All aboard the atheist bus campaign (Comment is free): In the UK, this Guardian blog devised and launched a bus-ad campaign promoting atheism: “Religious organizations’ jobs are made easier because there’s no publicly visible counter-view to refute their threats of eternal damnation. The atheist bus campaign aims to change this. In addition to the slogan, the adverts will feature the URLs of secular, humanist and atheist sites, so that readers can find out more about atheism as a positive and liberating alternative to religion. We’ve also set up an interactive campaign site and Facebook group, so that questions raised by the adverts can be publicly debated.”
Energy & Environment Experts Blog (National Journal): Launched this week, this group weblog from the National Journal features a diverse group of accomplished experts on energy and environmental issues. It’s got a couple of glitches, though. First, the actual content (expert opinions) is published only in the comments, creating search visibility problems. Second, there’s no way for readers to comment — which makes the project less engaging. Still, it’s a start, and it’s worth checking out. It’ll be interesting to see how National Journal’s strategy on this project evolves. They could probably learn some useful lessons from how Newsweek runs its On Faith blog.
Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says (Mathew Ingram): This journalist’s post counters a controversial trends story from Wired Magazine. Ingram writes: “Is everyone going to have a blog? No — and they never were. Facebook and Twitter are probably enough for many people. Not writing at all is enough for many people. But why does it have to be all or nothing? What we have now is the option to micro-blog (i.e., Twitter) some thoughts, post others to Facebook, share things on FriendFeed or through Google Reader, and blog things that take longer to think through. But I guess that’s not as catchy as a ‘blogs are dead, Twitter killed them’ scenario.”
Your content is not rotisserie chicken (Editor on the Verge): “Too many online staffs treat their sites like the Showtime Rotisserie Oven. They, say it with me, ‘Set it and Forget it.’ Enamored with automation, they design sites that is chock full of headline pulls, RSS feeds and automated dayparting, Flash galleries, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe, but the problem I have is that all the automation becomes an excuse to not deal with their site unless there is a problem or special project.”
Why online advertising sucks, and is a bubble (Doc Searls): “It isn’t advertising itself. It’s the way it’s too often done. I almost never click on an ad, for three reasons. First is that I almost never find what I’m looking for. Second is that I don’t want to waste the advertiser’s money on a bad click-through. Third is that I’m tired of looking at so much waste of pixels, rods, cones, cycles and patience.”
