Submerged is an appropriate name for the styling of this font. It would be great to bring this font into Photoshop and put some different colors to the reverse text.

I picked this font simply because it has “Chocolate” in its title.

On its face, it isn’t that impressive. Blase serifs, flourishes on the uppercase letters, and uniform letter widths don’t make for interesting font faces.

The uppercase letters, together, aren’t incredibly readable. The only way I’d like this font in general use is if a “K” was emblazoned in gold letters on top of a giant box of chocolate.

This utilitarian font comes from the esteemed Jason Kottke. It’s great for web buttons and graphics where you’re looking for something clean and techy.

It’s only available as uppercase letters. I admire this font for its simplicity and pixellated goodness.

Pooler has some spunk. I like how the letter heights vary, and the treatment on the lowercase f is just wild. If I had the time and creativity to make scrapbooks, this is the font I’d use for any kid-related pages.

Did you see the little star as the “hole” in the uppercase O? Too cute!

When I see this font, I think, it’s like the handwriting of a punk-emoartiste scribbling angsty poetry about how bleak and insignificant the world and life is, while sitting in a Starbucks drinking a $6 latte and wearing a $200 outfit straight out of Hot Topic.

I have no idea what MuskelBengt refers to, but it has to be one of the worst font names I’ve ever seen. It’s unfortunately paired with what I consider a superior font: blocky and funky. Just take a look at the lowercase “g”- brilliant! It would work nicely for stickers and posters. As a negative against the font, it doesn’t come with numbers. That limits the potential of this otherwise useful font.

Doo doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo DOO!, doo doo doo doo doo.

Hum along with the Jeopardy theme song as you read about this font.

I was watching that most excellent of game shows the other night and kept thinking, “Damn, I need to get on that show. I am getting every single question correct! Sign me up, Alex, I’ll show y’all how it’s done!”

Then I realized it was the teen tournament, and I felt a little less sure of myself.

Precise lines, with precise squiggles, this font would find a nice home in a children’s book with some warped and twisted storyline about things that go bump in the night. Reading anything in this font would leave me feeling vaguely unsettled, like I left the stove on or I lost my car keys.

I don’t want to like this font, but I do. The curly serifs make it look childish, but whimsical. I like how each of the letters seems to have a similar width and even heights. Not much else to say about it.

This font looks like something out of a horror movie. If I were to create a book cover for the book I’m writing in my head, Scary Moments in Parenting, this is the font I’d use.

I wish my own handwriting was like this. Fluid. Flowery. Flowing.

Instead, mine is more scribbly. Scrawling. Scrappy.

As this historic week has brought a needed end to 8 years of reign by Mr. George W. Bush, I thought the Texas Funeral font provides a nice metaphor.

This is the font that I imagine appears in the thought bubbles over his head, spelling out sentences like “What country do we have to invade, again?” and “Oil companies need more of the $$$$.”

I do like this font, as I could see it used in web graphics. I’d love to see it in print, like in a calendar, too.

I wish my handwriting was spectacular. I love the understated strokes, the confinement of the letters, and the controlled way in which they take up space on the page/screen.

And the numbers? All kinds of awesome. How cool is it to use hash marks to represent the 1-2-3s?

More to follow!

I’d like to trade my list of Buffalo-area media contacts and online outlets with someone from outside the region, specifically someone who is not in the higher education industry (as would technically be a competitor). Knowledge is power, and you never know when you’d need media information about Buffalo.

This list is 99% publically available, so I’m not sharing anything secret. As I’ve collected this information over the past two years, and it represents dozens of hours of work.

Some specifics:

80+ print, web, and broadcast sources covering western New York and Canada

30+ bonus upstate New York sources

As an additional bonus, I’ll throw in my go-to social media outlets. 

I’ve got my personal one crafted:

This doesn’t include the laundry / cooking / dusting / vacuuming / scheduling / sweeping / mopping / bathing / teaching / scrubbing / shopping / woodstacking / dog maintenance / organizing that I do the other 16 hours a day.

Words like “hypocritical,” “strident” and “presumptuous” made it into the first draft, but not the final draft.

My letter to the Buffalo News, as submitted, with linky goodness, follows. 

As a web geek and political junkie, I noticed things during this political season that the average person might not.

Alice Kryzan had to go 500 miles to find Chicago advertising firm Adelstein/Liston to produce her hokey, yet effective, television advertisement featuring faux foes. She won the 26th Congressional District’s primary.  

Joe Mesi outsourced his web design to PlusThree, a firm based in NYC, Washington, D.C. and North Carolina. He won his bid to “fight” for Buffalo in the New York State Senate.

To quote Mesi’s “Jobs” page: “My first priority . . . will be to bring well-paying jobs back to our area.” Well, Mr. Mesi, you could start by sending some of your campaign contributions back into Buffalo-based businesses. And Ms. Kryzan, while you were busy telling the boys to “take it somewhere else,” you could have been googling “advertising firms + Buffalo” as part of your “fight to bring good-paying jobs back to our region.”

I’m sure these aren’t the only examples. Politicians should put their campaign money where their mouths are and look to local talent to reach out to voters. My advice: demonstrate you care about WNY by investing, when you can, in our region. Anything less just shows an insensitivity and cluelessness that we don’t need representing Buffalo.

Kara Kane, My Town, NY 

(As an aside – for fellow grammar nerds out there – is it good-paying jobs or well-paying jobs? I would suggest “paying” acts as an adjective (gerund) for jobs, with “well” being the proper modifier). 

What is M3?

Let us explore, for a moment, the Wikipedia entry on Money Supply.

• M0: Physical currency. A measure of the money supply which combines any liquid or cash assets held within a central bank and the amount of physical currency circulating in the economy. M0 is the most liquid measure of the money supply. It only includes cash or assets that could quickly be converted into currency.^[6]
• M1: Physical currency circulating in the economy + demand deposits (i.e. checking account deposits). This is a measure used by economists trying to quantify the amount of money in circulation. M1 is a very liquid measure of the money supply, as it only contains cash and assets that can also be used for payments.^[7]
• M2: M1 + time deposits, savings deposits, and non-institutional money-market funds. M2 is a broader classification of money than M1. Economists also use M2 when looking to quantify the amount of money in circulation and trying to explain different economic monetary conditions. M2 contains cash and assets that can quickly be converted to currency.^[8] M2 is a key economic indicator used to forecast inflation.^[9]
• M3: M2 + large time deposits, institutional money-market funds, short-term repurchase agreements, along with other larger liquid assets. This is the broadest measure of money commonly used and is used by economists to estimate the entire supply of money within an economy.

My econometrically-challenged mind likes to think of M3 as big money. Really big money. A very smart man who I happen to be married to explained it as such. Imagine having a dollar. You deposit that dollar in a bank. The bank lends out that dollar along with a credit of dollars above and beyond that dollar, because, hey, they’re a bank! They’re good for it. So your dollar + X dollars is loaned to a person or institution who has to pay it back over time. Unless they’re in a sub-prime mortgage and can’t handle the payments. Or for one of hundreds of other reasons. So when that loan comes due, oh noes!, the bank can’t get paid.

But here’s the thing. The bank is really only out the dollar that they have to pay you back. That other money- those X dollars – was just extended credit. Or M3. So boo-hoo, banks are losing money that they never had. At least that’s the way I see it. And my reward for responsible spending and aggressive saving will be watching my past and future tax dollars go to reward these banks with a $700B+ payday. Fantastic.

Although the Fed seems to have started to track M3 again as of August 2008, that doesn’t mean they have any idea how much of those funds are out there. $700B might be way too much, or not even close to enough.

And hearing that some of this payday will go to the pockets of foreign banks and foreign investors makes me vomit a little in my throat.

The data available to mine from this – in terms of what is working for other colleges, and what technologies are being ignored – is substantial and will guide the work that I do for the foreseeable future. I’m particularly going to pay attention to how colleges are implementing XML site-wide and what social media tools they’re integrating into home pages. I also want to see how other institutions handle the “what belongs on the home page” question.  

The Social Media Release is a hot, messy term for the old, busted press release. Take your standard, plain text news release – the one designed to languish in the stale piles of other press releases sent by eager, yet clueless, public relations professionals – stir in some multimedia content, shake it up with hyperlinks to web sites that stretch the bounds of standard spelling (Flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us), and send it out to the Intertubes.

It really is that simple. Joe Stabb gave a good overview of what the SMR is and how it’s developed, but I fear that some in the audience were so blinded and befuddled by the sheer volume of social media options that the creation of an SMR for their use will just be something they forget about.

Well, I’m not forgetting about it, and I learned today ways to make my social media release template that much more useful to the end user: the media. 

A thought about data and digitization. We’re in the digital age, apparently, and the most useful information is that which can be easily manipulated into other formats. Sending a PDF to a news organization that will have to then copy/paste/reformat text content before rewriting it into a form they can publish and/or broadcast adds an extra layer of steps that significantly reduces the chance that that information will make it beyond that gatekeeper.

Gosh, gatekeeper. I haven’t used that term since COM 101.

So, the digital data of a social media release takes some of the onus of work off the mass media outlet. I will happily take on a slightly more difficult production task, especially since it makes my ultimate goal, publicity, more likely.

Hearing from Joe about his work in the trenches as an online media producer for WIVB-TV made me consider more strongly the workload and attention span of the people to whom I’m sending releases. They’ve got a job to do, just like me. As a fellow professional if I can make life a little easier for them, then that’s what I’m a-gonna do.

Aside from beefing up medaillenews.com with multimedia/b-roll content and reference materials, such as administrative biographies and an extended fact sheet, I’m pleased with my current social media template. I don’t use all the components all the time, but I grok enough social media service to make my template morph and evolve.

I. Catalog Description of Course
This course will provide students with an opportunity to write and create content for publication on web sites and distribution through electronic media. Students will explore communication theories, trends and technologies and apply them to written work.

II. Goals
a. This course introduces students to current terminology, topics and technologies in electronic communications.
b. This course explores communication theories related to mass media, technology and convergence.
c. This course provides intensive writing experience with close attention to grammar, spelling, form, content and delivery.
d. This course permits and encourages students to develop professional-quality portfolio content.
e. This course will expose students to careers in electronic communication.
III. Objectives
The student will be able to
a. Describe, explain, and analyze current communication terminology, theories, topics and technologies.
b. Define and understand web site audiences and web site use.
c. Describe and explain web site architecture and search engine operation.
d. Write, edit and critique web site content, electronic newsletters, and related content.
e. Use current technology tools and software.
f. Choose and implement online marketing tools.
g. Publish written content.
IV. Outline of Course Content
a. Defining communication and media
i. Print vs. Web – how is web writing different than other types of writing)
ii. Geek Speak: technology terms
b. Theory
i. Describe, explain and analyze theories of media, technology and convergence
ii. Discuss Rhetoric, theory and practice
c. The 24-hour news cycle
i. Define current trends in media, communication and technology
d. Web site content and architecture
i. Define text content, graphic content, navigation, meta content
ii. Search engine operation
iii. Google bombing
e. Writing and Editing Techniques
i. Brainstorming
ii. Freewriting
iii. Organizing, outlining and chunking
iv. Scanability
v. Editing 101
f. Web site critiques
i. The elements of Bad
ii. The elements of Good
g. News and Reporting
i. Parts of a blog – content and comments
ii. Social media releases
h. E-newsletters
i. What makes for a good (or bad) newsletter?
i. Online Marketing and Promotion
i. Software
ii. Web sites
j. Careers in Electronic Media
i. Guest speaker(s) TBD
ii. Marketing Yourself Online
k. The future of Electronic Media
i. Content
1. Personalized Contextual
2. Customized
3. Immediate
ii. Delivery
1. RSS
2. Kindle
3. Cell Phones
4. Semantic Web

V. Suggested Texts
a. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Usability, Steve Krug, 2005
b. Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand, Gerry McGovern, 2007

VI. Suggested Modes, Media and Techniques of Instruction
a. Lecture, in-class writing, blog writing, student discussion, multimedia presentation, individual presentations
VII. Instructor References

Benkler, Yochai. (2007). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Berners-Lee, Tim, Hendler, James & Lassila, Ora. (2001). The semantic web. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21

Bernstein, Mark. (2002). Ten tips on writing the living web. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://alistapart.com/stories/writeliving/

Blood, Rebecca. (2000). Weblogs: a history and perspective. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Griffin, Em. (2008). A first look at communication theory. New York: McGraw Hill.

Fisher, Claude. (1994). America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hourihan, Meg. (2002). What we’re doing when we blog. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/13/megnut.html

Kilian, Crawford. (1999). Writing for the web. Bellingham, WA: Self-Counsel Press.

Krug, Steve. (2005). Don’t make me think: A common sense approach to web usability. XX: New Riders Press.

Lasica, J.D. (2001). Blogging as a form of journalism. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1017958873.php

McGovern, Gerry. (2007). Killer web content: Make the sale, deliver the service, build the brand. London: A&C Black.

Miller, Daniel and Slater, Don. (2001). The Internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford: Berg Publishers.