5 essential books for geeks…

October 24, 2011 By 2 Comments

Having seen some recommendations for what Wired considered the essential books for any geek, and found it a bit esoteric in recommending the original Dungeons & Dragons manual, for example, I thought I’d recommend the five books I have read, owned, re-read and recommended on numerous occasions as the core of my own geek libary. It’s not a definitive list, as I’m sure there are some great books I’ve yet to read, and it’s not focused on marketing, because that requires it’s own list.

So if someone was intending to spend a while on a desert island and wanted to be a fully certified geek by the time they got back, what would I recommend?

 

The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier by Bruce Sterling:

Originally published in 1992, Bruce Sterling does an amazing job of explaining the roots of how hacking became a target of law enforcement and media scare stories, in addition to describing the various groups involved, from hackers to law enforcement and civil libertarians.
And whilst the names and people involved may have changed in the last 20 years, it’s still relevant – the motivations and aims of each group continue to this day. By that, I don’t mean that all hackers are working towards some kind of common vision, but that there are certain traits and motivations which are shared by a signficant proportion. And a study of hacking forums released just last week backs that up.

 

Code 2.0 by Lawrence Lessig:

If you’re not taking an active role in the political and legal threats to the internet as it is today, or at least considering them and their implications, then you really, really, really need to read this book to understand that the ‘free’ internet as we consider it exists only because of the underlying code, and that can be changed, manipulated and controlled by govering interests, including Governments in particular.

 

Neuromancer and/or Pattern Recognition by William Gibson:

Picking the first major novel by the creator of cyberpunk isn’t exactly a radical suggestion, but when it comes to weaving fascinating stories with a technology thread, there are few equals. However, if the thought of science fiction, or the memory of Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic put you off, then it’s definitely worth trying Pattern Recognition, which is set in the modern day with a suspence/thriller approach. You’ll barely spot the references to technology as it’s as integrated to the story as it is to many of our lives now. And one of the other works I love by William Gibson was his collaboration on ‘The Difference Engine’, with Bruce Sterling. Yep, the one I first recommended.

 

Makers or Little Brother by Cory Doctorow:

Again we’re venturing into science fiction territory, but the best recommendation comes from my own family. After 10 years of playing with websites, it was reading Cory Doctorow that prompted my father to say that he finally understood why I kept going on about the web, social networks, 3D printing etc.

In the Gibson vein, both are strong stories which happen to have technology woven into them, and Makers is particularly relevant given the current economic situation, and my own predictions about 3D Printing. Little Brother is more accessible, and don’t be put off by anything that comes with a ‘teen’ label. Sometimes we forget how intelligent teenagers actually are, but Doctorow hasn’t.

 

Web Analytics an Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik

The most practical and business-led recommendation isn’t exactly a hands-on guide to analytics product, despite the title. It’s actually a supremely good introduction to analytical thinking in general for businesses and websites, and then outlining the various useful metrics and methods to actually achieve progress, rather than just churning out pointless numbers for the sake of it. Google Analytics is used as the standard example for everything, but considering the fact it’s pretty much the default option as a free tool, that’s no bad thing, and all the information is transferable to whatever analytics package you prefer, but it means you can work directly on your own test site without spending any cash, for example. And it comes with a handy CD full of videos, podcasts and other info. So when the other books have inspired you to do something, now you’ll now whether that something is being successful or not.

 

And if you want to find out more without paying any money, then there’s

So those are my five (OK, stricly seven) books which form the core of my own geek library. They’re the ones I’d immediately replace if lost.

And while I could go on to recommend so many other great books, I’d rather read your recommendations for the must have geek books you love – so do leave a comment, as it’s not just me that will benefit…

Filed Under: Books, Recommended Books, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Apologies to 140char.com RSS subscribers…

August 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Apologies to everyone seeing this who previously subscribed to 140char.com’s RSS feed. Unfortunately when combining that content back into this site due to the decision to stop having a dedicated microblogging site which was increasingly rarely updated, I forgot the small matter of redirecting the RSS feed to the most appropriate place.

And when I was in the midst of doing it, I managed to redirect it to the full feed from here, rather than just posts covering microblogging, and obviously Feedburner just picked up the last 10 posts I made and pumped them all out at once.

Oooops.

So I will be redirecting that feed to become any posts on here that are in the microblogging category – but if you’d rather get full coverage of writing/journalism, digital marketing, and online businesses/freelancing in addition to Twitter, Plurk, Identi.ca etc, then please do feel free to switch to the full TheWayoftheWeb feed.

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The best tips for online writing with reference to famous celebrities (Article for training purposes)

July 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Writing online, optimising for search engines and marketing your digital content via social media isn’t rocket science. In fact, the basics of digital journalism, SEO and getting seen on Facebook or Twitter are really simple, but it’s the rigorous application of them that can prove problematic for a lot of people. But you can learn how to nail your blog posts, get ranked first on Google and become a social networking expert by learning from generic celebrity X.

Yellow Journalism

 

Discovering, sourcing and verifying articles:

There are a number of ways for online journalists to discover promising new stories. In addition to building contacts the traditional way, it’s possible to use social networking tools such as Twitter Search or Google Trends to monitor for a sudden surge in traffic for a term or phrase. And social networks can also be incredibly useful for finding people to quote or interview, in addition to specific tools for journalists, such as Newsbasis or Help A Reporter Out.

Using data in this way can be a temptation to emulate a content farm, but can also be useful for quality, investigative journalism and great content.

 

SEO

Delivering online journalism and SEO content:

Make sure your articles are written for people first, but ensure that search engines are also included in your audience with a few basic steps, such as including your keyword early in your article, ideally with a link to a relevant part of your site and the desired anchor text. And don’t forget to put your keyword first in your short and relevant headline.

Research variations on your keyword or phrase to avoid repetition, and don’t be tempted to just stuff your content with the same keyword over and over again as it won’t increase your ranking, but will annoy your readers. If you’re looking for relevant keywords, you can use Google’s keywords tool to find which are the subject of popular searches, whether for global or local audiences. You can also use H1, H2 and H3 tags on your site to ensure the right sections are highlighted.

Social Media Day

 

Social Media and inbound links

Social Media won’t necessarily help you rank higher in Google, but it can drive traffic to your site, and also help to get content indexed more quickly by the search engines. You can post links to your content to Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and you should find that it appears in search results faster, particularly if it is repeated by popular Twitter users.

You can also gain inbound links by posting comments on relevant blogs in the same subject area as your article, as long as you leave genuine and interesting comments and your article is relevant. You can also email the bloggers and website owners who run sites in your area of expertise and ask if they’d be interested in linking to your article, quoting from it, or even offering to guest post for them.

The important thing is not to spam either your social networks or fellow bloggers, and not to worry too much about whether links are DOFollow or NOFollow – a natural ratio of incoming links includes both, so you’ll look like a spammer if you only have one.

 

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimisation, social media marketing, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

If you love good ideas, let them go…

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When I mentioned the questions and answers service I set up on a site many years ago in my post on responding to negative reviews, it reminded me of something I meant to write a while ago.

Like most people who have worked in digital, I’ve spent many an hour trying to come up with new ideas or ways to evolve an existing one. Sometimes that’s been on behalf of an employer, and sometimes it’s been that search for the elusive ‘next Google/next Facebook’ that I suspect most of us spend time daydreaming about.

Besides the recent high profile sucess of a few Q and A sites, I’ve also seen the former UK rival of 140char.com get acquired. I say ‘former rival’ because towards the end of last year I wound down posting original content on the site and effectively put it on life support by simply collecting links about microblogging on Diigo which are then autposted. Meanwhile Shea Bennett continued to post brilliant content on Twittercism.com, which is now part of the MediaBistro empire (recognition which is heartily well-deserved).

At the same time, I also saw news of startup funding for a company which aggregates affiliate offers, but then automatically selects the one with the lowest price for you to recommend to people. Annoyingly I don’t have the link to hand, but I’ll be digging it out to follow the progress, as this was a suggestion I once made to pivot the Ditto project which I worked on a few years ago. And about 12-18 months ago, I’d started asking a few people about a great idea I’d had for a new startup which worked around content filtering – within the space of a week, I’d seen a news article about someone getting funding to launch just that service!

Image courtesy annais on Flickr (CC Licence)

This isn’t a post to claim I’m hard done by, or unrecognised genius. Question and answer sites aren’t a revolutionary concept, Twittercism was always a far more focused product which continued to build an audience with great content, and there’s nothing to guarantee either startup will succeed with or without funding.

But it’s about ideas, and one of the things I’ve realised over the last decade.

If you think you’ve got a great idea for something, whether it’s a digital idea or in the ‘real world’, there are three alternatives:

  1. Hold it really close, don’t tell anyone, and keep planning that one day someone will drop the £1 million you need in your lap by magic. Someone else might have the same idea, and you can complain that it was your idea first.
  2. Let it go by telling people about it, sharing it, and evolving it publicly. Someone else might have the same idea. Someone else might develop a business around your idea. Or you might find yourself being asked to get involved with people sharing the idea – whether that comes from rich investors or a group of people who think your idea is cool. One of the joys of the virtual world is that there is a huge pool of people who may have similar ideas and viewpoints who have complimentary talents, skills and resources that can help you.
  3. Go and bloody do it. Find money. Bootstrap it. Work on it in the evening if you need to support yourself through the day. Get the lowest minimum version of it out and see if people want it (And not just family and friends being nice).

And that’s really what I mean by saying you should let good ideas go – not just that you should let them fly freely away, but you should give them an engine, and see if they run for yourself. Just don’t sit on them endlessly waiting in case they magically hatch.

Image courtesy ieshraq on Flickr (CC Licence)

The best thing about all this is that it shows a percentage of my ideas are in the same ballpark as some successful businesses, or are in a ballpark deemed worth pursuing by others, which validates them by competition, if not success. Ideas aren’t a finite resource, and now, more than ever, I’m in a position where I’m able to choose the ones I believe are worth pursuing, and to let the others go. And without wanting to overdramatise, there’s something nice about knowing that if I miss an opportunity now, it’s because I’m in the middle of actively pursuing some others, whether it’s microniche publishing, or getting together with interesting digital people in the local area.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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