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saved by30 people, first byGary Gertz on 2008-06-14, last byClint Hamada on 2008-08-11

  • If you want to beat the Internet, you're not going to do it by blogging (since even OK thinkers occasionally write a great blog post) but by offering a comprehensive take on a subject (thus saving the reader time from searching many sites) and supplying original thinking (offering trusted insight that cannot be easily duplicated by the nonexpert

    • You're probably going to read this.

      It's a short paragraph at the top of the page. It's surrounded by white space. It's in small type.

      To really get your attention, I should write like this:

      • Bulleted list
      • Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming
      • Short sentence fragments
      • Explanatory subheads
      • No puns
      • Did I mention lists?
  • Bye. Have fun on Facebook.
  • Avoid MySpace.
  • Pleasure reading is also known as "ludic reading."
  • Ludic reading can be achieved on the Web, but the environment works against you. Read a nice sentence, get dinged by IM, never return to the story again.
  • We'll do more and more reading on screens, but they won't replace paper—never mind what your friend with a Kindle tells you. Rather, paper seems to be the new Prozac. A balm for the distracted mind. It's contained, offline, tactile. William Powers writes about this elegantly in his essay "Hamlet's BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal." He describes the white stuff as "a still point, an anchor for the consciousness."
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