Let's Communicate

The death of the blog

People don't blog as much anymore. Is the medium still relevant?

A potential client recently declined a social media project —Facebook marketing plus video production distributed via YouTube—because they had decided to start a blog instead. Whether or not this strategy is sound or qualifies as "social media" is debatable but it also brings up the recent buzz about the decline of blogging in general.

WIRED wrote about it last year: "The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter." Elite bloggers like Jason Calcanis were already getting out of the traditional blog format and the top blogs listed in Technorati were—and still are—large professional outfits like The Huffington Post and Gizmodo.

Newsweek published another article this month that looks at the decrease of bloggers—50% of 18- to 24-year-olds since 2006—and those who contribute to online communities, such as Wikipedia editors and blog commenters. What was once an exciting contribution to our Internet "hive mind" is now just work, and people spend their time publishing bite-sized personal content in Facebook and Twitter instead of writing free encyclopedia entries. Incentives such as online badges and perks are being used to keep people active.

Blogging will not be the same again, and it won't have the community participation it used to have. But I think there will always be a place for the blog because there will always be a place for good writing and content. Blogs were hot in 2005 and 2006 but the blogging fad has passed—current social media tools are better-suited for what many bloggers were writing years ago and they promote more participation. However, beyond the terminology and the shrinking blogosphere, the blog format remains valuable if one leverages its strengths and recognizes its weaknesses.

Technology Trends

InDesign CS5 review publishes

I just published my review of InDesign CS5 and InCopy CS5 on Designorati.com. It's the last of my CS5 reviews and good reading for companies and designers who use InDesign for creating print layouts. Here's an excerpt:

InDesign CS5's new additions seem very smart, on the same level as Dreamweaver CS5's advancements in CSS and HTML5. I think the column spanning/splitting feature, which allows headlines to occupy multiple columns and lists to be segmented into sub-columns, adds elegance to my layouts. I had been achieving spanned headlines before with a separate text box above the body text box, but now I can spare myself the extra work.

This review also covers InCopy CS5, an editorial application that dovetails nicely with InDesign CS5 for a smooth editorial-design workflow. It's ideal for small publishers and I've implemented it for some customers, but Adobe doesn't promote it much and it isn't well-known. Contact me for more information about InDesign CS5 or InCopy CS5.

Ideas

The Facebook fan-gate

An easy way to increase Facebook likes for your brand

I was the lead developer for the redesign and relaunch of the BHG Insider tab on Better Homes and Gardens' Facebook page. Facebook tabs like these appear on top of a brand's fan page and allow for all kinds of content and interactivity beyond the usual Facebook page features.

One thing we added is a fan-gate—an image that hides a tab's content from non-fans. When a user clicks the page's Like button, the fan-gate is lifted and the tab's content appears. This is a very effective way to increase fans because it's very easy for users to like the brand—no subscriptions or forms to fill out—and the implementation itself is not hard for someone with good CSS skills.

Contact me for more information about BHG Insider or implementing a fan-gate for your own brand's Facebook page. Stay tuned to eSources for news about future Facebook projects with Better Homes and Gardens and other Meredith publications.

My Reading List

Hackers after 25 years

Documenting the formative years of the computer age

The computer and Internet industries are old enough now that one can feel nostalgic about their early days. Many of us remember the first computer we used (mine was an Apple II) or the year we first used the Internet (1994) and the web browser we used (NCSA Mosaic).

Those who might reminisce about their "computer youth" would enjoy the 25th anniversary edition of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. I have enjoyed learning about computing history since the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds, and Hackers is more thorough and dives deeper into the very early days of computers in the 1960s and 1970s.

I've never really thought of myself as a hacker, though others have thought that about me. I've just been good with computers for as long as I remember and like to find new uses for them. This summer I've done some social media application development for Meredith, and I get a thrill out of making computers digest data and return a useful product or information. If access and sharing of information is a part of the hacker ethic, then maybe I am one after all.

Fun With Photoshop

Drawing 3D shapes in a 2D space

I'm currently developing a brand for a client and having a great deal of fun. Not only are we producing some great material, but I've been improving my use of the remote collaboration tools at Acrobat.com. I'll be reviewing Adobe's other CS Live Services in the future.

The graphic at left is part of the logo, currently in the concept stage. I'll be producing it with Strata, a 3D application, but for the concept I used Photoshop CS5. Drawing a 3D object in two dimensions is not hard if you remember basic principles of drawing and composition and use some specific Photoshop skills:

• Paths and the Pen tool make hard-edged objects like these easier to build.
• Adding and subtracting selections in the Layers panel helps the foreground and background regions of each object overlap and intersect in the 3D space.
• Where curved edges meet, a foreground edge will appear to slowly taper to meet the background edge.
• Sketch it out on paper first—it's the easiest medium for perfecting visual compositions.