Craig Mod’s follow-up to his excellent iPad essay.
With guest Derek Powazek.
Joe Clark, writing for A List Apart:
People are finally noticing what was staring them in the face all along—HTML is great for expressing words. The web is mostly about expressing words, and HTML works well for it. The same holds true for electronic books.
A storytelling game for two players by Jason Rohrer.
It’s not enough to ask readers not to block ads — you’ve got to work hard at providing ads that readers actually enjoy, or at least aren’t tempted to block.
Exactly.
Spolsky will update Joel on Software for the last time March 17.
Great stuff from the Inc. column:
In retrospect, Joel on Software was essentially a small, perfectly targeted magazine for programmers with a certain pragmatic philosophy toward software development. It was also free advertising for my company, but the advertising actually looked a lot more like editorial content than anything else; the most popular post I ever wrote, for example, was about how technology companies should never, ever rewrite their code from scratch.
Once I had built an audience among programmers, enough of them turned into customers that I was able to get my bootstrapped company off the ground.
Make your site an indispensable resource—something people care deeply about—and the community you’ve built will support you.
Good thread with many salient points.
Lovely essay by Craig Mod:
This is a conversation for books-makers, web-heads, content-creators, authors and designers. For people who love beautifully made things. And for the storytellers who are willing to take risks and want to consider the most appropriate shape and media for their yarns.
Frustrating piece by Ken Fisher:
My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love.
That point is perfectly valid, yes, but Fisher’s conclusion (So don’t block our ads if you care about us) is totally wrong-headed.
When someone blocks ads on your site, you can either moan and wail, as Fisher does here, or try to understand the behavior and learn from it. People use blockers because ads are often obnoxious and rarely useful; don’t blame the user for blocking such ads.
Sites shouldn’t try to cut the number of ad-blocking users by making sad-sack pleas, but by making the advertising better. Want people to see your ads? Make them as tasteful, useful and genuine as you can—give users no reason to block your ads. Do that, and all parties benefit.
What, after One Hundred Whole Interviews, have I learned about one of my primary crafts?