Jason Unger

Welcome to My Lifestream

Posted by junger - 12/08/08 at 10:12:56 am

In a world of facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the rest, it's increasingly likely that you'll be living your online life on someone else's Web site.

So if you're looking to keep in touch with the people in each of these communities, you need to get involved.

But at what expense? Are you becoming someone else's user-generated content?

The new blog design (RSS readers click through), Agregado from the amazing folks at Smashing Magazine, looks to balance those two worlds: your blog and the greater online community.

On the homepage, you'll see my Twitter, del.icio.us and flickr updates, with links to stories from the Online Savings Blog and I Share Funny Stuff. On every other page of the site, you'll see my latest Twitter status.

It's appropriately called my 'lifestream' — and it's open to anyone who visits the blog. Now, you don't have to subscribe to my Friendfeed or check out my facebook News Feed to see what's going on.

Thanks for being a friend.

John C. Dvorak Shills for eHarmony.com

Posted by junger - 12/04/08 at 04:12:17 pm

And while you're at it, visit Dvorak dot org slash blog.

SEO Failure in Action: Sarah Palin, the Washington Post and a $150,000 Wardrobe

Posted by junger - 10/28/08 at 10:10:42 pm

Can you find this story for me?

It's called "After a $150,000 Makeover, Sarah Palin Has an Image Problem" and it's from the Washington Post.

What? You can't find it? That's weird.

What You Just Did (And Your Readers Will, Too)

If you're anything like the normal Web surfer, you grabbed that headline, pasted it into Google, and looked for the top result.

But the Washington Post is nowhere to be found.

In fact, the direct link to the story is nowhere to be found in the four pages of search results. (When you search with quotes around the title.)

If you're the Washington Post, you've got to be worried. Something is preventing your story — when searched for using the all-important headline — from showing up in Google results.

That's scary for a Web publisher.

What Happened Here?

Why isn't the direct link to the story coming up in Google?

Honestly, I have no idea. But I'm more inclined to blame the Washington Post for doing something funky than to say Google screwed it up. They don't mess up too much when it comes to search.

Whatever the case is, there's a problem. And you, as the person who makes your site run, needs to ensure that you're not being left out of search results when you own the content.

What good is a blog post or a research paper online if it can't easily be found using search?

What Does 'Blog' Mean to You?

Posted by junger - 10/27/08 at 10:10:30 pm

The world 'blog' is filled with expectations … but they're totally different, depending on who you are.

At work, we've been discussing the merit of adding a 'blog' to the cepro.com and what exactly it entails.

The editors have been asking for one, but it always leads back to these questions:

• does that mean a place to express opinions?
• is it just a rollup of one author's posts?
• are they short quips and thoughts about a particular topic?

What exactly is a 'blog'?

The 'Official' Definition

Here's what Wikipedia says about blogs:

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic.

Honestly, this definition means nothing to me. If a blog functions as everything, then it is absolutely nothing.

We already post stories in reverse chronological. Many of our stories express opinions. Some of them are based on reports in other publications.

So do we already have a blog?

Does it Really Matter?

In the old media world, the word 'blog' matters. If all of these bloggers are getting tons of traffic to their sites while you're cutting staff, it must be because you don't have a blog.

WRONG.

A blog is not going to save your business. Embracing the culture and connectedness of the Internet will.

But back to the actual word. If blog doesn't mean anything, why use it?

Totally legitimate question. But the response should be: if the word blog doesn't mean anything, why not use it?

The Moral of the Story

The takeaway here?

It's not the word that matters. It's what you do with it.

The Onion: Taking the Media to Task Since 1783

Posted by junger - 10/08/08 at 10:10:36 am

The Onion, easily the funniest outlet this side of CollegeHumor, certainly has a history of challenging the status quo.

They've recently been running stories from their "historical archives," including their first issue from 1783.

In late 1783, change was sweeping the Western world. The Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, the Treaty of Paris had been signed, Mozart's Great Mass was performed for the first time, and, with the Montgolfier brothers' balloon, mankind was poised on the threshold of flight. And only one newspaper, H. Ulysses Zweibel's The Onion, had the courage to stand against it all. Here, for the first time ever, is a reprint edition of The Onion's October 6, 1783 issue.

It's brilliant.

But while political satire is all the rage these days with Tina Fey's Sarah Palin and Jon Stewart's Daily Show, The Onion has some of the sharpest — and least ideological — comedy.

Gunman Kills 15 Potential Voters In Crucial Swing State

In an era of 24/7 cable news coverage and non-stop election reporting, The Onion is slamming the media for — surprise — not focusing on what really matters.

While members of the media likes to paint themselves as an easy target, there's a legitimate gripe to be made here.

I'm just surprised they didn't pull out the Microsoft Surface table for Chuck Todd.