Be A Design Group was recently nominated in the “Best Design Discussion Blog” category in the Battle of the Ad Blogs. Looking at the competition, It is a little hard not to feel like an underdog. Help us out by casting your vote for Be A Design Group! Voting ends February 10, so don’t delay.
A quick post to point you towards Armin’s latest post on Speak Up regarding the last issue of Emigre. While Armin doesn’t believe that blogs are responsible for killing Emigre, he gladly takes the credit. I would too if people were attributing Emigre’s demise to Be A Design Group. I think it is understandably arrogant for Armin to consider Speak Up and Design Observer as the only blogs with enough power to challenge an institution like Emigre, but I don’t blame him. Let me offer a couple counterpoints to Armin’s well written piece:
Did blogs kill Emigre? It sounds nice, and is kind of a trendy way to say goodbye to the publication. Blogs are getting blamed for everything lately, and we bloggers gladly take credit. Newspapers all over the world are near death and blaming the internet. Print-on-demand allows anyone to publish a book or magazine without any of the painful bureaucracy of the old publishing institution. Technology is constantly changing the rules, and that is usually a wonderful thing.
What I find disturbing about what is being said by those most upset about Emigre’s end is their negativity towards blogs. There is a good reason why blogs are replacing traditional print publications: they are better. The publications die because they would rather die than embrace the new system. It is their failure to embrace blogging that has caused their death, not the blogs themselves. As much as I would like blogs to be responsible for killing Emigre, the truth is Emigre just didn’t want to play by the new rules, so they stopped playing. It is sad really, because Emigre could have made a really nice blog.
One of the most tempting strategies for a website is to make something so cool that the whole internet will link to you. Who hasn’t dreamed of getting a link on BoingBoing and becoming the hottest thing on the internet?
Well, last week with the help of BoingBoing, MetaFilter, Engadget and Digg, my Lego camera infected the internet like some kind of virus. I would be lying to you if I said that the attention that my Lego camera received wasn’t awesome. When it comes to generating a buzz, the sites I listed are pretty much the best place to have a link. So as I reflect on my dream tour of the internet, I am forced to ponder this dreadful question: Does viral publicity equal success, or does it make me I a one-hit-wonder? I guess time will tell, but let me share the details of the past week with you and attempt to convince you that a website full of good content is better than viral success any day of the week.
Be A Design Group has had an RSS feed since we started, but it is high time we promoted it. Despite all the hype surrounding RSS feeds, the concept is still a little tricky to understand for the newbie. Let me make this as simple as humanly possible:
By using any of the widely available free newsreaders, (I recommend NetNewsWire, Yahoo, or the new Safari) you can “subscribe” to any site with an rss feed. Simply enter http://www.beadesigngroup.com/rss2.php into your newsreader and you will have a subscription to Be A Design Group. That is pretty easy, right?
If you want even more RSS options we have some more feeds for you. Here are the addresses:
Comments RSS Feed
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/comments.php
Podcast RSS Feed
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/podcast.php
As you probably know, Be A Design Group is powered by Movable Type software. Today Movable Type 3.2 was released, and our site has been upgraded to the new version. So far everything seems to have gone well, and I am enjoying the vastly improved Movable Type interface and features. If anyone notices any bugs, please let us know, and thanks for your patience.
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