Yahoo! Web Style Guide
Yahoo! Knows How to Write for the Web?
Do you know how to write for the web? Well, Yahoo has just released their new Yahoo! Web Style Guide (available now!) and companion website to help you answer that question. When it was first announced that Yahoo was releasing this guide I was initially excited and felt like it was an important step forward. However, after thinking and reading about it, I’m failing to see why this is important to anyone except a select few, and I fail to see why Yahoo feels they are relevant enough to release this kind of guide.
What if Google Released This Guide?
If a web style guide was put together and published by Google; oh my, the Internet would be on fire about how this is the most important addition to web publishing since the adoption of HTML. This release isn’t from Google though, and Yahoo doesn’t have the juice it once did, are they expecting a wide adoption of this web writing style? So I will be interested to see what kind of adoption there is for the Yahoo style.
Yahoo’s Website Support for Your Style Questions
Aside from the book Yahoo has also introduced a companion website (http://styleguide.yahoo.com/) to assist with all of your web writing needs. I think the most interesting aspect is the Ask an Editor feature, which is basically just a Frequently Asked Questions page. I would love for this to turn into a real-time interactive feature incorporating social media tools to have real conversations with users and writers about their questions.
What About AP Style?
Writing for the web is not the same as writing for print, you don’t have the constraints of space on the web like in print. News reporters have had the AP Style Guide to be their universally accepted standard since the 1950’s and have a new edition released each year, usually in June. Yahoo has definitely become a more reliable and trusted news source over the years, but I think they have overreached their influence in this case.
Is Yahoo’s Web Style for You?
Will the Yahoo! Web Style Guide be widely accepted? I don’t know. It has only been out for a couple of days as this post, so that will be seen. I really wanted to write this article about how important an addition to copywriting and blogging this guide would be, but the more I thought about it the less important this guide seemed. I don’t want to come across as being 100% against this style guide, it’s a good first effort to standardize language and it’s proper usage on the web. I just don’t think Yahoo is the right company to set these standards. I know I will be purchasing a copy to put on my Kindle so I have it with me all the time, and I will use it help with my copywriting style, but aside from me, word nerds and some bloggers, I don’t see this as catching on like wildfire throughout the Internet.
- Brian Tudor
Follow @briantudor on Twitter
Twitter Ads
Twitter Launches Promoted Trends
I read an article recently about Twitter selling ad space, back in April Twitter introduced Promoted Tweets, a platform to allow businesses to promote themselves within the Twitter stream. Now it seems Twitter has launched Promoted Trends, a feature that will allow advertisers to insert their own trends into Twitter’s trending topics.
Twitter’s Value
Twitter’s value was released the other day at one billion dollars, impressive, but only one tenth of Facebook’s reported value. At some point Twitter will need to find a way to monetize their site, without
making it a pay service. I don’t have a problem with the paid placement of tweets and trends; I think it would be an excellent addition to any Internet or Social Media Marketing Plan.
How Twitter Needs to Handle Placed Trends
Here is what I want to see Twitter do with the paid placements. If they are allowing a company to pay to place an ad within the stream, call it out; make sure everyone understands someone paid to put that ad in their stream. As far as the Promoted Trends, I want to be able to ignore this feature, because the whole point of Twitter’s trending topics it to see in real time what is happening in the “twitterverse”. You can already choose between worldwide, by country even by city. I don’t want to see the trending topics “polluted” with a paid placement.
By creating a competition for the top trending spot, with a Google AdWords type auction, it would created a nice competition and help Twitter make money from selling the ads. As Twitter continues to grow they have got to find a non-intrusive way to bring in advertising dollars while still being able to create enough awareness of the ads.
Mobile Application
More people are logging on to Social Media; Twitter specifically, using their mobile devices. If you use an iPhone and a free Twitter app you most likely have to deal with some sort of ad placement now, so by adding ads to the main Twitter page should be too much of a problem.
| Number of Mobile Subscribers Accessing Twitter via Mobile Browser | 3 – month average ending Jan. 2010 vs. Jan. 2009 | Total U.S. Age 13+ | |
| Total Audience | |||
| Jan-09 | Jan-10 | % of Change | |
| Twitter.com | 1,051,000 | 4,700,000 | 347 |
| Source: comScore MobiLens | |||
– brian tudor
follow @briantudor on twitter
iPhone 4 Will Change Communications Forever, Forever
How will iPhone 4 change communications? Simple. Apple’s new ‘Face Time’ feature coming out with the new iPhone, set to be released on June 24, 2010, will for the first time ever provide a viable real-time mobile video chat option. With the addition of a forward facing camera, iPhone 4 users will be able to connect visually with each other no matter where in the world they are, as long as there is a Wi-Fi network to join. According to Apple, “People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.”
Let’s not get caught up in this one feature though, Apple is finally bringing Multitasking to the iOS 4 firmware upgrade, what does this mean? It means you no longer will have to exit out of your favorite app to make a phone call or change your music playlist. By allowing third-party apps to now continue to run in the background iOS 4 
means you can keep you Tom Tom GPS app running all the way from Michigan to Missouri and not miss a beat. Phone call? No problem. Update your Twitter status (Hey! Look at me, multitasking on my iPhone without getting lost on a road trip.)? No problem.
So the new iPhone will be out at the end of June 2010, and it is the second drastic redesign from the original iPhone, it is now more sleek and powerful than ever before. With a sleek new stainless steal frame that acts as an antenna to improve call quality and durability. Another great new feature is a new technique called Retina Display, everything you see and do on iPhone 4 looks amazing. Text in books, web pages, and email is crisp at any size. Images in movies and photos are stunning at almost any angle. That’s because the Retina display’s pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels.
Aside from the biggies (Multitasking, Face Time and Retina Display), Apple is adding or upgrading a slew of
new features. Features like Folders, where you can stack your apps into one folder that the iPhone will name based on the types of apps in the folders. The camera was upgraded to 5 mega pixels with an LED flash, and can now shoot video in HD. With all of the new features, Apple keeps refining the iPhone into an indispensable tool, both personal and professional.
The iPhone 4 from Apple will be release in the United States on June 24, 2010, with the iOS 4 firmware upgrade coming three days earlier on June 21, 2010 for existing iPhone 3G and iPhone 3Gs owners.
- brian tudor
follow @briantudor on twitter
News Goes Social: 75% of online news consumers get news socially and 52% share news socially
A new study from PEW Internet research shows that news is moving increasingly online & mobile and is getting increasingly social & participatory.
The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV.
Some of the most interesting stats:
- 92% of Americans get news from multiple platforms
- 46% get news from 4 – 6 platforms per day
- 59% of Americans get news from online and off-line
- Online is the third most popular news platform
Online News Consumer are Less Loyal:
- Most use between 2 and 5 online news sources
- 65% do not have a single favorite online news site
- Only 21% rely on a single site for their news
- 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in email
News is Increasingly Portable, Personalized and Participatory:
- Portable : 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
- Personalized : 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
- Participatory : 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Where do People get their News in a Typical Day?
- 78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station
- 73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or FoxNews
- 61% say they get some kind of news online
- 54% say they listen to a radio news program at home or in the car
- 50% say they read news in a local newspaper
- 17% say they read news in a national newspaper such as the New York Times or USA Today.
37% of Internet Users Have Contributed to the Creation of the News:
- commenting on a news story (25%)
- posting a link on a social networking site (17%)
- tagging content (11%)
- creating their own original news material or opinion piece (9%)
- or Tweeting about news (3%)
News is Customized:
- 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from their favorite source or topics
- 40% of internet users say an important feature of a news website to them is the ability to customize the news they get from the site
- 36% of internet users say an important part of a news website to them is the ability to manipulate content themselves such as graphics, maps, and quizzes.
Some food for thought….
2009 is The Year of Twitter – Yes, Twitter is Officially the Top Word of 2009
It is official. Twitter is popular.
According to the Global Language Monitor “twitter” was the most popular word of 2009.
That is right. Twitter beat out major international news events like H1N1 (3rd place) and the election of President Obama (second place).
Shocked? I was (and I’m a social media junkie). Is Twitter (in the context of the website) even acknowledged in the dictionary?
Also amusing, twitter is defined as “the ability to encapsulate human thought into 140 characters”.
Also surprising was that 2.0 was rated #6 (and defined as “The 2.0 suffix is attached to the next generation of everything”).
Interestingly only 1 web word made the top 10 phrases – “Cloud Computing”.
This information really highlights the significance of the web in the mainstream.
You can see the whole list here. You can also see previous years highlights here.
