Friday reading #7

Here’s edition number seven of “Friday Reading” - a quiet week on this blog and, it seems from the limited links I’ve noticed this week, on the web as well. Still, go fill up your Kindle, Instapaper or Pocket app and enjoy these over the weekend...

Friday reading

“The Difference Between a Mediocre and a Great Website” - Ankesh Kothari, Copyblogger
“Ask a simple question to your blog readers. Ask them to nominate their favorite post on your blog published in the past 6 months. Based on their responses, narrow down the categories you write about.”
Read the full article

“Adaptive Content: Our primary platform is burning; Time to jump.” - R. Stephen Gracey, The Content Strategy Noob
“It’s time to admit that we’re powerless over technology and its users. We can never know enough about our users, their needs, or their devices—let alone how devices will have changed by next year—to teach our content how to adapt to them. Instead, we must build into the content solid information about its structure and meaning, so that we can allow others to make decisions about how it should look and behave.”
Read the full article

“The Silencing of Maya” - Dana Nieder, Uncommon Sense
“The fact that my daughter’s ability to speak is becoming a casualty of a patent battle between two businesses is beyond my comprehension.”
Read the full article

“And or neither nor: press and digital in 2012” - Ann Kempster, Random Musings
“Much of the discussion from press staff focussed on digital being an ‘extra’, and ‘on top of’ their day job. I just fundamentally don’t see it this way and I felt a lot of resistance from press officers on this. Its not one plus one. It’s more of a substitution/finding the right fit of channels. It’s not about extra/more work, its about appropriate channels. Journalists are on Twitter and they blog, they monitor, and listen. THEY are used to this, this is now an acceptable, expected way for them to communicate. So if a phone call is better, do that….if a flat press release is the right thing, do that. But it isn’t about column inches and coverage in the same way. Engage, discuss, question. Look for reach and impact.”
Read the full article

“Should long-division be the pinnacle of primary maths education?” - Conrad Wolfram
“Should placing long-division or learning your times tables really be portrayed as the pinnacle of achievement in maths at primary school? Worse still, why imply that those tedious procedures are what maths is primarily about? This is about the worst maths marketing you can do to prospective students--and in the long term to parents. And more than ever, it presents a broadening chasm between government's view of maths and the real-world subject.”
Read the full article

Things you might have missed...

By me on currybetdotnet this week:

• The not-so-hidden cost of publishing ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle
• My quick opinion of the Times Opinion on Tumblr
• So you think you want to be a UXer?
• Introducing... Emblem

And a reminder...

Forthcoming training and talks:

• 20 June - “Improve your blogging”, evening course, London
• 29 June - “Kindle publishing: How to get into the ebook market”, one-day course, London
• July 10 - “Is social media destroying journalism?”, evening panel session, London