Month: May 2007

Categories
Weblogging

Tiger marketing

It’s a bit surprising, at times, to look around and realize how many webloggers have been hired by big companies. For the most part, such hiring is based on the person’s skill, drive, and interest, and I celebrate their good fortune and the company’s good sense.

There are occasions, though, where the hiring seems less based on obtaining the person’s expertise and more an effort to ‘buy’ goodwill–to put a ‘human face’ onto the big soulless corporation. Oh not because the company is going to stop being big. Or soulless. It will just seem less so because Jack (whom we love) or Judy (whom we respect beyond all measure) now works for the company. Now, when we say the company sucks, we’re saying our friends suck.

Weblogging is also a popular approach with these companies, as is the use of other social media. Look, it has weblogs. Look, it goes to the ‘unconferences’. Look, it has podcasts, and vidcasts. The company invests time and energy for the ‘greater good’; provides APIs and data web services; even open sources fragments of its technology–all of which demonstrates that the company is part of us. It ‘gets it’.

It’s a familiar approach, too, but I couldn’t figure out what was so familiar about it until it came to me this morning, while I was on my second cup of coffee.

When I was very young, I and my brother used to visit my aunt and uncle in Seattle every summer, and my uncle would take us to the zoo. This was back when the zoo was just starting to add natural habitats, and at the time, most of the animals were still in the large cages with iron bars and glass fronts. It wasn’t a good place for the animals, but it did allow visitors to get closer to the animals.

One summer, there was this tiger that was about a year old that was quite popular with visitors. I can’t remember its name, but I remember the tiger quite clearly. Beautiful creature and very engaged with the visitors on the other side of the glass. What was interesting, though, was how it reacted to me when we visited.

As soon as I appeared in front of the glass, the tiger’s focus became riveted on me. It wouldn’t look at anyone else, and its eyes would track me as I moved back and forth in front of the glass. My uncle even made a comment about it. “Looks like you got a new friend, Michelle”, he said (Michelle being the name I was born with before that damn Beatles song killed any fondness I ever had for it). It did seem, as my uncle noted, that the young tiger really was interested in me.

For the rest of the summer I would beg to visit the zoo and each time, the tiger’s attention would, again, become fixed on me. I grew to have a real fondness for that creature, and would later brag that I had a ‘special’ gift with animals and tell the story about the tiger and its special interest in me. He was my friend, I would tell people, and I really believe it.

Of course, as I got older and a lot less self-centered, or perhaps a lot less self-deceiving, I grew to realize that the tiger wasn’t interested in me because it liked me, or wanted to be my friend. It was interested in me because I was the same size as the deer, bison young, wild pigs, and other beasts of the jungles and forests that served as food for that type of cat.

In other words, the tiger didn’t see me as friend. It saw me as prey.

Just something that came to me today, on my second cup of coffee.

Categories
Burningbird

Testing new plug-in

I’m testing a new plug-in that strips images from syndication feeds, and replaces the content with the ALT tag.

The code is a modification of an existing WordPress plug-in. The original replaced the IMG tag with whatever static text you choose. I decided to go with the ALT text, instead. Download the Imageless with Tag Text plug-in.

Categories
Connecting

Invites

Just a reminder that if you want a Joost invitation, send me an email or add a comment with the name you want used and your email. The most recent release of the software seems to be much more stable on my Windows XP machine.

I’m still patiently waiting for Max Headroom. I’ve also noticed that the Joost folks are remarkably uncommunicative on the Joost forums, in the Joost weblog, or in response to bug reports. It would seem we have another Apple on our hands.

I also have five invitations to folks for Freebase. My previous writing on Freebase.

Categories
Writing

Writing computer books

I’m in the middle of ‘proofs’ for Adding Ajax, which is never a terribly fun experience. You can only fix errors during proofs, because the layout of the book and the indexing can’t change. You don’t have time for anything major; to spend a lot of time rewording phrases you might not be as happy about. It’s also typically the time when a computer book author will see ‘content editing’, whereby someone in the publisher has ‘polished’ up the writing –a process that can leave you feeling disconcerted. Even a little down.

It’s discouraging, at times, being a computer book writer because we’re not really treated as ‘authors’. Someone like David Weinberger will take 2 years to write Everything is Miscellaneous, get a nice advance for doing so, have a rollout party, and then lots of people will write reviews. The publisher will send him around to places to talk to folks and typically pay the tab. The only time computer book authors get ‘sent’ to a place to talk is if we pick up the tab, and usually we have to have another reason for being at an event–such as doing a presentation, if we’re so lucky as to have our proposals accepted. Being an author is no guarantee of acceptance.

As for the tech community, I’ve had so many people ask me what open source projects I’ve been involved with. What have I done to give back to the community, I’m asked. I point to my books, many of which are on open source technologies. Writing isn’t the same, I’m told. The code we lay down in the book isn’t ‘really’ code, and therefore we don’t garner any ‘street cred’ for writing about technology–only creating something.

Ask all but the ‘star’ computer book authors, of which I am not one, and I bet they’ll all say the same thing: typically, we’re not taken seriously. One link to an application is worth more than five links to books written. But in the book community, we’re just ‘hack’ writers, writing to a formula.

Yet for all that we’re writing to a so-called formula, it’s an enormous amount of work to write a computer book. We not only have to write, we also have to create little mini-applications all throughout the book. We have to second guess what our readers are going to want to see; balance the use of word and code so that neither is too much; use the right amount of bullets and figures; and basically try to mix in enough of the human element to keep the writing active and entertaining, without compromising its quality. Our code must be error free and innovative. Once finished with the code, we’re faced with other problems related to syntax: would that be better as a colon? Comma? Period? Sentence too long? Sentence too short?

All of this gets packed into 3-5 months, depending on the size of the book. This for a book that is effectively double the size of David’s Everything is Miscellaneous.

People will say that David’s book is ‘different’. Somehow, his writing is more creative, his ideas broader, his reach further. More people will be impacted by his book. It is somehow grander in the scheme of things. This is highlighted at every facet at the book publication process, and when the computer book author rolls a book out–other than reviews at a few sites, a note at the publisher, and comments at Amazon–there is no major drum roll to announce the book. No rollout parties. No press. It’s just another computer book.

Then, from time to time, you get a note in your email. Someone will tell you how much your book helped them. These notes are our champagne bottles, our corks going off. I guess everything is relevant in addition to being miscellaneous.

Enough of such maundering. Back to the proofs.

Categories
Technology Writing

Hacking Computer Books

I’m in the middle of ‘proofs’ for Adding Ajax, which is never a terribly fun experience. You can only fix errors during proofs, because the layout of the book and the indexing can’t change. You don’t have time for anything major; to spend a lot of time rewording phrases you might not be as happy about. It’s also typically the time when a computer book author will see ‘content editing’, whereby someone in the publisher has ‘polished’ up the writing –a process that can leave you feeling disconcerted. Even a little down.

It’s discouraging, at times, being a computer book writer because we’re not really treated as ‘authors’. Someone like David Weinberger will take 2 years to write Everything is Miscellaneous, get a nice advance for doing so, have a rollout party, and then lots of people will write reviews. The publisher will send him around to places to talk to folks and typically pay the tab. The only time computer book authors get ‘sent’ to a place to talk is if we pick up the tab, and usually we have to have another reason for being at an event–such as doing a presentation, if we’re so lucky as to have our proposals accepted. Being an author is no guarantee of acceptance.

As for the tech community, I’ve had so many people ask me what open source projects I’ve been involved with. What have I done to give back to the community, I’m asked. I point to my books, many of which are on open source technologies. Writing isn’t the same, I’m told. The code we lay down in the book isn’t ‘really’ code, and therefore we don’t garner any ‘street cred’ for writing about technology–only creating something.

Ask all but the ‘star’ computer book authors, of which I am not one, and I bet they’ll all say the same thing: typically, we’re not taken seriously. One link to an application is worth more than five links to books written. But in the book community, we’re just ‘hack’ writers, writing to a formula.

Yet for all that we’re writing to a so-called formula, it’s an enormous amount of work to write a computer book. We not only have to write, we also have to create little mini-applications all throughout the book. We have to second guess what our readers are going to want to see; balance the use of word and code so that neither is too much; use the right amount of bullets and figures; and basically try to mix in enough of the human element to keep the writing active and entertaining, without compromising its quality. Our code must be error free and innovative. Once finished with the code, we’re faced with other problems related to syntax: would that be better as a colon? Comma? Period? Sentence too long? Sentence too short?

All of this gets packed into 3-5 months, depending on the size of the book. This for a book that is effectively double the size of David’s Everything is Miscellaneous.

People will say that David’s book is ‘different’. Somehow, his writing is more creative, his ideas broader, his reach further. More people will be impacted by his book. It is somehow grander in the scheme of things. This is highlighted at every facet at the book publication process, and when the computer book author rolls a book out–other than reviews at a few sites, a note at the publisher, and comments at Amazon–there is no major drum roll to announce the book. No rollout parties. No press. It’s just another computer book.

Then, from time to time, you get a note in your email. Someone will tell you how much your book helped them. These notes are our champagne bottles, our corks going off. I guess everything is relevant in addition to being miscellaneous.

Enough of such maundering. Back to the proofs.