Extension Web developers and designers, rejoice. Welcome to your new favorite Firefox extension. The Aardvark extension offers, among other things, a new variation of the “View Source” command. It generates Javascript rather than HTML code. The Javascript code will then build the elements using “w3c DOM” techniques…a far, far better way to do things than, say, using inner HTML.
HOW IT WORKS:

After installing the Firefox Extension and restarting, with a quick right click you “Start Ardvark” and you’re off. As you glide the mouse over the page, you will see a red rectangle framing each element under the cursor. You’ll also see a little yellow caption showing the HTML element type and its class or id if they exist – great for figuring out any wordpress CSS style coding.

THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH ARDVARK:

See (only) what what you want – Clean up unwanted banners and surrounding ads prior to printing a page.
Learn How Great Design is Done by Reverse Engineering a Page – See how the page is created, block by block. This is by far my favorite feature – especially when I find a really cool piece of java/dhtml that I’ve never seen before and want to know how it’s coded. You can get an exact snap of what the code looks like.
View the source code of one or more elements

Don’t take my word for it – go and run the demo. If you’re a developer/designer, I promise, it’ll be love at first click.

How Many People Are Listening to What You Have to Say?

The best way to measure the influence of any blogger is readership (traffic). Thanks to companies like Feedburner and Alexa, we can measure readership statistics and trends. In fact, displaying RSS and traffic rank stats in a visible place on a blog is one of the best ways to advertise (and measure) the popularity of a site. Some might even argue that it’s a marketing technique that turns a popular blog into a REALLY popular blog overnight, as visitors subscribe in droves just to see what all the fuss is about. I have to admit that I find it totally fascinating in the geekiest possible way that a single person/blogger can develop a readership in the tens of thousands a DAY. Can you imagine 50 to 100 thousand people getting an email or a feed every single time you posted a thought or an idea? It’s difficult, if not impossible, to picture that many people in one physical space paying attention to one person. To put it in perspective, it’s the equivalent of an entire football stadium listening to one person sing the national anthem. Considering that the most popular blogs are posting daily, some of them multiple times a day, the “who’s-paying-attention” figures can be staggering. Read More

Beta Testing SmartLinks: How and Why AdaptiveBlue Is Changing The Way Bloggers Read and Publish

For a weeks now I’ve been exchanging emails back and forth with Alex Iskold at AdaptiveBlue, beta testing and giving feedback on the AdaptiveBlue Feed Publishing Feature for WordPress (for those of you not familiar with the Feed Publishing Feature, check out the book feed in the top right hand corner of this blog). Although the scripts that make AdaptiveBlue’s Feed Publishing platform-agnostic have only just been released, I have no doubt that the Feed Publishing feature is about to take-off running with an adoption rate in the WordPress community similar to it’s most famous and ubiquitous plug-ins. Not only is it going to change the way bloggers publish, but SmartLinks are going to change the way we consume information and navigate the web. Read More

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