I think I get what Emily Gould was talking about...

A blog is a soapbox of sorts for any writer.  Currently the crowd is flinging mud at me as I stand from said soapbox.

There are flames war going on in two of my posts on my personal blog from our class.  Apparently a lot of Lolitas hate my guts right now for not liking their clothing style.  Some were instructive and constructive, but most wrote things that most people would probably never say to my face:

only the japanese...


what not to wear

I find the last one on the "what not to wear" post especially vicious.  In a way I get what Emily Gould meant when she was advised not to read comments on her posts for Gawker.  If I take these comments to heart I'd be likely to believe that I am an intolerant, bitchy, uneducated dumbass who likes to attack those on the fringes of fashionable society for my own sick amusement.

The attacks on my research abilities did lead to me interviewing some Lolitas myself last week to compile into an "article-type" post that will look at their POV of the style, why they like it and how they got into it (a la Andrew Sullivan, I suppose).  The disheartening thing is the critics will probably not check my site again and discover the article when I do post it.

On the bright side my bounce rate has gone down significantly and my traffic has skyrocketed in the past two-three weeks. :)

And for the record, I still don't like this fashion style.

Future of the Magazine

Related to Anna's post, here's a cool demo of what magazines might/could work like on tablet devices:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/dec/18/berg-bonnier-magplus

Interesting article about Kindles, etc. replacing books

In case anyone is still reading this:


Page-Turning Passion

"This year is being touted as the year of the electronic book, but the gadget won't change people's passion for the printed page."

The Future of Journalism in One Word

I finished up my little project for this class. And thanks to all who helped out.

Here's what came of it:


In case you don't remember, the question was to describe the future of journalism in one word. I wouldn't mind some feedback if you have the time.

On a side note, I hope you all are surviving finals week.

How much does our need for speed transfer?

So I was looking (or at least trying to look) through GQ earlier and getting incredibly annoyed by the fact that I couldn't find the table of contents. I think it literally took me like a minute to flip back and forth through that odyssey of ads. (There are 36 pages of ads to search through before finally reaching the table of contents. I just counted.) I know a minute doesn't sound like much, but you're all of the same impatient, information-hungry generation as me, so you know how that seems like forever.

Then I remembered that post on kottke about Google's new, free, faster DNS service. Why are they putting out a free DNS service? Because apparently speed matters so much, that slowing down the amount of time it takes for the search page to load from .4 to .9 seconds caused a 20% drop in traffic. For half a second. That's nuts!

But it made me wonder if the same thing stands for magazines (pun not intended). When I'm waiting in the check-out counter, I browse the magazines, and if they look interesting, sometimes I buy one (though it has to look pretty good to justify $5--yes, I know that is a blasphemous thing to say in this class). I think if I were the type of person to browse GQ in the checkout line, and it took me that long to even find the table of contents, I would give up. If half the time I flip open the magazine, I get someone selling me $100 perfume (or cologne) instead of some actual content, I say to hell with it and start browsing the candy instead.

Just sayin.

Part of my final project

As part of my final project for this class, I could really use your help. I just needed you to send me with a one word response to describe the future of journalism. If you could do that, I would appreciate it. Your response will be made public, but it won't be associated with your name. E-mail your one-word responses to jayhuerbin AT gmail DOT com. So, yeah, just send me your feelings on the future of journalism. One word and we're good.

More great stuff from Clay Shirky

Remember that Clay Shirky piece we read earlier this semester about the future of newspapers?

Well, he was interviewed for an 8-minute segment about the future of journalism and what he thinks media might look like. The interview was done by Leonard Witt at Sustainable Journalism. You can visit the SJ site or my blog to watch the video. It's a really good video and Shirky is very well-spoken.