Day 2 – Wild Web Wrestling Monday, Mar 13 2006 

Using web standards helps make your site more accessible. Consequently, it also helps search engines find your content because that content is also open to THEM.

There are many tips & techniques I won’t get into. I did get some ideas for our sites and how I’ll be constructing them in the future.

Day 2 – Ubiquitous Computing Monday, Mar 13 2006 

Ubiquitous computing discussion was interesting. Many points on ethics, standards, and what it could mean for all of us in the future.

Day 2 – Keynote Monday, Mar 13 2006 

Two different takes on blogging & what’s effective. Do you have a subscription model, or ad model? Do you get personal in your posts, or keep a distance.

Obviously, different things work for different people, but a couple of things seemed to work for both of them.

  1. Having both long and short posts. The long posts got folks in the door, while the short posts kept them there.
  2. Posting frequently, as frequently as every day, can have a positive affect on your traffic. People go when they know there will be something new to read. Nothing new? No visitors.

Henry Rollins interview — memorable quotes Monday, Mar 13 2006 

Hollywood is giving us more fodder that insults our intelligence than ever.

I don’t want IFC to turn into MTV or any other variety station.

To not talk about the evils of the Bush adminstration [would be boring].

[Would like to] kick Rumsfield in the nuts.

When everything’s going well, you’ve got stuff [music] like techno. “Oh, that’s really nice.”

If music could change the world, Dylan & Marley would’ve already done it. If it could’ve, it would’ve. What changes things is people voting. If music can encourage that, that’s great.

The truth is always hung up in litigation.

If there are media people here, I wish you’d get a backbone & fight some of these motherfuckers already.

I want to hear things from the guy who’s blowing the ink dry on the thing that’s screwing me.

I think any American who can afford it (charity) should.

I’ve held up all kinds of shit [to sell it].

In my p-funk Ramones block party, we wouldn’t need a miliatry.

All these people breed (in the miliatry).

They’re not out there saying “I fuckin’ wanna kill shit.” They’re saying, I have a job & I want to do my job & go home to them.

Don’t shoot at a 20 year old guy who’s armed to the teeth.

On using anger in his music — The girl left me, that’s the Bside.
I want you to leave, I need more material.

You’d have white supremecist seig heiling you & surprised they didn’t like it.

To be an American and not be angry on a certain level means you’re sleeping on the job.

If you truly wanted to leave no child behind, no child would be left behind.

We’re having a nationwide sit-in and the Ramones are going to play.

[People have asked him] Hey man, it’d be an honor if you hit me. WHAT?!

If you do what you truly do, don’t expect to sail on Lake Placid.

It’s lazy to randomly hate someone.

I hate Ann Coulter ’cause i’ve read her stuff. As much as i’d like to spank that ass.

Jackass of all tyrants. I”m the Jethro Bodeen of all interviews “I can keep this!?!”

I never had the big record or the big anything, but I’ve got the big mouth.

Day 2 – Us and Them Sunday, Mar 12 2006 

Like a lot of these posts, we’ve got a lot of thinking to do. If we, and by that I mean any of our magazines or products, are going to start blogging, we need to make some decisions.

Why are we blogging? Are we blogging just because we think we should, or are we truly trying to engage with our readers. If we’re trying to engage, how much engagement do we want? Do we want unfettered comments? Do we want no comments at all? Who is going to moderate things? The author? Me?

The main focus was the idea of civility. That we have to always try & be civil with each other, even if we disagree. Civility will come about with care & attention to the blog.

We also have to think about what we care about more, the cause, which in our case is selling our magazine, or the conversation. That decision will help us make some of our choices.

One thing we haven’t been very focused on is our web sites. If we want to enter into this realm of conversation, we’ll need to spend more time.

Day 2 – How/why to do a podCast Sunday, Mar 12 2006 

There are many issues one should think about before podcasting. While this session focused mostly on events, there were quite a few things I got out of this.

First off, I hadn’t really thought about the technical concerns of podcasting — the fact that you know, you really, really want good audio quality if you’re going to be podcasting. I haven’t heard any of the recordings of our interviews, but I’ve got a feeling the audio quality may not be the highest.

Should that stop us from podcasting? Not necessarily. But it’s something we should think about as a company if we DO want to start podcasting. It might be extremely helpful for us to enlist the help of an audio engineer to give us a better way to record our interviews.

Then there’s the issue of bandwidth & storage space for audio files. It takes a lot to store & serve audio effectively. We should be looking at other areas of the company & how they’re podcasting.

Definitely a lot to think about.

Day 2 begins Sunday, Mar 12 2006 

Today I started off by Getting Fit with Gilad! Ok, so actually it was an on-demand version of his earlier show. When I discovered that it had been filmed in 1990, it explained so much — the hair, the women wearing body-colored leggings.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gilad, he looks like a really buff Tony Shaloub. With an Israeli accent. He completely lost his cool at one point in the workout, which was entertaining.

There’s a reason I generally don’t do aerobics — I can’t follow along to some of the moves to save my life. I usually figure it out by the end of a segment, but until that time, I’m flailing around trying to figure out which arm they’re tossing around with which leg. Oh well.

Today’s plan — How/Why to podCast an Event, Us and Them, the Henry Rollins interview, the Keynote, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Wild Web Wrestling: Standardzilla vs. Tabelella and finally the Web Design Awards Ceremony.

It’s going to be a full day.