writethru

Some Upcoming Courses

While WriteThru courses are slow this month, other educational sites are hopping. Some highlights:

Live Citizen to Pay for Stories

Live Citizen, a citizen journalism site currently in beta testing, is offering $20 an article, according to its ad on JournalismJobs.com. The Los Angeles-based company wants journalists to sign up for 3-month contracts, which require 2 to 6 stories each week AND a video broadcast lasting from 5 to 15 minutes each. Stories are expected to be more than 350 words.

It’s easy to see why Live Citizen is looking for more journalists. The newest story on Business & Tech was almost two weeks old at the time I wrote this post. The World and U.S. sections seem more current, but do not have a lot of depth.

Times’ Twitter Twicks a Tweet

To me, Twitter is one of those I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-do-that sort of thing. There’s nothing wrong with Twitter per se – other than it’s sometimes painfully slow; it’s just that it comes at a time when most of us are already cognitively overloaded with Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, Instant Messages, email, browsing… .

Even so, Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds. And if I could just get a few of the big boys to throw a Tweet to WriteThru, I could spend more time working on webinars instead of social marketing.

So far, no such luck. For now, I must continue marketing the hard way, one person at a time.

Once you find a reason to use Twitter, it turns out there are plenty of “hidden” tools available. A friend for example, put me on to TwitterFeed, which sends a Tweet whenever I publish a blog post. I appreciate the Time savings (and not having to sign on to Twitter for that.)

If you’re just getting started, The New York Times has a blog post to help you out. Learn how to:

• Sign Up
• Send Your First Tweet
• Find People
• Follow Users
• Understand Twitter Shorthand

If you’re looking for more advanced Twitter Twicks, The New York Times has this article, which discusses:

• Advanced Search
• Twitter via SMS
• Twitter-Facebook-Twitter Integration
• Favorites
• Sharing Photos
• Desktop Twittering
• Phone Apps
• How to Disguise Twitter at Work
• How to Scrape Twitter
• Some of them sound interesting. But do I really want to do them all?

Additional Twicks
(With Some Overlap):

• Twitter Tricks! How to do Various Things With Twitter
• Secret Twitter Tricks for Newbies & Pros

Typepad Offers Free Webinar

Typepad is offering its own “Typepad Basics” course for free on May 13th. (Writethru will have a more in-depth course on this soon.)

Topics include:

• Create your first blog and start posting immediately
• Learn how to post images, upload files and add videos to your blog.
• Change the style of your blog to match your personality or business brand.
• Integrate your blog with Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks to increase your blog’s reach.

If you can’t make the course, you can watch the recorded version. For more information, go here.