1 Recommendations

Do you recommend any editors/copywriters in the United States? I have the hardest time trying to find people.

posted at 12:44 pm on May 20, 2008 by Dennis Eusebio

2 One for the ages

A great man once said, “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”

Who was that…?

This was a good read about a topic that is relevant to everyone in the web community. And I think we can all relate to the client who doesn’t have content :oP.

In answering the question “When can this be done?” I usually go with “As fast as you can get us the content.” It usually helps the client realize how important the content is.

posted at 12:56 pm on May 20, 2008 by Tim Wright

3 Web Writing Certification

Is anyone aware of an online course that could certify people to write for the web? At my company we have many people contributing content across the enterprise and we’d like to offer a certification program that must be taken in order to publish content. Thanks!

posted at 01:51 pm on May 20, 2008 by Pam Archer

4 Untitled

I really enjoyed this piece. I admit I am biased toward the writing pieces on ALA as that’s my bread and butter, but I appreciate that this article points out the nuanced differences a writer versus an editor can bring to a project. Having worked as web content developer as well as web editor, I can corroborate that the skill sets are indeed different, and the polishes they add to a page have distinct sheens.

Very nice read. Thanks for writing it.

posted at 02:08 pm on May 20, 2008 by amber simmons

5 pardon my kissless a$$

Seriously, does anyone at ALA actually have to plan and design real web sites for a living? For real clients? In the real world? And, where’s the “cure for content-delay syndrome”? Or is the “cure” the hiring of a content editor for every web design project? “Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration,” is a pithy soundbite, but an insulting accusation of those of us who have to design for clients who, in the real world, don’t cough up the content until the last minute and won’t – or can’t – hire a content editor. Thanks, anyway, to ALA for putting the ideas out there.

posted at 03:15 pm on May 20, 2008 by triple sec

6 tl/dr

This week’s articles seem to contain a lot of words that don’t really say much, is that delayed content, bad content, or pseudo-timely content?

posted at 04:02 pm on May 20, 2008 by Mike Whitehurst

7 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nulla sollicitudin viverra enim. In pellentesque volutpat nibh. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Ut eget magna sed nisi consectetuer tempor.

(Just use this as a placeholder for my comment, please. I’ll write something later.)

posted at 04:14 pm on May 20, 2008 by Kevin Davison

8 Writing For The Web

@Pam – I don’t know if there is a certification, but I’d be wary of one because the web is still too new for best practices to have been established. Certainly many many people understand the nuances of writing for the web, but they tend to be professionals, not academics. It takes some time for these things to solidify before they can be distilled into a solid certification.

posted at 04:21 pm on May 20, 2008 by Gabe da Silveira

9 Why not offer it all?

Rather than persuading the client to hire an editor, why not make a web editor part of the design company team? I don’t see many help wanted ads on, say, 37signals for editors. As a web editor and designer, I found the article dead-on. Getting copy is like extracting teeth, but with an editor on board, the designer can take what shreds are offered and create a whole cloth from them. Once the client sees the created copy, they are spurred to deliver the real thing, which can once again be quickly edited and woven into a [probably] new design.

posted at 05:27 pm on May 20, 2008 by casey liston