An exemplary lede

A couple of months ago I wrote about an exemplary pull quote over at ValleyDad.

Now here’s an exemplary lede:

“Gardens are as difficult to time as markets. Last year everything was ahead of itself and gardeners were worrying there would be nothing left in flower by June. This year everything in Britain is wonderfully late . . .”

It’s exemplary because it’s Robin Lane Fox in the Financial Times. He has the back page of the weekend FT House and Home section to write about gardens and gardening. Given his readership, you simply couldn’t do better.

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A reminder that it helps to pitch the right outlet

Watching Avatar while sitting next to a Stanford professor had me (and the professor) wondering about the ‘Stanford’ t-shirt that Sigourney Weaver’s avatar wears very prominently in a number of scenes.

What was the story was behind the shirt’s appearance in the movie?  Why choose that university?  What was that choice meant to signify to the viewer?  And who, I next wondered, might be interested in running a short article featuring the answers?  The obvious candidate was the Stanford alumni magazine — one of the best of its kind — for which I’ve written before.

So the next day I pitched my editorial contact at the magazine and on Friday (just a couple of weeks later) the article was posted online.

The experience is a good reminder that a feature idea can have a lot of potential homes and be of potential interest to a lot of different people.  But when it comes to getting someone to actually commission your idea, you’re best off pitching the outlet most directly aimed at readers with the maximum potential interest in the subject you are hoping to explore.

Will ‘oversharing’ online come to define human authenticity?

There’s a very good chance it will, I argue, in a look at the new web service Blippy and the idea of ‘living publicly’ as a social norm (published in today’s London Evening Standard).

Where you are is where it’s at

Location-based social networks are growing in popularity.  Here’s my recent take on the phenomenon — which focuses on how, when it comes to innovation, timing makes all the difference.

The growing market for virtual goods

was the subject of a tech analysis piece I wrote for the London Evening Standard this week.

Imagining the end of the Google Era

I did just that in an analysis piece for today’s London Evening Standard.

Mark Zuckerberg profiled

I just profiled Mr. Zuckerberg, my College Terrace neighbor, for the London Evening Standard.  It seemed to me that until very recently Zuckerberg had not been taken very seriously by the media.  He may yet fail to make something of Facebook, but he’s done enough now to be treated with respect