Category: Web 2.0

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Note to self: when writing blog post titles, forget about SEO

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about innovative blog designs and solutions that are emerging everywhere. I think it's a great post, it offers a very detailed overview of new fascinating concepts and features that are driven by new ways we consume content. But right before publishing, I've decided to change the post's title from "Dissecting the innovative blogs..." to "UX analysis of the innovative blogs...". I did this because I wanted to include "user experience" and "analysis" in the blog's title and url for better SEO performance, but this turned out to be a huge mistake.

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written 10:23 CET on chronolog
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Reinventing the blog, part 1: Dissecting the most innovative and best-designed blogs

The blog is getting mature. Ever since Gawker did its eccentric redesign a few years ago, we've seen a lot of other blog (networks) doing similar things, trying to reinvent how the blog should look like in 2013. After the initial hiccup, Gawker managed to fortify its position and attract new users, showing others that people do like to see different things, things that are imitating the experience of reading electronic magazines on mobile devices. Today, there are many great cases of how a modern blog should feel, and since I'm thinking about doing something similar myself (it's been almost 4 years since I did this!), I decided to dissect a few of the most innovative ones, hoping to get a picture of what works and what not. Here are my picks of the most creative and best designed (mainstream) blogs on the Web, those that are standing out from the crowd and are unique in what they offer to their readers.

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written 16:23 CET on chronolog
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Dear Facebook, please stop trying to control my attention

Not that I'm threatening you or anything, I can assure you I won't be leaving you anytime soon. There is still too much inside you, for me to walk away. But the last few attention seeking features you've implemented are really pissing me off! I fully understand you are trying to get me to interact with others even more, but what you are doing will rather have the opposite affect. You have to find another way to get me involved, or the tab that you live in won't stay open for much longer.

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written 8:06 CET on chronolog
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I guess I'm a real blogger now

How glorious my previous week! My post about not stealing other people's ideas made it big time. It took me four years, but I finally managed to write something that was read by more than 10.000 different readers. Ok, there's still a long way to go before I'll reach Swizec's league, but I'm very happy about my evolution as a blogger. The amount of feedback I received this time was amazing, infinite comments on Hacker News and reddit, tweets from startup accelerators Wayra and HackFwd, there was a also a great post on Whiteboard that added an additional sixth reason to my original five. Great results. But what makes this post so important is the fact it's been amplified by all social media channels. Not a few, like my previous viral posts, but all of them. Which confirms I was spot on this time.

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written 9:28 CET on chronolog
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How Facebook and Twitter are messing up Slovenian journalism

Before I proceed with this rant, I would like to point out that I strongly believe in social media. I think it can do magical things, hell, we've already seen it has the potential to change the world. But that's just me, a person consuming information, deciding what's real and what not, riding those waves that I like. The media - they should try harder - it's their job to report the truth. In the past few weeks, we've encountered a few slips from the mainstream media here in Slovenia, feeding us with bogus information they've copied from the (social) web. I know it can be hard to track everything that's going on, but still, double-checking a few things and sources wouldn't hurt that much. And since Slovenia is in a quite critical stage at this point, with a fucked up financial situation, austerity measures, protests and everything, this makes it even more important for journalists to do their job properly.

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written 20:56 CET on chronolog
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Occupy Wall Street and Other "Revolutions" as the Ultimate Reality Shows [Repost]

This post was originally published in November 2011 in a special two part series transatlantic blog post about Occupy Wall Street, on Nick Taylor’s thetwohalves.com, which is no longer available.

The situation isn't peachy. The global economic system is collapsing, the middle class is disappearing, and financial institutions have taken control of the fate of many countries and corporations. People are frustrated and want something else, they want a predictable and stable future. Hence the global Occupy Wall Street movement has been born, supported by various public figures and activist groups such as The Anonymous. Fueled by the success of the Arab Spring, these people are demonstrating against the domination of the rich 1% (or the ultra rich 0.1%), hoping to achieve a better world built on equality, opportunity and optimism.

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written 13:11 CET on chronolog
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Sempl 14 key takeaways: top trends in (digital) marketing

The 14th media trends seminar Sempl took place last week in Portorož. This year, I had an opportunity to attend the conference, since Neolab provided the official Twitter wall. And I was glad I could, because Sempl proved itself as an event worth visiting, packed with high profile speakers and marketers not only from Slovenia, but from the entire region. Most lectures were very interesting, and the fascinating fact is that they all went into the same direction. It seems mobile, social and local are so mainstream, they are not even put into the spotlight anymore. But here are the things that were.

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written 8:35 CET on chronolog
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