As I’ve often declared on this blog my fondness of the magazine American Heritage, I’m glad to learn that it is living to see another day. Edwin S. Grosvenor, great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, is the new majority owner of the magazine, which he’ll move from NYC to Bethesda, Maryland.
From a magazine history perspective, it’s also worth noting that Mr. Grosvenor is grandson of Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor (Bell’s son-in-law), the first editor of National Geographic magazine and who is considered, “the father of photojournalism.”
I guess my regular use of JetBlue to fly from Nashville to JFK is not enough to keep the route profitable. The service ends on January 6. I think I’ve written here that Delta has done what it can to match the route — and under-price it. As soon as JetBlue pulls the plug, Delta will increase their price. I guess I’ll be doing the SWA Islip/LIRR thing again. Not my favorite, but by the time one hassles with Delta’s JFK operation, flying SWA into Islip is a pleasure.
This Jakob Nielsen recommendation about writing passive headlines implies that people who read content on websites are so brainless, they always click on hyperlinks that are the closest to the top-left-hand of the page.
But that’s okay, says Nielsen, because when you write for the web, you’re not really writing for people, you’re writing for a machine that is indexing words, so if you write passively, you can get those words up front so machines can index them and people who only know how to click on the first links they read can help you get your content monetized.
His essay — which I’m guessing is being written for a machine and not for actual human readers — makes as much sense as Miss Teen South Carolina explaining the need for geography education in the schools.
While I’m no expert, here’s my advice for writing for the web:
1. Have something worth saying.
2. Say it.
3. There is no number three.
I’ve posted a Flickr set of photos from the past few days in western Mass, New Hampshire and Vermont.
