Newstex Blog
In Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, the protagonists visit a monastery with a fabled library that’s reputed to have one of the best collections of books in all of Christendom. However, access to the books is strictly controlled. The library consists of a labyrinth of 56 different rooms. The tomes within are organized according to a complex system based on verses from the Book of Revelation, and the librarian and his assistant are the only ones with the knowledge to navigate it. Even if an outsider managed to sneak inside the library, they’d struggle to find anything specific. Moreover, the library is even rigged with traps to further disorient intruders. Searching the Internet can feel a bit like trying to navigate Eco’s labyrinth, and it can be easy to get waylaid on your quest for knowledge. Today, we’re going to talk about how to find knowledge effectively. This article is the first part of a larger series that aims to help creators level up their content through digital literacy.
The other day, I happened to be taking a virtual stroll through the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I was struck by a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Horemheb that was carved before he ascended the throne. At the time of its creation in the 14th century BCE, Horemheb, (whose name can also be transliterated as ‘Haremhab’) was a high-ranking military officer, but you’d never guess that from looking at the statue. We might expect to see him depicted as a warrior with weapons at the ready; instead, he’s depicted as a scribe sitting cross-legged on the ground with a papyrus scroll laid across the front of his linen kilt.
I was recently watching an episode of Murder, She Wrote from 1991 where Jessica Fletcher (played by the late, great, Dame Angela Lansbury) was finally forced to abandon her trusty typewriter for a computer. This was treated as a Very Big Deal, and the store that sold her a new PC also ran classes to help new computer owners come to grips with their purchase. When we see her in class later in the episode, the other students complain about how mind-bogglingly difficult computers are, and many of them struggle to grasp the idea that computers might actually make their lives easier. To a modern audience, the whole idea of needing a special class to learn how to use a basic PC seems laughable, and many of the cutting-edge technologies that are mentioned in dialog are now about as outdated as the abacus (the salesman actually asks her if she wants a CD-ROM!). The episode is a relic of a bygone era when digital literacy was much rarer. Of course, teaching the characters in Murder, She Wrote about digital literacy was a fairly straightforward affair, but that’s not the case in 2023.
Hi there! It’s Jason Loch again. José asked me to do another post about my experience as a content creator, this time focusing on my interactions with my readers and how I’ve used their feedback to shape my online persona. These can be some of the scariest parts of being a creator. Not only is the Internet not known for kindness and charity, but feedback can easily leave you feeling overwhelmed and confused.
Writing in the 1st century BCE, the Roman author Publilius Syrus observed that “a good reputation is more valuable than money” (Honesta fama melior est pecunia). That sentiment remains true over two millennia later. In the Internet Age, our online personas contribute a great deal to our reputation, and they are particularly important for those who seek to position themselves as authorities. Simply producing authoritative content isn’t enough (for a refresher on what, exactly, is authoritative content, check out this post). You also need to have an online persona that bolsters your credibility.
The other day, a colleague sent me an article about the ten most recognizable brands in the world. Many of them have consistent and distinctive brand identities (think Apple’s bitten-apple logo or McDonald’s ubiquitous golden arches) that have helped them become household names across the globe. But good branding involves more than just a snazzy logo; it also reflects an organization’s culture and values as well. I suspect many of us tend to assume that branding is only something only corporations and cattle need to worry about, but savvy content creators know how to develop a persona that can help convey their values and their authority.
Unless you happen to have been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that AI has been in the news a lot lately. Yoshua Bengio–one of the three so-called ‘godfathers’ of AI–recently made headlines when he put out a statement declaring that “[m]itigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” But while it would be reckless to ignore the potential dangers of AI, at the same time, it also has the potential to be a powerful creative force. Many creators have already found innovative uses for AI, such as when Grimes decided to lend her voice to AI-generated songs. Today, we’re going to look at some of the exciting ways generative AI can help fan the fires of creativity.
The doctrine of ‘fair use’ is one of the cornerstones of modern copyright law. It establishes that there are certain situations in which someone can use a copyrighted work without the owner’s permission. But if you’ve spent any time on the Internet, you know that boundaries of fair use are hotly contested. And the emergence of AI has made the waters even murkier since many of the leading AI tools have been trained on other (copyrighted) works. In this post, we’re going to look at the messy intersection of AI and copyright law.
If you’ve ever taken a journalism class, your instructor probably stressed the importance of the ‘five W’s and an H’: Who? What? Why? Where? When? How? These six simple questions are the backbone of all journalism, and they help reporters construct a compelling narrative for their readers. But they’re not just for Woodward and Bernstein wannabes. A smaller subset of questions can be useful for anyone hoping to produce trustworthy, authoritative content: Who? Why? How? The stakes are high. There’s a good chance there are other publications writing about your subject matter, and it’s imperative that you make a good first impression as soon as possible. The beauty of these questions lies in their versatility. Not only can they help you write better content, but they’ll also go a long way to showing your readers and Google that you’re trustworthy.
If you’ve been following this blog over the past few months, you know the importance of creating ‘people-first content.’ Novice content creators often assume that all they need to do is write for Google and they’ll be set, but if they do that, they’re setting themselves up for failure. A site can have as much traffic as New York’s Grand Central Station, but it won’t amount to much if visitors don’t find the content genuinely engaging. Winning the SEO game means being mindful of your audience’s needs and creating high-quality, authoritative content for humans not machines.
When it comes to getting eyes on your content, your place in a search engine’s results can make all the difference in the world. Studies suggest that 95 percent of web traffic goes to sites that show up on the first page of Google’s results. Moreover, sites at the top of the page get more traffic than those at the bottom. The moral of the story is that ranking highly is incredibly important. Today, we’re going to look at some ways to make sure your content rises to the top.
