Most Wikipedia users have a very strong objection to advertisement on the site, arguing:

1. Advertising is profane.
2. Advertising would compromise Wikipedia’s neutrality.

Mike Linksvayer makes the contrarian case, in favor of advertising on Wikipedia.

A common response to the first is that those who don’t like ads can run an ad blocker.

The second is completely unrealistic. How would third party text ads, e.g., via AdSense, compromise neutrality?

Read more.

Originally posted on January 4, 2007 @ 9:55 pm

Here are 6 ways you can improve your blog, courtesy of Lifehack:

1. Display your contact information prominently.
2. Make sure commenting is enabled and working.
3. Write in a manner that is clear and easy to read for your audience
4. Use tags to categorize your content.
5. Link to the outside sources you are writing about.
6. Keep your content creative, entertaining, and vibrant.

In its current state, 901am is following numbers 2, 3, 5, and 6.

While contact information is not displayed prominently, you can click the author names to go to their respective websites and contact them through there. Conversely, you can contact Dave by clicking contact at the top of the site. You can also use the following:

http://901am.com/author/authorname

to access all the articles written by that author. For example, to access all the articles written by me, simply navigate to:

http://901am.com/author/msaleem

As far as number 4 is concerned, while content is not categorized by tags, 901am has 4 categories, editorials, features, newswire, and an ongoing New Media 100. Articles in these categories are accessible from the navigation bar at the top of the site, or the list in the right margin.

Learn more.

Originally posted on January 2, 2007 @ 1:55 pm

There was a time when you would wake up, make yourself a cup of coffee (or tea) and read the newspaper while you had breakfast, before driving off to work.

With the rise of the mobile internet and alternative ways to retrieve content, those days are no more. You can check the news on your laptop, sync it to your ipod to read it on the go, and receive breaking news alerts on your cell phone. In essence, you can stay up to date, without ever having to open a newspaper.

Papers that have failed or are struggling to make the leap to online version are increasingly finding themselves in hot water.

The Star Tribune, a newspaper that found itself in reduced circumstances and sold at a reduced price to a private equity group.

The New York Times has more.

Originally posted on January 2, 2007 @ 1:28 pm

It seems that nowadays, every site that publishes content but is not endorsed or owned by a major mainstream media outlet is called a blog.

The Inquirer is taking this as a personal affront and has taken it upon itself to teach people more about blogs and blogging.

Let’s start with a definition, a blog is short for a web log, that is someone writing about their personal experiences, sometimes on a specific topic, sometimes not. Some are formatted in the classic blog way with text down the middle, others not. It all has one thing in common, it is a personal log of a single person’s experiences.

On the other hand if there is more than one person writing for a site, and if they are getting paid, it isn’t a blog.

Originally posted on December 28, 2006 @ 7:48 am