Still Trying to Figure Out Twitter?

Twitter has been a hot topic at a number of parties I've been at recently. My peers (the 50 - 70 year old crowd) are a tolerant group, but many shake their heads when it comes to Twitter, perplexed about what the big deal could be. ("who wants to communicate all the time," is a common question.)

I confess, I haven't found a way to work it into my routine much -- I'm still working on learning to blog regularly. Who knows, by the time I get that down, we may have moved on to something else.

Nevertheless, here is a great article in the Wall Street Journal that shows exactly how Twitter works, if you work it.

Oh the Woes of Bloggers

I found this humorous post on one of my favorite sites, gawker.com, about a Wall Street Journal story reporting on new blogger woes. Apparently, the unemployed are invading blogger home turfs: coffee shops with free wi-fi access. As Gawker eloquently puts it:

...places that used to be exclusively blogger wi-fi campgrounds have been infiltrated by the unemployed who are too poor to afford wi-fi in their apartments, so they have to go to coffee shops for internet access to look for jobs...

Luckily, I get to blog from my office. Internet access included.

(image via gawker.com)

Another One Bites the Dust

One more publication, The Printed Blog, closed up shop this week. This new kind of newprint publication--which compiled posts from local blogs in a printed format-- was, in my opinion, a novel idea. But due to lack of outside investment capital, The Printed Blog folded. And alas, bloggers will continue to find their audiences online, and not in newsprint.

Ten great Great Lakes restoration blogs

The Great Lakes are in trouble - the danger from toxic pollutants, contaminated sediment, and aquatic invasive species is growing every worse and more expensive to deal with every day. The economic and and environmental health of communities in the region are threatened if steps aren't taken to restore and protect them.

Fortunately the effort to restore the Lakes is gaining momentum. The Great Lakes Compact, a law restricting diversions outside the watershed, was passed last year by state and federal legislators last year. Also, after years of underfunding by the Bush Administration, Great Lakes programs got a boost in President Obama's FY2010 Budget to the tune of $475M, which now must be appropriated by Congressional committees.

So how can Great Lakes lovers - boaters, birdwatchers, paddlers, fisherpeople, photographers, hikers, and beach bums alike - stay up to date on ongoing efforts to restore the Great Lakes and ways to help keep up the momentum? Subscribe to or bookmark these ten Great Lakes restoration blogs listed after the jump.





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1) Great Lakes Town Hall: The Biodiversity Project runs this website that serves as sort of like a Daily Kos or Huffington Post for Great Lakes topics - folks from around the region blog and comment about Lakes ecological and political issues in a moderated space. There are good thoughts aired here from a variety of interests and personalities.

2) Great Lakes Echo: This is a project of Michigan State University's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism gathering original journalism about environmental issues in the Great Lakes region. They post good articles about about the science and big picture implications of problems and proposed solutions.

3) Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives: This is the blog of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, with whom VDC works through a Joyce Foundation grant. The Coalition is focused on making sure federal funding of comprehensive restoration finds its way from DC to the Great Lakes watershed. Read this if you want to be up to date on the politics and implications of Great Lakes restoration - it also has updates and advice about contacting your representatives in Congress about supporting bills and funding.

4) Great Lakes Blogger: Dave Dempsy is and one of the most prolific Lakes writers around. He's written award-winning conservation books and is now Communications Director for Conservation Minnesota. His blog is a great read to get an opinionated and informed take on Great Lakes restoration news.

5) The Political Environment: James Rowen's blog keeps a close eye on water issues, especially in Southeast Wisconsin. He posts good links and informed takes on environmental debates in the area and the wider region.

6) Great Lakes Law: Noah Hall teaches at Wayne State University Law School and University of Michigan Law School and is also the founder and Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. His blog looks at water and Great Lakes issues from a legal perspective- great stuff for folks looking to get into the legal details on restoration efforts.

7) Great Lakes For All: Steven Huyser-Honig is a photographer and lighthouse enthusiast who keeps up with Lakes news at this blog and posts photographs at his other blog, Beauty Worth Preserving. He's a good one to keep up with to remember why all the effort is needed to protect the Lakes.

8) Great Lakes Guy: Andy Guy is a thinker on how to make "Rust Belt" economies more sustainable and robust, and he considers restoration an important component. His blog has good links and thoughts, but these days he's more active on Twitter as @GreatLakesGuy.

9) Black Bear Speaks: Jerome Alicki keeps up with environmental news throughout the region, with a special focus on Western Michigan.

10) Great Lakes Boating: These guys post news and opinions about restoration from the point of view of the boating community, a major proponent of Great Lakes restoration. Their blogs are a good source of news for anyone who has fun on the Lakes and wants to keep them toxin- and invasive-free.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Attracting web readers with smart titles and headlines

Communications folks moving from brochures and press releases to blog posts and tweets need to consider key differences between writing static printed content and dynamic web content. SEO, RSS, metatags and other web doodads might take a while to internalize, but one thing social media newbies (or n00bs, in the parlance of our times) can optimize right off the bat are titles. Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits blog pointed out a good list of things BBC web editors do well with their headlines - these are also good for communicators to consider when titling a blog post or other piece of information:

• Keep it short so that it can be read quickly and fit into aggregators and social media tools.
  
• Clearly summarize your item and make it understandable out of context - most folks will come across your item in an aggregator, social media site, search, feed, widget, or some other way - don't get so artsy or clever that a person seeing the title alone won't know what the heck it is.
  
• Front-load the title with the most important keywords, since most people when reading lists of titles just scan the first couple words. This also helps Google and other search engines find you.
  
• It should be predictable. Make sure those who click on your title get what they were told they would and are not disappointed when they come to your content.

For example, I wanted to title this post "Crafting a crafty title can make your content fly into the world wide web like a majestic eagle, or magical fairy," but I didn't. With this shorter and more explicit title, you can share this post on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. (just click on "SHARE THIS" below) and your friends, pseudo-acquaintances and other readers will know what it is about and if they want to click.

Remember: if you do things right on the web, your content is not only sitting on your website or blog waiting for people to find it - it's showing up in searches and Facebook feeds and aggregators and sharing sites. A thoughtful web-optimized title makes a big difference in who and how many engage with your message in the pixelated world.

Blogger Breaks Waterboarding Torture Story

If anyone has any lingering suspicion that blogs are taking over the world of journalism, consider this.

It was a blogger who uncovered this week's top story that the CIA used waterboarding more than 266 times on two Al-Queda suspects.

Marcy Wheeler from emptywheel.com discovered that atrocious figure had not been redacted from the memos released by the U.S. Justice Department late last week.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

MacArthur Justice Center Attorney Joe Margulies is working to secure the release of Abu Zubaida who endured waterboarding 83 times based on suspicions the government has tacitly conceded were misinformed.

Dual Monitors With Two Different Wallpapers

Two computer monitors are better than one. Much better. I use a dual monitor setup in my office at VDC and I absolutely love it. Having dual monitors makes it so much easier to work. They are fantastic!

Like many of you, I try to change my desktop wallpaper on a regular basis. It's like a change of scenery without leaving office. I wanted to see if there was a way to have a different picture on each monitor, because Windows only allows you to put one image on both screens. Well luckily for me, I came across a program that allowed me to do just that. It is called DisplayFusion and can be downloaded here. It's quick to download and easy to use. I downloaded the free version of the program and I was able to create some magic. See for yourself - the picture above is my actual desktop.

The DisplayFusion program allows you to do some pretty cool things with your desktop. The premium version obviously has alot more features. However, the regular version was just what I was looking for. It allowed me to customize my desktop just the way I wanted it.

Lastly - the pictures on my desktop are from this fantastic new blog I came across a few weeks ago. It's called The Windy Pixel. Their blog posts show some amazing Chicago photography and their contributors are extremely talented. If you like Chicago photography (or just photograpy or Chicago in general) I highly recommend you take a look.

(Photo taken by PSK, screen images from www.thewindypixel.com)