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Broadcasting Brain

An uncanny blog by Mark Dykeman

Checklist for getting beyond today’s hot panicky topicToday

It’s a fairly simple checklist, really.

1.  Did the sun go nova overnight? If you’re reading the checklist, the answer is obviously no (you’d be free floating molecules, or carbon residue, otherwise), so continue to 2.

2.  Did Earth’s surface get buried under massive sheets of ice, indicating the onset of an ice age? If you’re reading the checklist, the answer is obviously no (frozen people can’t move, eliminating your ability to get out of bed and do anything), so continue to 3. [alternate version of this question:  is sea level rising more rapidly than a snail crossing the Mohave Desert?]

3.  Is there still enough oxygen in the atmosphere to breathe (or at least roughly the same amount as yesterday)? If you’re reading the checklist, the answer is obviously no (asphyxiated people can’t read), so continue to 4.

4.  Are the nukes flying? If you’re reading the checklist, the answer is most likely no, although timing is always of utmost importance (radiation and reading don’t usually go together; neither do vaporization and reading), so continue to 5.

5.  You’re not out of the woods yet, but your day is certainly off to a decent start.  If you’re still panicking, remove yourself from the presence of media for the rest of the day and go do something real and tangible.  Think about it first, though, and make sure it’s something worth doing.

6.  Before you go to bed, get this list ready to read tomorr

Do search engine results accurately indicate online influence?Yesterday

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion has written a blog post saying that Google Page Rank is the Ultimate Measure of Online Influence, although he does admit that it’s not perfect. As a little exercise in analysis and logic, I am going to take his thoughts and see whether or not I come to a similar conclusion.

First, however, I want to pull out a relevant quote from Rubel’s article where he talks about unique visitors and page views, statistics which some people have suggested as a means of measuring influence and success of a blog:

Unique visitors and page views - which I said was dying back in 2006 and is dead as far as I am concerned - are also largely empty numbers. Lots of people visit my blog. However, many of them arrive via Google, the web’s version of Ellis Island. And then they’re gone.

Rubel seems to be saying that Google search results bring traffic that doesn’t stick around. If the traffic doesn’t stay, it’s likely not relevant, useful or interesting to the person performing the search. If that’s the case, it seems unlikely to me that content found by Google Search will make an impression on the person who has visited the website – bounce rate is one way to measure whether or not readers find content relevant.

To me, infl

Words of wisdom about the challenges of probloggingOctober 5

Steven Hodson of Winextra.com has a semi-deserved reputation as a cranky older guy, which is evident in the tone of many of his blog posts. His love for technology, particularly PC applications and Web applications, is quite obvious and he’s knows what he’s writing about. He’s passionate about the things he writes about.

What Steven probably doesn’t get enough credit for, however, is his insight and common sense. He looks to the future, but his head is not stuck in the clouds - he’s a pragmatic cranky older guy.

So You Want To Be A Rich And Famous Blogger Eh is one of his latest, and longer, diatribes. The title accurately reflects the subject matter of his post.

I’d like to call your attention to this quote in particular:

While advertising; esepcially if you can hooked into one of the major ad networks like Federated Media, can provide a backbone for your blogging business this isn’t where all the money is. Many bloggers think that blogging is all about sitting behind their computer reading feeds and taking part in all the social media nonsense going on. Well this is only part of the blogging business but it is not where you will make the majority of your money.

Anyone who is looking at blogging as being their primary income source needs to understand that all that reading -

My Geeks (of Doom) roots are showing againOctober 4

The kind and cool folks at Geeks of Doom let me write for them again!

I return to my roots as a comic book fanboy with an article called:

The Future Is Cancelled, Again: DC Comics Ends Two ‘Legion of Super-Heroes’ Books

As I say in my article, I’ve been a fan of the Legion of Super-Heroes (I mean, come on… where else are you going to find superheroes with names like Bouncing Boy, Lightning Lad, or Karate Kid (the original!), plus bit characters like Infectious Lass and Chlorophyll Kid?) for 30 years and I’ve seen lots and lots of changes. I just hope the future stops changing (the comic books are set roughly 1,000 years in the future…)

Trivia note: one of my prized possessions is a copy of Adventure Comics #300 from the 1960s when the Legion became the main feature in that comic book.

We have finally hit 500 subscribersOctober 4

Thank you so much. I don’t know what else to say.

Special thanks to that Remarkablogger Michael Martine for the extra little shot of support.