hackbash

Love this find from Tamsin M – a top piece of SEO-jiggy news, to rival the stuff we’ve seen before. New and used car drivers ‘paying more than ever for fuel’ To be clear, the story is that drivers – all drivers – are paying more. But ‘used car’ is the host site’s desired ranking [...]

Read Full Post »

I have no idea whether Unite’s claims about M&S are true. Neither do I wish to be glib about the serious subject matter of workers’ conditions. But I suspect that the union is selling its campaign very short with this sorry press release. Apparently the union has launched “a virtual and actual campaign”. I beg [...]

Read Full Post »

Right at the beginning of this year we became a two-Tamsin family, as Charlie, me and copywriter Tamsin Mac were joined by Tamsin H, our new content strategist. Since then, things have evolved much faster and better, and in more ways than we’d have managed on our own. We’ve even hired two new journalists, which [...]

Read Full Post »

Kind of a note-to-self: editorial process is a Good Thing. And although blogging is all conversational and flexible and 2.0, it’s sometimes handy to ask a friend (or, what the hell, journalistic colleague) to cast their eagle eye over your draft. Especially when you’re planning to post at the end of the day. So, Handolio: [...]

Read Full Post »

I’m still not using BigNews, are you? If the answer is “What?” you’re probably not alone. BigNews is Ask.com’s answer to Google or Yahoo’s news services, launched earlier this month. I wrote about the launch for iCrossing, observing at the time that an Ask search for “BigNews” didn’t return a link to the site. Still [...]

Read Full Post »

Nobody’s perfect, and I’m quick enough to point out other people’s mistakes, so here’s one of mine. It’s in this news story on Spannerworks’ own website: Those who reported problemsdid estimated that more than a quarter of the work… The nicely munched up construction comes from Charlie having fixed my awkward original, and me subsequently [...]

Read Full Post »

Christmas. Always a busy time of year for journalists. If you’re on a monthly you get to go mental until the office closes for the Christmas week, and if you’re on almost anything else you’ll be brushing mince pie crumbs from your cardigan and heading into the office on 27th December. If you’re short-staffed you’ll [...]

Read Full Post »

[NB - I broke the images in this post. Sorry.] I’ve been banging on about hyperlinks a bit lately, but they’re a pretty important part of writing online. Done well, embedding links within your copy can provide context, give a route to further reading, or even act as punctuation or emphasis. Taken together, the benefits [...]

Read Full Post »

Look, I’m probably the last person in on this, but on the off-chance there’s someone still missing out: spEak You’re bRanes. It’s a blog entirely built around comments left on the BBC’s Have Your Say website, where the public are invited to, you know, have their say, on topical matters. No need to go into [...]

Read Full Post »

Just the other day I was singing the praises of the humble hyperlink, but today I’m reminded that perhaps not everyone gets it. For example, I’m breaking the Top Gear website’s terms and conditions by including a link to them in this sentence. Why? Because they prohibit third-parties from linking to any part of the [...]

Read Full Post »