In 2012, Shawn Blanc marked the fifth anniversary of starting his site by publishing an article titled 50 Things I’ve Learned About Publishing a Weblog. Filled with some of the best advice I have ever read on the subject, I return to this article every few months, gleaning just a little bit more each time. When I look back on the years since I started following Shawn, this piece stands out in my mind as his best work. And so, given how much I enjoyed his advice, I thought I would create my own list of lessons learned over the last few years of writing on the web.
Speaking of great podcasts, Ben Thompson and James Allworth just started a new show called Exponent. In their first episode, released just a few days ago on Thursday, the pair took an interesting look at disruption theory, the innovator’s dilemma, and culture as those aspects pertain to Microsoft and Apple’s past and present situation as well influence their future directions. Rather than spending the majority of their time discussing Apple though, as many of today’s tech podcast hosts are want to do, Ben and James had one of the most level-headed, intelligent, and engaging discussions on Microsoft I have heard since the company became a headline-worthy topic once again with the elevation of Satya Nadella to CEO. Any show with this impressive roster would be worth taking note of, but these two outdid themselves here: if their future episodes are anywhere near as good as this one, Exponent is going to grow into quite the remarkable show.
Speaking of music created in interesting and unconventional ways, Ryan Challinor used his heart rate to set the tempo for Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepson in this video created for MIT’s Music Hack Day.