Beyond Search: A New Look, More Search Information
March 20, 2008
We’ve introduced a new look for Beyond Search: The Web log. Several people — including Blossom Software’s wizard, Alan Feuer — told me that it was impossible to find posts. The “earthworm” format is now officially gone. It’s been eaten by the squawking goose logo, a three-column format, and more hot links to the Beyond Search essays.
Keep in mind that Beyond Search is both a Web log and the title of my new study to be published by Frank Gilbane. The Web log, however, has been a surprise to me. We have readers from Australia to Norway and China. Not a day passes without an email, a comment, or a telephone call sparked by the information presented in Beyond Search: The Web Log.
Here’s a run down of the changes:
- My essays will appear in the left – hand column (Column A, if you are familiar with Gutenberg – style publishing lingo). These will be the interviews, profiles, and opinion pieces characteristic of the postings of old.
- The center column will contain — what I said I would never include — news. I am fortunate to have an anonymous professional assisting me with these stories. I think it will take me a month or so to sort out the “real” news from the “faux” news. If you have a story, please, send me an email (seaky2000 at yahoo.com). Maybe you can submit an article, and I will pay a modest amount for your work. I want to go slowly with inputs from the news pro on the East Coast plus over-the-transom ideas as well
- The right – hand column will feature a search box, Google advertisements, and hot links to the various types of information in the Web log.
You may notice some white space at the foot of each column. I’m trying to figure out what widgets to include. Expect some fiddling around over the next two or three months.
The Logo
When I was living in Brazil in the late 1950s, my tutor required me to read a poem about a water fowl in winter. For some weird reason, the image of the lone bird flapping like mad has remained with me my entire life. I encountered the poem at university and learned more about William Cullen Bryant. I revisited the poem and one line “hooked” into my memory as a metatag for the image of a duck or goose flapping across the wintry sky: “Whither … dost thou pursue / Thy solitary way?” (If you want to read this poem “To a Waterfowl”, written in 1818, its here.
When I set up my own consulting practice in 1991, it seemed fitting and proper to select a waterfowl for my logo. I wanted to go my own way. My “real” jobs at Halliburton / Nuclear Utility Services, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Courier – Journal & Louisville Times Co., and Ziff Communications were wonderful experiences. But I wanted to — like the waterfowl — make my way “along that pathless coast”. I believed that I would find a direction and be able to do work that was satisfying to me and useful to others. In the last 17 years, I’ve been fortunate that as I moved from “zone to zone” have taken most “steps aright”.
Thus, the flapping duck at www.arnoldit.com and the squawking goose for Beyond Search: The Web Log.
The squawking goose is based on a photograph I came across a year or so ago. I printed it out and then colored the angry goose. When I had the right balance I scanned the image, and I am using it as a signifier that what you read in this Web log will not (I hope) be the received wisdom. You get enough of that pablum at conferences, in the few remaining, very thin printed trade magazines, and from many “search” pundits. I’m no artist, so I have piggy backed on an image by a more creative individual whose name — alas! — I have misplaced.
Editorial Scope
What you will find in this Web log is information that doesn’t fit into my “formal” studies and reports. When you pay a publisher for one of my reports, I have winnowed the information I’ve gathered, selected the most significant, and organized it to allow you “get up to speed” or learn quickly.
The addition of news and shorter items is a direct result of suggestions made by many people. I’m including a streaming RSS feed of headlines to make sure that a visitor can check to see what’s happening “now”. I invite comments of a substantive nature. Please, help me learn. I’m 64 and I make mistakes — sometimes ones that surprise me. Senior moments, I guess. Also, if you want to contribute a story, have a suggestion for an interview or profile, or just want to participate in this venture, email me. Again the address: seaky2000 at yahoo.com.
Updates
I will continue to post each day. When I am sitting in an airport, some posts will be brief. When I have more time, I will pull out information that is solid but not directly germane to one of my for – fee publishing projects. Please, keep in mind that I do work for hire for some folks with no sense of humor. If you find a sentence that leave out a key fact, consider that I may be prohibited by a contract from revealing certain information. There’s not much I can do about these constraints because I have to pay bills, and the Web log is a weird type of “public service”. I will try to keep these forces in balance, however.
You can, I hope, find new information each day. Probably you will find one or two posts until I figure out more about what to do with Beyond Search: The Web Log.
Feedback
You can complain at any time. Keep in mind that I am a feisty person. If you get me when I’m on deadline, I’m likely to hang up with a “call me later” statement. Post using the comments function. You can email me. In general, I’m not too good on the telephone. A high power New York journalist learned that on Monday, March 17, 2008, when I refused to provide a data dump for his forthcoming “study” of Google’s impact on publishing and media. Excuse me, but that’s the subject of a chapter in Google Version 2.0, and he was eager to have me explain how I did my research, what I learned, and what I knew that was “newsy”. Wrong.
Stephen Arnold, March 20, 2008
Comments
One Response to “Beyond Search: A New Look, More Search Information”
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I very much approve of the new layout. It’s much easier to see the different features of the blog. There’s a lot more here than I knew!