My $.02 on Antennagate. http://bit.ly/cazI0V #Powered by Twitter Tools
I recently pulled out an e-book that I first read back in 2008, when I started blogging regularly. It’s titled The Simple Web: A web philosophy for getting what you want, by Skellie. I find that it’s every bit as relevant now as when I first discovered it and I’m happy to be able to share it here. You may download it, with the author’s gracious permission, by clicking on the link above.
In a concise 27 pages, Skellie asks and answers the following question:
The Question
How can I get visitors, subscribers, comments, inbound links, and people saying good things about what I do?
The Answer
Evaluate every action, every possible change, and every existing feature of your blog or website, and ask: Is it gripping? Can the reader resonate with it? Does it make it easy (and rewarding) to interact? And most importantly: is it easy (or rewarding) to talk about? That’s all you need to know. Do these things, and you’ll get everything you want.
The remainder of the e-book is devoted to each of these four elements: Gripping, resonating, interacting and talking. Each section includes concrete suggestions for things to try on your website or blog and strategies for evaluating a site you may already have.
The Simple Web philosophy suggests that we simplify our websites by doing and adding things only if they help us to achieve our goals. Skellie suggests that we qualify every action or element of our sites as either +1 or -1. It either grips or distracts, resonates or bores, interacts or preaches, talks or is apathetic. There is little or no neutral ground.
The belief in zero, in certain things being neither one nor the other, and therefore acceptable, causes us to waste time and visitor attention on actions and elements that simply don’t contribute to the growth of your site.
Try evaluating your current site, or the one you are about to build, in this light and you may find it becoming much smaller, simpler and more effective.
Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Cross-posted on webdancers.com.
RT @danielday Tonight on ABC: “Silence of the Vuvuzelas.” #WorldCup #Powered by Twitter Tools
“My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind.” – Thomas Jefferson #Powered by Twitter Tools
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Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: American Originals
I was surprised when I looked back over previous posts here and found that I hadn’t written anything about the amazing duo of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. I first became aware of Gillian Welch with her duet of I’ll Fly Away (with Alison Krauss) in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou. I later saw her perform with David Rawlings at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, in San Francisco and I was thoroughly hooked.
While Gillian has been more in the foreground, David’s contribution as singer, producer and guitarist extraordinaire make the pair into an inseparable whole. Their music is often quiet and introspective but also displays a full range of emotions. I actually find this performance of Caleb Meyer to be frightening in its intensity.
A new project, The David Rawlings Machine, puts the musical emphasis on David’s voice and songwriting. In this short set for the NPR’s Tiny Desk series, Gillian and David perform 4 songs. The first, I’m on My Way Back to the Old Home by Bill Monroe, actually starts out as their sound-check but turns into a full and thrilling version of an old standard.
The sound geek in me notes that this session was recorded with a single microphone and the “mix” we hear is Gillian and David themselves drawing on more than 15 years of performing together. Note too that David’s instrument of choice is the 1935 Epiphone Odyssey arch-top that he plays in both of these clips.