Resource for Online Publishing

Many thanks to Michael Brady for this particular resource: a website that will be enormously helpful for those of you who are thinking of true self-publication—that is, designing your own book—or who want to publish online. Thinking of starting your own literary journal? This is the place for it!

The site, Smashing Magazine, includes links to many good, new, free fonts, to CSS and WorldPress templates, to web usage surveys, and more.

It includes free fonts, tips on web usability, links to really useful articles on other sites (from pitfalls in using stock photography to icon use to emerging techniques for web designers, to … even more free fonts.

The site looks like a blog, but don’t let that put you off: the blog posts are from members of the Smashing Magazine network and connect to even more interesting sites, where you can lose a lot of time … but learn a great deal in the process as well. The articles are extremely useful and updated daily, so check back often. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The Internet Archive

I keep thinking I know my way around the Net, but this one was new to me:

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

I’ve just begun to explore it, but it seems to be a grand resource for writers … Here’s more about it:

Libraries exist to preserve society’s cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it’s essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world.

Many early movies were recycled to recover the silver in the film. The Library of Alexandria – an ancient center of learning containing a copy of every book in the world – was eventually burned to the ground. Even now, at the turn of the 21st century, no comprehensive archives of television or radio programs exist.

But without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. And paradoxically, with the explosion of the Internet, we live in what Danny Hillis has referred to as our “digital dark age.”

The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet – a new medium with major historical significance – and other “born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.

Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages.

The Internet Archive is opening its collections to researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive has no vested interest in the discoveries of the users of its collections, nor is it a grant-making organization.

At present, the size of our Web collection is such that using it requires programming skills. However, we are hopeful about the development of tools and methods that will give the general public easy and meaningful access to our collective history. In addition to developing our own collections, we are working to promote the formation of other Internet libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

As both a writer and historian, I’m very much in favor of the Internet Archive’s mission, particularly this statement: “without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures.” We can all benefit from these cultural artifacts, whether to learn from them, write about them, or be enlightened by them. Visit the archives soon, and often, at archive.org. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

New Tool: Readability

So I follow techie news, and—like many others—often use David Pogue’s words for guidance on new apps, products, etc.

So what’s his take on the best of 2009? Here it is, in a NYT article:

I’ve installed Readability (yes, you can do the trick he advises with Safari, too) and am not quite as enamoured of it as he is, but that may be because I need to play with my settings some more, and it’s still well worth a try. Internet and computer tools are just that … tools, somthing meant to make your life and work easier. If Readability does that, good. If it doesn’t, move on. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Watch that Logo!

I’ve always enjoyed Google’s cartoon-like logos, often commemorating occasions I had no idea existed. That cartoon-around-the-logo actually has a name (but what else would we expect from Google?), the Google Doodle, and here’s a brief history of the Doodle from MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan.

Remember that if you installed a Google toolbar on your browser and use it for search, you’re missing out on the Google Doodles altogether! So make it a point to visit the landing page from time to time. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Social Media Sites for Everyone

Now that we’ve looked at some social networking sites/communities specifically for writers and readers, let’s take a step back and look at some of the most popular “standard” communities and sites. Here’s where you can meet up with people who aren’t necessarily in your word niche.

• Possibly my favorite current site is Stumble Upon. You download a toolbar to your browser and indicate your areas of interest (art, literature, sports, games, etc.), and then simply click the icon to be taken to a site that falls into one of those categories. Don’t like it? Click again. I’ve found amazing information that way. You can also rate sites that you find so that others can stumble upon them, too.
• Okay, can’t have a list without the requisite reference to MySpace, the first and still most famous of social networking sites. It provides blogs, instant messaging, updates on friends, and forums. It’s being used in a lot of interesting ways—through the use of multimedia, for example, bands can get their music out to the world. There’s a lot of noise there but it remains a rich and interesting environment.
• And right behind MySpace (though not necessarily in popularity) is Facebook, which started as a way to connect with classmates and is now a place to connect with the world. From the website: “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.”
• Don’t have time to put together a website? Put together a “lens” instead at Squidoo! Find information, share information on a myriad of topics through the overview pages it calls lenses.
• AOL’s Bebo is a general social networking site that offers a “social inbox” (organizes your web-based email and adds media recommendations), a “lifestream platform” (updates from your friends in other social networking communities), and a “lifestory” (that “provides you with an interactive display of life events in chronological order in an intuitive and easy to use timeline. Lifestories are made up photos, videos, stories and special events that you want to record or schedule”).
• Second Life is a visual community — in many way, a second life. It’s a hard landing (you need to create an avatar, clothe him/her/it, learn to get around, etc.) but well worth the effort. I co-authored one of the chapters in Wiley’s second edition of the Official Guide to Second Life so obviously am very much at home there. Think video games without the game part.
• Google’s Orkut is accessible with a Google account and, while it seems to be another general social networking site, does not offer the promised demographics (or at least that link is broken) and shows testimonials only from those who have used it for romantic connections. However, your mileage may vary: give it a try!
• Twitter is the site that has the news media all a-twitter; it restricts messages to short bursts or “tweets.” Takes a while to get to really understand its uses, but a lot of people swear by it. Find me there at JCez.

Specialized Sites

A couple of specialized sites that are worth a look if they apply to you:

• The PLAN Institute’s Tyze is a site providing personal communities for caregivers of chronically and/or terminally ill individuals.
• Match.com is the grande dame of dating/relationship sites and offers something for everyone: gay matches, Jewish matches, African American matches, senior matches. To my mind it’s the best of such sites as it operates without the hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda of some of the online dating communities.
• Care 2 is a cause-related community site: healthy green living, human rights, and snimal welfare.

Is that it? Hardly: I’ve just begun to scratch the surface here. But these are some communities you might want to explore if you’re new to social networking. The idea, of course, is to really try them out—a quick tour of the “about” page won’t tell you much, but getting to know people in each of these places will.
Want more? Here are a few you can check out:

• YouTube — Just about any video you’d care to see (or create!) is here
• flickr — A place for your pictures online
• metacafe.com — despite its name, not a Sartrian place for philosophical discourse, but rather videos and music
• technorati — a search engine for the blogosphere
• blogcatalog.com — find a blog
• propeller.com — yet another AOL site
• kaboodle.com — “shopping is more fun with friends”
• i-am-bored.com — sites to explore when you are — wait for it — bored
• reddit.com — what’s new online
• slashdot.org — news for nerds, a very smart and often funny community
• blinklist.com — a way to save and share website addresses
• smallbusinessbrief.com — Internet marketing and business news

And these are just a sampling of what is out there. New communities are forming daily, old ones morphing … the only thing you can say with any certainty about the Internet is that it’s constantly changing. But don’t be intimidated by the numbers; you don’t have to participate in everything! It’s like Real Life: find a place you like to hang out with people whose company you enjoy and go for it.

Mostly, have fun. That is, after all, what it’s supposed to be about. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!