...one more thing

Steve Jobs omitted his traditional "one more thing" announcement at the end of the Macworld keynote this year. So I thought I'd borrow the technique. (He hasn't patented it yet, has he?)

I'll end my Macworld coverage by calling the attention of those of you involved in branding and creating product identities to this article from CNET News.com. Writer Tom Krazit does a superb job of exploring the legal issues surrounding the Cisco suit against Apple over the iPhone name. Apparently there are several possible arguments Apple could take to defend itself against Cisco's charge of trademark infringement. My favorite is "reverse confusion," which turns out to be pure, classic, Jobs.

I came away from this informative and amusing article with new-found respect -- not for the legal profession, but for its creativity.

Notes on Macworld 2007

The effect of the iPhone announcement on the Macworld gathering was intriguing. I believe it was the first time Steve Jobs had announced something you couldn't go out and buy, or at least pre-order, at the show. And only a very few of the pundits, such as Glenn Fleishman and David Pogue, actually got their hands on what, pre-FCC, is best describe as the "working prototype" of the device.

Since no one could buy one, and almost no one had used one, people were reduced to photographing the two iPhones displayed in glass bell jars (like the Hope Diamond), or, as most of us did, going about regular Macworld business.

It took me a full three days to "do" the exhibit halls. Midway through I was invited to be part of the Take Control authors/editors panel on the Macworld magazine stage. Each panelist was asked to comment on show news related to our particular areas of expertise. Fortunately, I'd just picked up a demo of Storyist, new novelwriting software developed by an ex-Apple guy who writes thrillers, so I spoke about that.

For the past few months I've been using some nicely thought-out but rather buggy novelwriting shareware. I was excited to see that Storyist has many of the features I like (searchable and organizable lists of characters, settings and other elements) with a cleaner, more OSX-like interface. The cost for real software with more power under the hood? $59.

It was a little odd pitching novelwriting software to a sea of geeks, but a dozen or more faces in the audience lit up and people began calling out requests for the Storyist booth number so they could rush over and check it out for themselves.

So my first foray into Macworld punditry was successful. The following day I came across another writing-related product I wish I could have talked about. So I'll pass along that tip here:

Blurb.com is a self-publishing site that's been around for a while and seems now to have gotten its act together. It provides easy-to-use online software that allows you to turn blogs, manuscripts, photo collections, cookbooks, and more into attractive softcover and hardcover books (starting at $18 for a 40-page soft-cover "trade" paperback). The software interface is similar to that in iPhoto for ordering print books, which I've used successfully for years. The final products I saw at the show were high quality and quite stunning. I asked which blog apps you can import from using their "blog slurper," feature and they said TypePad, WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal. (Note that their website says the Blogger and LiveJournal support is "coming in 2007." Hmmm.)

Apple announces a new era

"Go to where the puck is going, not where it has been." -- Wayne Gretzky

Steve Jobs ended his keynote this morning with that quote, but I'll start with it because it pretty much sums up the news from Apple.

Jobs announced a new phone, a new iPod, and a new internet device. They're all the same product -- the Apple iPhone.

Is it as revolutionary as he claims? In a word, yes. I'll refer you to apple.com or one of the Mac news sites for more information.

In my favorite part of the demo, Jobs was listening to music on the iPhone in iPod mode (he also could have been watching a movie on the 3.5" screen -- which automatically switches between portrait and landscape mode depending on how you hold the device) when a phone call came in. The iPhone automatically turned off the music (faded it out tastefully, of course) and gave him a choice with on-screen touch buttons of declining or accepting the call.

He answered the call, and the caller asked him for a photo, which he located in the phone's iPhoto (did I mention the phone is running OSX? Yeah, really) and then he emailed it to the caller using an address in his Contacts (synced from his address book). He typed the message with a Qwerty keyboard that appears when you need it for email, search, or chat. With the caller still on the line, Jobs moved into internet mode (Safari is part of the iPhone software), went to his Fandango bookmark, and looked up local movie offerings.

After relaying the information to the caller, he touched the pulsing button that indictates an active call and ended the conversation. When he hung up, the song (remember the song?) faded back up.

Jobs then used Google Maps (part of the iPhone software) to locate the nearest Starbucks. He called and ordered 4,000 lattes, to go. "Sorry, wrong number," he said as he ended the call with an astonished Starbucks employee.

Four other mind-boggling iPhone features:

• The screen covers the entire device, bringing up an on-screen keyboard only when you need it for email or text messaging (the text message interface has colored balloons, like iChat).


• All scrolling is done with your finger. A pinching movement (also tapping in Safari) increases the size of the screen image.


• iPhone (developed in conjunction with Cingular Wireless) offers controlled access to voicemail messages. You see a list of the messages showing numbers (and, if available) the names of the callers. This means you can go right to the message you want instead of listening to a lot of blather. (I have to say, for me, that's the "killer app.")


• If you have two calls on the phone, the phone presents you with a merge button (looks like a traffic merge sign) you can tap to create a conference call. This simple solution to a perennial phone nightmare of conferencing got gasps and applause from the crowd.

"You know, I didn't sleep a wink last night," Jobs said, as he ended the demo. "I was so excited about today."

Jobs had opened the presentation by saying the new product would rank with the 1984 intro of the Mac and the 2001 intro of the iPod. I have to say I agree. And, as a former member of the iTunes Music Store team, I feel truly retired now. The era of the iPod is over. The era of the iPhone has begun.

Web content, and search engines, and plagiarism

An ad for a web content writer on Craig's List in Seattle includes the following:

"You may rewrite existing articles you find online, but I want to avoid duplicate content penalties from search engines so no plagiarism."

How about "We want to avoid losing a huge lawsuit, so no plagiarism?"

Apparently some company is willing to put its business on the line by hiring writers who usually plagiarize, but need to be told they should refrain from it on this project because it hurts search rankings. The mind boggles and the stomach turns.

This confirms for me what had merely been a suspicion -- that plagiarism is rampant in commercial online web content. My suspicions came from my own experience with a high-end client (who will remain nameless). The client had a staff of very inexperienced content producers who blithely plagiarized from other websites. When I was called in to edit on the project, I had no idea this stuff was going live on a daily basis. I finally spotted the plagiarization when one of the writers grabbed whole paragraphs, verbatim, from a by-lined article in a national magazine. The borrowed text stood out from the usual marketing copy because it was balanced and articulate rather than one-sided and hyperbolic. I ran a few of the sentences through Google and my jaw dropped, as the publication they'd ripped off is notoriously litigious.

After that revelation, I scrutinized their writing closely and found myself flagging plagiarized copy at least once a week and insisting it be removed. This resulted in much eye-rolling from the producers, who clearly considered me to be an ancient fogey with all sorts of outdated ethical hangups. I'm sure when I left the project they went right back to borrowing other people's work and publishing it on their employer's site.

For more on the thriving business of online plagiarism, see Plagiarism Today. And, to protect your own commercial website, make your position on plagiarism clear to any writers you are considering hiring. Putting a phrase like "original content" into the description of deliverables in the contract might not be a bad idea, either.

Is there money in blogging?

Yes and no.

J. LeRoy explains the "no" part of the answer perfectly in this post. He says "Monetizing your blog is like going to a cocktail party and expecting people to pay to talk with you. It's inappropriate and will cause people to avoid you."

Personal blogs, even when written in your professional persona, aren't supposed to make money. Certainly, they create opportunities for professional networking and marketing that may very well lead to contracts, jobs, and collaborative projects. But it's bad manners to try to push a sale or close a deal at the online cocktail party.

The "yes" answer to "Is there money in blogging?" comes when you are blogging on behalf of a client company. Small, fast-paced companies that do much of their business online find that fresh web content, appropriately keyworded, puts their pages higher in search engine rankings and thus draws traffic to their sites. They pay professional marketing writers like me to reseach and then blog about issues that interest their audiences -- just as they pay ad agencies to create their ads and PR agencies to handle their press releases.

Stretches for your mind

Before I write, I often see shapes, images, and structures -- essentially three-dimensional, color outlines that serve as the bones over which I drape sentences and paragraphs.

Not unexpectedly, I'm a fan of the Visual Thesaurus. Go ahead, give it a try, or take the tour. There's also a Visual Thesaurus blog I feel I have to mention...since the Jan. 3 post was kind enough to mention Writer Way.

Share the suspense

Tonight I applied to do a fascinating freelance project that is very much like the writing project (also billed as freelance) that got my foot in the door at Apple some years back.

There was an interactive online application that required referring to some third-party websites. And, wouldn't you know, one of the third-party sites crashed my Safari browser, trashing everything I'd written thus far in the online application.

Grrr.

I took a deep breath, re-launched Safari, and started over on the application. This time I was careful to launch the third-party sites in Firefox.

I should know if I've gotten the project work in a week or two, so...stay tuned. As they say on Catster.com, "send purrs my way."

Really, they say that. Talk about cute overload.

[Addendum, Jan. 6: Well, some of you must have purred. Thank you! I got the gig. However, I won't be blogging about it until the work is completed, sometime in mid-February.]

Writing as a business: Measuring results

Every successful organization I've been involved with was committed to benchmarking and measurement -- and had the kind of leadership that wasn't afraid to make numbers a key factor in deciding which projects to continue and which projects to revamp or scrap.

Hugo Award-winning science fiction writer David Levine shows how a professional writer can take a fearless look at his or her year-end numbers.

I don't know if I have the courage to make my numbers public, but, following David's lead, I'll be tallying up my 2006 results for fiction, client blogging and websites, and personal blogs.