Ars Technica, known for bringing thorough and professional content to the blogosphere, has been acquired by Condé Nast Publications for an estimated $25 million. Nice chunk of change for a blog. Truth be told, I think it was a brilliant move by the company, and I hope they integrate more of the great content on Ars to the Wired.com site.
After talking to Eric Hagerman, a writer for Wired and Popular Science, I have been motivated to study journalism. It is a topic that I have never formally studied. It is, however, a good topic to have knowledge about. I really want to contribute to a popular magazine, but I would possibly need to demonstrate an ability to write journalistic content. So, that is exactly what I intend on doing with Tech In Demand.
I am planning on heading out to Barnes & Noble later on today (if the weather agrees) to find some good books on the subject of journalism. After a quick search online, I have found many books on the topic. I know of three that I am going to be checking out:
I’m sure there are others, but I will be on the hunt for those in particular. However, if anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know of them. I will be glad to check them out.
Once I learn the concepts of journalism, I will try my best to demonstrate them on Tech In Demand. The “blogs” section will be reserved for personal opinion, but the actual zones of the site will be for journalistic content.
Assuming all goes well, I will then attempt to get an article published in a small or large magazine—it depends on how confident I am feeling.
Again, if you have any advice on books or resources for studying journalism, please let me know in the comments section. It would be greatly appreciated!
Subscribers
People benefit from having a community of bloggers that can be searched for. I seem to be benefiting from this as well. It is primarily the tagging functionality that is getting people to visit my blog. So, if you are reading this, be sure to use really descriptive tags.
Think about what others will search for, and use that as a way to generate tags for your posts. Try to pick both generic and specific tags for your posts. However, don’t abuse the system. If I went to a blog with no related content via a tag, I would probably be upset and never visit again.
Ironically, I never really expected to gain any subscribers with this blog, but I am starting to think different. I thank the 4 of you that have subscribed, and I hope to make it more with time. I will try posting at least every other day. My main motivation for writing is knowing that I have helped at least one person with my words. Feedback from any of my readers is icing on the cake.
WordPress Theming
Anyways, I decided to install a new theme for Tech In Demand. I actually like it more for its “magazinish” type look. I’ve always been a fan of magazine themes for WordPress, and I am going to stick with the one that I installed. I hope to customize it furthermore, and perhaps—if this blog gets popular—I will invest some money for the CSS customizations and try to mimic that design here.
Virginia Fires & A Terrorism Threat
The border between Virginia and North Carolina is currently suffering from heavy wildfires. It has actually gotten so bad that nearly 60 miles away I can smell the burning. It has actually managed to give me a serious headache, and the fires are expected to get worse. The officials think that the fire was started on purpose.
I think it is something that America needs to look out for. It is not that hard to think that terrorists could start setting fire many of our forests with the intent to cause serious damage. Areas around here in particular are just starving for some rain. It is a scary thought, but until we find better ways to fight wildfires, there is little we can do. We just rebuild.
I am a technology and social media journalist currently residing in Windsor, VA. I previously wrote for Mashable, and I am currently a writer for CMSWire. This blog will be focusing on technology, social media, marketing, and more. I hope you will subscribe and communicate with me on FriendFeed or Twitter.