I've had little time to blog and read blogs recently. I've found myself skimming entry titles quickly and skipping past the ones that are either (1) stupid or (2) uniformative. If you're using a cute title rather than one which summarizes your post, I'm unlikely to click and read it. You probably don't care, but I wanted to mention it.

Perhaps a reading of Microcontent guidelines is in order? I could have titled this post "RSS Stuff" and it would have been on-topic. But then you wouldn't have really known what the main theme of this post really was, would you? See what I mean? You'd have to read the post to figure out if you wanted to read the post. Time wasted.

Also...

I've installed the latest NNW beta. I can make it crash by attempting to refresh my bog info in the weblog editor window. Doh! Time for a new bug report. I was really hoping to use the category selection stuff for MoveableType.

UPDATE: Obviously that advice only applies to people who are writing for an audience and care about attacting their attention. But based on the feedback I've received, some folks thought I was expecting everyone do be smart about their titles. Riiiight. I'm not that dumb.

Posted by jzawodn at January 30, 2003 07:37 AM

Reader Comments
# kasia said:

hum.. *scanning my entry titles*

Yah. okay.

on January 30, 2003 08:22 AM
# jr said:

*scanning my titles*

Nah, that's what categories are for. Now, if I were publishing something that individuals actually relied on for information, then I'd be far more serious as to how I title things.

on January 30, 2003 08:25 AM
# Joe Grossberg said:

Not to troll, but you mean like:

"From the WTF?! Department"

instead of "KDE 3.1 is out..." ?

on January 30, 2003 09:51 AM
# Mike Kruckenberg said:

Thanks, really. The Microcontent guidelines are a good refresher. Even if I am writing for my own amusement it will make a difference to have helpful titles when, down the road, I'm looking for that certain entry.

on January 30, 2003 01:40 PM
# Gerald said:

Though Nielsens article is rather old it has not lost it's actuality. And don't forget the advantage in search engine rankings when you make use of the appropriate keywords.

on January 31, 2003 06:15 AM
# gord said:

Sometimes it's hard to come up with a title. I have some pretty lame ones that I just couldn't think of something else to say.

But definitely very sage advice. I should definitely try harder.

on January 31, 2003 02:59 PM
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