(Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes)
Just installed Flipboard on my new iPad (courtesy of Dave Navarro). I’m just getting started here, and these are my first impressions after 15 minutes of playing with it.
In short, looks like we have a viable new platform here, folks.
Flipboard isn’t going to “kill” blogs. Far from it. Blogging is still a very young genre, with most of it’s development still ahead of it.
However, Flipboard is an amazing portal into a blog.
Blog Post Engineering readers are familiar with the “parallel streams” notion I put forth in the last release (0.7.1). I’ve written about parallel streams here as well. With articles on blogs getting published into the Flipboard interface, you get another parallel stream to target.
The obvious question is how to make sure your blog is Flipboard-friendly. Here’s my take on that:
- Killer content. No change. Write as well as you’re able. Then learn to write better.
- Focus on your leads. Flipboard displays the first paragraph of articles. Make sure it’s tight. Consider spending time crafting excerpts as well SEO metadata description for your articles.
- Semantic structure. If you have bits of your blog posts that can be semantically isolated, you need to start doing so. Reviews, recipes, contact data, all these kinds of data can be expressed with specific semantic structure.
More…
The actual Flipboard application may not survive, but that’s irrelevant. Something like it will, and writing for Flipboard is going to help you write for whatever replaces it.
I suspect that iPad-like technology will move toward solid state integration PDQ, and that more-or-less disposable iPad-like devices will be available at your friendly, neighborhood 7-11 sometime between 5 to 10 years from now. Many of us will own several of these. If you have children, one each. For sure. I’m serious about this, plastic or even hardboard (i.e., paper) cases are not out of bounds.
The technology driving the iPad isn’t as important as the cultural changes coming. Straight up: a whole bunch of bloggers are going to pull the ejection seat option once it becomes apparent how fast the technology – and market – is changing. If that’s you, and you have a body of decent work, let’s talk.
Because there’s two routes you can go with technology: 1. skim the surface and hope to rake off the cream as it rises, or 2. figure out the underlying principles driving the technology and drill deep.
Case 1: if you’re not a VC, you’re not gonna skim a lot of cream.
Case 2: as a blogger, you’re coupled to your medium just as much as a reporter used to be coupled to his broadsheet. If you can’t keep up as the medium changes, you’re gonna hurt.
If you want to keep up, consider micro-niching as proposed by Liz Strauss, and sharpen your technical skills to deliver precisely targeted information, fast.
Without going into tedious detail on the technical aspect of building an ebook with XƎTEX, let’s just say I’ll be adding Flipboard-specific information into Blog Post Engineering no later than the November 0.9.0 release (and possibly earlier. but not tonight).
If you want to play in this market, you’ll need to be able to shift gears very fast as well. Talk to me.
Sweet. So, how does this iPad software work on my PC Laptop? LOL
oh, and does a fabulous photo count as semantic structure?
I like my crazy formless posts. Do I have to change my “art” just so soul-less search engines (and the potential buyers that are fueling them) can find me?
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
PicsieChick´s last post ..Soul-Family food- Hang on
Yes.
Ensure all the metadata on your photos is correct. You should be able to set these properties in your image editor.
Wrap the poetry in a div with class “poem” for now. Like this:
That will get you started.
And as you can see, this is all invisible to the reader.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Backlink Kickstart – Don’t wait- create your own
You are coming back later to explain what you are seeing here, I hope, because I don’t.
I tagged this “Semantic web” and will add same tag to other articles.
And there is more coming.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Backlink Kickstart – Don’t wait- create your own
I seen it very cool. We all have to move fast now these kinds of static post blogs are on their way out. Live is coming
See you there ;)
Happy weekend
John Sullivan´s last post ..Attention ALL Bloggers YEAH YOU PLS RT THANKS LOL
Yeah, the static post isn’t necessarily going away, but it’s better to think of the static post as an instance or a representation of the article/document/whatever.
For example, few people take the time to add an excerpt to their blog posts, but that excerpt could stand in for the entire post when required.
Also, WordPress “excerpts” are really summaries, a known issue, I’ve written about before and there is feature request in the development Trac about it.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Give Yourself Time to Write Better
“but that excerpt could stand in for the entire post when required.”
Wow. That is something to think about.
I have yet to add excerpts or summaries. Yet another Thing To Do. It’s a good idea though.
Hi Dave,
OK I am confused! :( I have only just mastered writing blog posts!
Now what is semantic structure? You lost me there I felt like I was in Physics class back in high school again! :P
I do understand that we need to move with the times and prepare for new technology and adapt our businesses and communication accordingly.
I have never used the excerpts section when writing my blog posts, however now that you have pointed out the importance to this I will start to.
Great post as usual. I always learn something new when I pop by!
See you back here soon! :cool:
Cheers
Jacinta :D
Jacinta Dean´s last post ..The 100 Blog Comment Challenge Is On!
Semantic structure is a (there’s more than one) metadescription of your blog post. Here’s one breakdown
The generally accepted way to do this in HTML is adding descriptive CSS class names to your block elements such as div and p.
Here’s a simple wrap for a poem: http://website-in-a-weekend.net/blogging-business/flipboard-blogging/#comment-14186
The hrecipe plugin helps with recipes: http://website-in-a-weekend.net/hrecipe/
I have a huge amount of knowledge to express on this topic, but I need to write a fair bit of code to express it.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Internet Marketers – Who SAYS its time for Bed
Wow! I just feel as if I’ve been catapulted into the future. What an interesting article, with all kinds of things that I want to explore and check out.
Wish I had an iPad. Then I could be checking out Flipboard more directly, but I guess I’ll just muddle by.
Blog Angel a.k.a. Joella´s last post ..Tab Candy For Firefox Makes Browsing Sweet
Here’s an idea: find an ePub format reader for your current computer, and see how your blog posts work within that format.
As usual, just as I get ready to release a product, I find I need a whole nother chapter to account for changes occurring in just the last month!
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Olympic Blogging- Running your race
Hey Dave,
Is there a window into flipboard for those of us who don’t have an iPad? Would love to check it out…
Tiven, Flipboard and ePub just moved really high on my priority list. I’ll start doing some research next week, will post the results.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Outsource your SEO – Blog Better with a Virtual Assistant- Tip 3
hey dave! i am all over this flipboard goodness. what a freaking fantastic app and i think it lends itself especially well to my own crazy brand of blogging.
great pictures + great words = much flipboard love
can’t wait to read more about your ideas on how to maximize content for apps like this. would also love to hear your ideas on using the new publishing platforms to spread our influence further.
Tara, Flipboard makes me want to have a whole line of crafty stuff to sell. I think it’s going to be perfect for what you’re doing. It’s still really raw at the moment, we’ll see where they go with it.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Blog Post Engineering 072 ready to roll
Flipboard advises your entire blog post must be enabled in your RSS feed. If your RSS feed is just an excerpt the Flipboard experience will suck.