I can haz sponsor

You may have noticed there's a new pair of links off to the right side of this page just under the link for Change Congress. Look for "Sponsor:" and you'll find it. Hey, what's up with that? Well, here's the basics.

I was approached via e-mail by a marketing firm saying they had a client interested in sponsoring my site. For some reason I didn't immediately hit the delete key. This didn't seem to be a "we'll get you into the top results of Google" offer, and the company that was interesting in sponsoring this blog was actually library related. My response: "Ok. What's in it for me."

The gentleman at the other end offered $150 in exchange for the links you see for a period of six months. I thought about it for a day, did a little research on the sponsoring company and asked a large group of my online colleagues what they thought of the idea. With one exception the responses were "got for it." So, I did.

I insisted that I retain full editorial control and reserved the right to write this blog post about the experience. Once everything was finalized (which involved no signing of contracts, just some e-mail which I found refreshing) I received the money via PayPal and then put up the link. (Did you notice that I was paid first?) The ad is scheduled to run through 12 February 2009. At that point the relationship will be reevaluated.

What did I do with the money? I immediately blew it on a forthcoming Clive Barker limited edition, what else? ;-)

What is content?

Bill Drew posted a mini-rant on his blog yesterday titled "Blog posts with no content". In this short post he complained about those who create blog posts that had no narrative but that "contain only links to things they added in del.icio.us." His reasoning: "If it is important enough for you to post a link in your blog, then write a full post about the topic."

Sorry Bill, but as someone who does the thing you're complaining about (sort of) I respectively disagree. To explain the "sort of" I don't post my del.icio.us links as a blog post but if you subscribe to my blog's feed you will get one item per day that contains the items I bookmarked that day. Since most people read my blog as a feed, I believe this would count to Bill.

I post my bookmarks because people might be interested in what I'm currently researching, preparing for, or just looking into. On a day in which I have six new links to the Kindle, this would imply that I'm thinking about it. Recently I've been adding bookmarks for Web site dealing with Creative Commons. Not because I have something particular to say about it right now, but because I'll be presenting a full-session on the topic at CIL2008. Maybe I'm bookmarking sites in preparation for a blog post in the next few days.

In any case, I like seeing people's new bookmarks without having to get yet another feed from del.icio.us. It's something they're doing and so I like all that info in one place. Ultimately, I find a lot of cool new resources from such posts so it's worth my time to at least glance at them.

Now, as for reposting tweets on your blog, that's the one that bugs me. Mainly because if I read your blog chances are you're a Twitter friend too and I don't need to see those posts twice. More importantly a day full of Twitter posts as a blog post completely takes them out of context of the conversation at the time making them mostly unintelligible.

A brutal stabbing & user-generated content

It can't be said that our police chief, and blogger, here in Lincoln doesn't have a sense of humor. From the Lincoln Journal Star:

“There was a brutal stabbing last night,” Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady told reporters the next day.
Victim’s last name: Bob.
First name: Sponge.
Yes, he wears square pants.
And he’s yellow.

"Police had no word on the condition of the air-filled Christmas decoration, but they estimated damage caused by the stab wound at $20." The article adds that "luckily, the fallen SpongeBob SquarePants was rescued with some clear duct tape."

Beyond the obvious humor in this story I noticed something more serious and interesting at the end of the article.

Publishing opinions about the guilt, innocence or character of the accused in open criminal cases can affect that person's constitutional right to a fair trial. For that reason, JournalStar.com has chosen not to accept user comments on this story.

In other words, there are just some stories that the paper isn't going to let you comment on since those comments might influence a defendants right to a fair trial. Interesting. I've not seen this before but the again I don't read newspaper Web sites with much frequency. Is this common or is this the first time you've see this too?

Testing the Insert Amazon Link plugin

I poked around the Windows Live Write plugins and found a few more interesting ones. This one does an ISBN search in Amazon.com and inserts the book information, cover, and link (including your associates ID). Here's the plugin interface:

Here's the result:

Amazon.com: The First Quarter : A 25-year History of Video Games: Books: Steven L. Kent ISBN: 0970475500 ISBN-13: 9780970475503

The code is a tad messy as it includes some specialized MS code, and is a non-CSS table but it sure does make for easy insertion of this content. (From a validation standpoint, it is close. The only errors are no alt attribute on the cover image, an 'unselectable' atribute which MS seems to have made up, and the code itself is HTML, not XHTML (i.e. mostly missing the trailing slash on empty elements). This last one is only a problem since my blog is XHTML. I'll probably write to the author of the plugin asking for fixes in the next update.)

Huh?

I'm about to download and play with the latest beta of Microsoft's blog authoring software Windows Live Writer and I've noticed one of its "features": the ability to "Publish XHTML-Style markup" [emphasis added]. I'm sorry, but the code is either XHTML or it isn't. There's no such thing as XHTML-style or XHTML-like as far as I'm concerned. I'm still going to play with it but sometimes Microsoft, you make me wonder.

Cory Doctorow on how to write a great blog post

Addicted to blogging?

84%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
This one's Rosario's fault

On blogging and considering where you work

About a month ago I posted about the situation in Yutan, NE in which some boys broke into the library to view porn and how I felt the "solution" to the perceived problem totally missed the point. Yesterday a co-worked pointed me to an article from LibraryJournal.com about the story. It contained the following closing sentences:

"Library director Verna Milenkovich did not respond to phone calls or emails from LJ requesting comment. On his Travelin' Librarian blog, Michael Sauers, who works for the Nebraska Library Commission, suggested that the actual problem had not been addressed."

The link, of course, is to the afore mentioned blog post.

I've got some totally mixed feelings about this. Of course I'm glad that LJ linked to me. It shows that someone's reading this blog of mine and that, in some cases, what I have to say is worth passing along to others. And yes, I do work for the Nebraska Library Commission but yes, I wrote it on my own personal blog which does not represent the views of the Commission or the State of Nebraska. (How's that for working in a disclaimer without officially stating a disclaimer?)

But, and here's the core of the discussion I had with that same co-worker this morning, despite making it clear that I blogged about it personally and not officially, would LJ have linked to my post had I not been employed by the commission? I'm guessing the answer is no. It also, to some, may make it sound like I'm some sort of "most official response" they could find since the library itself hadn't responded. It's all about context.

Do I want LJ to change the post? No. Do I wish they had done something differently? I guess not. Am I worried folks at the Commission will be upset? No. My boss reads my blog so I'm sure if what I wrote was a problem I'd have heard it back then. It's all just making me think about how much my personal and professional lives overlap and what some of the potential consequences may be.

What's my blog rated?

I was just going to post the rating itself but when I read "why" I got that rating, I just had to share the whole page.

Edublogging

I'm currently giving a talk on Edublogging at Doan College here in Lincoln.

Hastings, NE

After a great Chinese buffet lunch with the directory of the Hastings College Library, I'm not now teaching Blogger.com to area librarians.

The Chief's Corner

The Lincoln, NE police chief has started a blog titled The Chief's Corner. There's only a few posts at this point but so far I'm very impressed. He's dealing with relevant local issues in an honest and human way. The post responding to recent newspaper editorials titled "That pesky Constitution" is definitely one to read.

Steampunk Star Wars

From the blog Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea, what if Star Wars had been done in the Steampunk SF Sub-genre? The descriptions are wonderfully written, but the artwork are totally spectacular.