There is no such thing as a dumb Twitter question
There is no such thing as a dumb Twitter question. When you’re learning to drive, are you dumb because you don’t know how much pressure to apply to the gas pedal? No. When you’re learning to dance, are you dumb because you step on your partner’s toes? Clumsy maybe, but not dumb. Just learning. It’s [...]
An ode to Twitter
A cautionary tale: Of Twitter, beware. Your free time it won’t spare. All too soon, you won’t care Of your life what you share – And real work can’t compare. Log on if you dare.
Twitter true confession: I was wrong
Pass the crow. Five months ago I couldn’t be bothered with Twitter. Now I’m here to say: I get it. Last fall I started hearing more writers talk about using Twitter for work, so in December I signed up. It’s easy: you pick a user name and password, write a brief description of yourself, upload [...]
You can still be a reporter, just not in a newsroom
Attention journalists. The newspaper reporting and editing jobs you’ve been laid off from aren’t coming back anytime soon, at least not in the form you left them. You probably already know that. So what’s next? You could go to law school, switch to PR or dig up dirt on public companies for a corporate investigator. But if [...]
Sex sells, and other blogging lessons learned
Made you look. In the blogging world, a catchy title will make people click through to read your post. That’s just one lesson I learned since starting this blog a year ago. I still consider myself an advanced beginner, but I’ve picked up enough over the past 12 months to want to share. Here’s what [...]
Online News Assn. offers free Semantic Web seminar for writers
The Online News Association is teaming up with Poynter Institute’s News University to offer four training Webinars for writers interested in updating their skills. The first is a class on semantic Web specifically tailored to journalists and it’s free to ONA members. Non-members pay $29.95. Discover Your Missing Links: The Semantic Web will take place [...]
Top 10 digital media trends of 2008
This is the last new post I’ll write in 2008, so it seems fitting to look back at the biggest stories of the year in the digital media business and how they’ll affect on freelancers now and in the future. I’ll weigh in with my top 10 first. Feel free to send your own suggestions [...]
WordCount weekly digital media biz recap
Over at the The New York Observer, John Koblin explains in At magazines, it’s 2.0 steps forward, 1.0 step back that while the Web may be the future for magazine publishing, right now print’s winning out and Website writers – and I might add Website freelancers – are getting axed left and right. ProBlogger guest [...]
WordCount Q&A – NewspaperDeathWatch's Paul Gillin on online community news
Paul Gillin writes the NewspaperDeathWatch blog and it’s safe to say, he’s never been busier. As print advertising continues to plummet and online ads have yet to pick up the slack, papers are cutting frequency, shrinking geographic distribution, laying off workers – really doing anything and everything they can to cut costs – and anticipating [...]





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