What’s a blogger to do?

In case you haven’t noticed, more and more news sites are limiting the access to their online articles unless you’re an online subscriber in some way. The most notable here in SE Wisconsin is JSOnline, the online presence of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which limits access to 20 articles per month (This can be “hacked” but I’m not going to tell you how and it is somewhat inconvenient).

They are certainly not the first. The Waukesha Freeman has been doing something similar by limiting which articles you could access and how soon it could be done.

Other web sites that I visit are beginning to do the same thing. The Orlando Sentinel, the Mansfield News Journal, and the LA Times,  out of state sites that I go to have recently begun a policy similar to the Journal Sentinel. Others are Gannett newspapers like the Green Bay Press-Gazette, the Appleton Post-Crescent, Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter and Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune.

I don’t blame these sites. It’s their prerogative to  do what they wish about their web presence.

My intent is to look at how this affects blogs and bloggers like me who link to news sources.

I could certainly subscribe to these websites and should. But if I link to these sites too much, my readers, less likely to have subscribed to these sites, would go over their limit for free articles.

Of course at the rate I’ve been posting lately, this is unlikely to happen and I can still, if available, link to a similar article on a different site. Even if I posted like I did a few years back, it might not happen.

But it’s still a trend that will continue to impact bloggers like me.

Yes, I’m blogging again

It will mean less time on Twitter. Oh, well.

We’ll see how long it lasts…

To the Gentle Reader

Regular readers may have noticed a subtle shift in the way I’m blogging. There is less of the short “Quick Hit” pieces I used to do. I now do those through Twitter or Google Reader. Feeds of those can be found on the right hand column. Or you can “follow” me either place. Links at either place do not necessarily mean that I agree with all or part of what is said, only that I found it interesting.

Now I’m not saying I’m never doing a quick hits post again. If I have several readings that fit a theme, for example, Wisconsin political stories 2010-06-04 or June 6, 1944 Round-up and thoughts, I will combine those in a post. Others I will shoot to Eggs for his Morning Scramble.

On the blog, posts will tend to be longer with more of my own thoughts on a particular subject.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Blog roll bloat.

You may notice the new look around here. I’m tinkering with what WordPress gives me to work with, trying to make it more streamline and shoving some stuff to pages.

The blog roll probably needs some major work but for now I’ll just change two.

Darryl Enriquez, formerly of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is now at Waukesha News Online. You can visit Darryl there.

James Wigderson, op/ed columnist extraorinaire, has moved from Blogger and taken up new digs at in his own domain, so go check out the new Wigderson Library and Pub.

I’m baaack!

I pondered what I should blog about my first post back from a six month plus hiatus. There are so many issues to choose from, health care (which was the subject of my first post way back in Nov., 2003), education, the economy, socialism in America, Obama’s approval polls, well, as you can see, it’s a rich target environment.

But there’s an issue more pressing that these, something that affects each one of us.

How do we refer to the next several years?

I’m talking about speaking rather than writing because you can put it in writing anyway you want. But how will we SAY it?

None of 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 nor their shortened forms, roll of the tongue like 2001-2009.

Of course, we used the entire year in 2000 and could repeat that again for the next 11 years. There are elections next year, so will we call them the 2010 elections, the oh-ten (not exactly the same as ’01-’09 but close enough), or simply ’10?

We like to shorten things when we can, but will these years be short-able? 2010 is only three syllables, but the rest are four or more, one more than we usually use for years when we’re talking, except in rare cases.

I’ve tried saying “10″ a few times and it just doesn’t feel comfortable. Will it become more so with practice?

Only time will tell.

Anyway, I’m back.

Do you Twitter?

Some people don’t. I do. Twitter is like blogging and chat. You have 140 characters to say what you want to say. You can find and follow just about anyone in any area you’d like, politics, food, marketing, science fiction, etc. You can interact with people in a way you can’t on a blog.

If you do happen to tweet, here are some articles I’ve run across lately.

Twitter Tips For Bloggers

Learn More About Who You Follow With TweepSearch

Problems With Your Checking Account? Try Twitter. Like Bank of America? Yes. Starbucks? Yes. Southwest Airlines? Yes.

How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter. Full of interesting stuff.

If you want to follow me, the link is on the right. Also my latest tweets. Yeah, some won’t make any sense without context, but it will show you what it’s like.