Monthly Archives: April 2012
How to get more page views for your blog
This is a guest post by Kristina Chang, Evan Moore, Tony Xu, and Omer Rabin; students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
“What makes a blog popular? What drives page views?” These are the questions that we've been trying to answer over the last few weeks. We were on a mission to dig into the data and analyze the strongest parameters that influence the flow of visitors to WordPress.com blogs.
The Minnesota Opera and Social Media gone (way) wrong
If you're the MN Opera, shooting out a series of bizarre/insulting Tweets from your official Twitter handle during a live performance is not the best way to fill the seats!
In a story you have to read to believe, the Minnesota Opera tried – and failed, miserably – to be hip, cool and relevant using Twitter during a live performance of Madame Butterfly.
Here’s a great analysis of how horribly wrong it all went. It’s shake your head, “What were they thinking!?” type stuff.
Why Christianity Needs Real (Not Safe) Art, Music and Story
Derek Webb's Christian music is anything but safe - and thank God for it!
This Post quoting Tim Keller nails the need for inspiring artists within the realm of Christianity:
“The Church needs artists because without art we cannot reach the world. The simple fact is that the imagination ‘gets you,’ even when your reason is completely against the idea of God. ‘Imagination communicates,’ as Arthur Danto says, ‘indefinable but inescapable truth.’ Those who read a book or listen to music expose themselves to that inescapable truth. There is a sort of schizophrenia that occurs if you are listening to Bach and you hear the glory of God and yet your mind says there is no God and there is no meaning. You are committed to believing nothing means anything and yet the music comes in and takes you over with your imagination. When you listen to great music, you can’t believe life is meaningless. Your heart knows what your mind is denying. We need Christian artists because we are never going to reach the world without great Christian art to go with great Christian talk.”
I’ll take it a step further: For me, musicians like Derek Webb and writers like John Eldredge have been a huge influence. I like them because they’re not a “safe”, watered-down, G-rated version of Mister Rogers’ Christianity. I see too much of that in well-meaning but rather hollow Christian music, movies and books that give up the actual art part of the venture in order to be “safe” and not offend anyone.
Derek and John tell the truth. Their work is transparent, unapologetic and inspiring because it is so REAL. It resonates with the life I live and the world I know. They don’t pretend and they don’t mince words. Many people – including those calling themselves Christians – consider them offensive and dangerous.
Folks, Jesus was (and still is) offensive and dangerous to many people. The Gospel is offensive and dangerous. Claiming to be the one true God, above all others, claiming to be the only way to heaven and everlasting life – that’s offensive and dangerous.
Jesus was wild, dangerous, controversial, beautiful, intimate, loving, kind, compassionate, empathetic, righteous and magnetic – the most talked about person in all of human history. He wasn’t always safe for the whole family. Let’s not water down our worship of him through art, music and story in order to be “safe” and non-offensive.
So keep it coming! I like my Christian art, music and books to reflect real life – dangerous, beautiful, inspiring and above all else REAL.
How about you? Who are your favorite Christian artists and why?
Why Literary Agents and Publishers Won’t Have A Job Soon
I found this story from CNET a helpful explainer on the whole e-book pricing saga going on right now in the publishing industry.
Here’s the bad news: In a few more years (or maybe even sooner), authors large and small, new and old, are going to wake up and realize they don’t need anyone in the publishing industry anymore.
Popular authors with huge followings no longer need outside marketing/PR clout or help with distribution channels – they’re audience is already built in, and (literally) anyone can now write, upload and sell a book on his or her own. Print books are nearly dead - e-reader sales of products like Kindle and iPad are soaring along with e-book purchases. And why wouldn’t they? Imagine literally carrying hundreds of books in the palm of your hand, having the ability to highlight, bookmark, take notes in the margins, increase or decrease the font size, read in the dark … the advantages of e-readers go on and on.
So if you’re a big author, why not just write the book, publish it yourself (it is literally as easy as cutting and pasting text into Apple’s iBooks Author or importing a PDF file), upload it to the iBookstore and set your own price, keeping 100 percent of the author royalties for yourself? Or use CreateSpace or another free site to create and upload a Kindle-friendly version of your new book?
For new authors, there’s literally no cost (other than time) for you to engage with people on social media, build a following, write a book, copy and paste it into iBooks Author on a Macintosh and then sell it for whatever price you want.
You build your audience. You write the book. You upload the book. You sell the book. You keep all the profits.
The entry barrier to becoming a published author has never been easier. In fact, it can’t get any easier.
That’s great news – unless your still working as a Literary Agent or Publisher.
» The Reason For All Wrongdoing Keller Quotes
I love the truth of this from Tim Keller: “We will either worship God or other things. We cannot eliminate God without creating God substitutes. Something will capture our hearts and imaginations and be the most important thing to us – our ultimate concern, value, and allegiance.”
I have found that so true in my own life. It’s just the way we’re wired as human beings. How else do you explain our worship of sports teams, or movie stars, or musicians, or technology, or gadgets, or cars, or whatever else?
Here’s the full post: » The Reason For All Wrongdoing Keller Quotes.
Makenzie in My Dreams
It’s been nearly three years since my oldest daughter, Makenzie died in a car accident. Since then, our family has been on a journey marked by recovery, struggle, joy, sadness, questions and pain. Pain - there’s been plenty of that. But what has been lacking in our movement forward are dreams. In my vulnerability, I pray for dreams about her. Last night, God gave me one.
