Blog prod

Talking at SFU

Friday, I spent a nice morning talking to a class at Simon Fraser University.  I was asked to join Monique Trottier, who was leading a class called “Marketing Magazines Online.”

Despite my own initial confusion about which classroom it was in, I had luckily planned for at least 60 minutes of being lost, so I still managed to arrive to the class 35 minutes early and so was able to see Monique teach for a while.  I was quite impressed—she has a wonderful ability to remember to explain things that she already knows but her audience might not. I know that this is one of my occasional teaching errors; I use terms and concepts that I’ve understood for years but that are still quite naturally new to my students.

In any case, the group was a great one; good questions and interesting insights.  We talked about the rise of “Share” icons (the ones Matt just talked about) and about Google News’s quirks and how they are different than the main Google index.  We talked about design trends for modern magazines online, and when a blog might be a better choice than a series of articles, or vice versa.

We also ended with a quick tour of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and had a little fun looking at how publications looked in the mid 1990s.  That site offers a great way to see trends in publishing.

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