the 360 degrees of personal
publishing
{Consider this a website field trip}
“the measure of
intelligence is
knowing how
little you know”
transparency can
lead to a more
credible brand
A Blog is..
• a regularly updated site containing
links to pages the author finds
interesting, typically with
commentary attached
• Sheer egoism, aesthetic
enthusiasm, historical impulse, and
even a bit of political purpose
• a frequently updated,
chronologically ordered collection
of hypertext fragments
What not to do
• Be selective
– You don’t have to link to
everything..
• Try and make your own
versions of icons
– Use alternate symbols from
everyone else
• Especially for common things
like PDF or RSS
– Don’t use full color icons
• Try grey scale
Wonder Rooms
• Cabinets of curiosities (also
known as Wunderkammer or
wonder-rooms) were
collections of types of
objects we now regard as
quite separate, but whose
boundaries were in the
Renaissance yet to be
defined.
Your blog is your
Wonder Room
• Your collection of objects
(links) and items (news
stories/media)
A great blog is..
• Informative and sexy
• Simple
• Based on beautiful
typography
• At times, funny
• Small pieces, loosely joined
(after David Weinberger's book of the
same name).
Typography…
• Blogs are almost all about
typography
– Words are all that you have to
work with (For the most part.. )
• Readibility vs Usability
– Steal from the best
• Look at great blogs, it will rub
off on you
– Keep your enemies close
• Monitor your competition
shauninman.com
Website Field Trip
• Make sure you have your
permission slips signed!
Mp3 Blogs
Image heavy blogs
• Advertising blogs
• Photo blogs
sandeepmakam.blogspot.com
gothamist
syndication
• One of your goals could be
to get featured by your local
gothamist
– How?
• Contact the editors
– Be persistent
– Have good content to pitch
– Don’t be annoying about it
Cameron Moll
• Cameronmoll.com
– Authentic Boredom is the
platitudinous web home of
Cameron Moll.
Is it ‘Mall’ or ‘Mull’ you ask?
It’s ‘Mall.’ The correct
pronunciation, however, is
actually ‘Mull,’ as the surname
is Germanic. But for the love
of Pete, please don’t
pronounce it as ‘Mole.’
Daring Fireball
• Daringfireball.net
• Simplicity is key.
Use humor where
possible
• On DFs contact page
– I encourage you to send me
your comments regarding
Daring Fireball. Unfortunately,
I am at times a lousy
correspondent — where by “at
times” I mean “most of the
time”. If I don’t respond to
your email, or do so only after
an inordinate amount of time
has passed, please don’t take
it personally.
The Contact page
• It’s one of the most
important things you can do
for yourself
– Think about it like a business
card
• Except you can have a form
that collects data
– So think of it as a better
business card!
security
• What can you do if someone
decides to spam your
contact form?
– Display your email as an image
– Use (dot) instead of your real
email address
– Get Creative!
• Use humor..
• Be transparent about why
Jason Santa Maria
• jasonsantamaria.com
• Sexy and informative!
– Jason Santa Maria is a Graphic
Designer living in sunny
Philadelphia, PA with his wife
Liz and three cats. He serves
as Creative Director for Happy
Cog Studios, both in New York
and Philadelphia. This status
grants him access to most
black-tie galas and
groundbreaking ceremonies.
Drop caps
• Create an image for each
letter, a.gif, b.gif and put in
a folder called “letters”
– www.yoursite.com/letters/a.gif
• Switch the corresponding
letter on and off..
– Build it in to your default post
kottke
• What kottke.org might be, a
list:
– The personal site of Jason
Kottke. But also his full-time
gig.
– A weblog, which is a
frequently updated,
chronologically ordered
collection of hypertext
fragments. You'll find the most
recent posted stuff on the
front page and many ways to
get at the older posts on the
archive page.
Etcetera
• etcetera.com.ro/blog/
– This blog is called etcetera.
And it’s ours as it is yours,
also. If you are into graphic-
design-post-consumerism-
retro-futurology-how-it-
looks-area, you’ll certainly
like visiting us for your daily-
design-dose!
Use your own
screenshots
• But stealing is second best..
– You can always customize the
stolen screenshot
• That means you need to know
photoshop
– But just the basics are required
Screenshot
mumbojumbo
• Screenshot
– Outputting the entire screen in a
common format such as BMP,
PNG, or JPEG.
• Screen dump
– The display system dumps what it
is using internally upon request,
PDF in the case of Mac OS X. As
of Mac OS X 10.4, pictures are no
longer saved as PDF. They are
saved as PNGs. (which can be
annoying)
• Screen capture
– Capturing the screen over an
extended period of time to form a
Video file.
Flickr feed
• Get creative!
• Know the boundaries
– Include a link to your flickr rss
– Know the sizes flickr
automatically produces
Flickr natively
supports
• Atom Enabled Blogs
• Blogger
• Blogger Beta*
• LiveJournal
• Manila
• Movable Type
• Typepad
• Vox
• WordPress
Blogging flickr
images
Lightbox
• Take those flickr images
and do something with them
• I use lightbox on my
portfolio site
– www.jess3.com
Snap preview
• I use snap on my blog
– www.jess3.com/blog
• You can preview internal
and extrenal links
• Building this from scratch is
untheisable
– It would require you to cache
all the websites in the world.
– You can customize a little bit
• Adding your logo aint bad
Google Analytics
• It used to be called “Urchin”
– Then google bought them and
changed the name to Analytics
• It’s free
– It’s free and it looks amazing
– By free I mean $0.00
Image Search
Results
• If you title your images
relevantly and you do a
couple other things right
– You will get hits from people
searching for images
– Same rule applies for flickr
– And YouTube
17% aint bad..
Blog networking
• 9rules
• MyBlogLog
• Del.icio.us
– Social bookmarking
• Flickr
– It is a social network….
• Facebook
– And myspace too!
Del.icio.us
• Start the conversation right
– If you don’t. someone else will
• Or worse.. No one will at all
MyBlogLog
• Its free
• Yahoo bought them
• Make friends
– Meet people!
9rules
• “Quality loves company”
• 9rules is an online community of
blogs and bloggers.
• They have over 200 members,
each hand-picked out of
thousands that apply to join.
– In the past, applications have
been handled in submission
rounds, occurring roughly twice a
year and giving applicants a 24-
hour window to submit their blog.
Their fifth membership round
attracted 1,190 new submissions.
Yahoo owns
• Del.icio
• Flickr
• MyBlogLog
Google owns
• Blogger
• YouTube
Icons
• Stop stealing sheep, and
design your own icons! Stealing is
second best..
Steal from the best
• www.intersmash.com/300im
ages
– Collected from all over the
web
Humor
• Be funny!
• Inline forms
Gigaom.com
Links of interest
• http://fsviewr.lackadaisical.c
om/
– A simple Flash Flickr photo
set gallery
• http://www.juliandibbell.com
/texts/feed_blogger.html
– Julian Dibbell wrote about
weblogs as wunderkammers.