Writing for the Web - further thoughts

Hi there

Thanks for letting me join the group discussion- even if it was just as a dis-embodied voice! Following up from Ross' remarks about the day, and his point about the web being a machine-readable space: it's not as weird as it sounds.

We all have grown to love Google, I think, and we're mostly, instinctively, able to think in terms of key tags, phrases and words that mean more, rather than mean less. Anyone who has ever put an item up for sale in eBay will have made an impromptu but instinctive set of classification decisions:

'- it's a car. It's a Volvo. It's an estate car. It's got a diesel engine etc.'

Each one of these phrases contains a keyword that attracts readers/buyers seeking objects like this. We know why we do it, we know how we do it. Describing our collection objects, and our story titles effectively is just the same set of challenges.

In the context of the web task the group is tackling, it's likely you'll be needing to consider publishing event information on the site. Important points to consider, then, are ensuring that the titles of the events are reasonably well self-described. Have a look here at some good and bad event titles: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/rss/24hm_events.rss - that's an RSS url, by the way. You'll need to be using a browser or feedreader that supports RSS to view it.

Good luck with the meeting on friday!

Jon Pratty
Editor
24 Hour Museum