Petey's
Pipeline E-zine
Issue #6
August 28, 2003
Contents
Business
First Editorial Without
Change, Everything Would Stay the Same
Center Stage with
Tom LeBlanc: TinyURL
Guest Writer, Not Ghostwriter
Ginger Geracitano on stats &
responsibility
Random Ramblings and Miscellaneous Musings
Readers Respond
Write Thinking 12
Steps to Better Proofreading and Editing
Preview of coming distractions Gazing
into our crystal ball
Business
First (Editorial)
Without
Change, Everything Would Stay the Same
by Phil Hanson
Dynamic
businesses exist only in an evolutionary state; they innovate,
they experiment, they adapt, they change to take advantage of
emerging business trends and conditions. For businesses (like
most other species on the planet), evolution is essential to
survival.
Businesses
that fail to evolve become stagnant, then soon slide into a
devolutionary spiral that ends in entropy.
In
the spirit of evolution, we've decided to make some changes
to Petey's Pipeline E-zine. Beginning with this issue, we're
changing our publication schedule; henceforth, Petey's Pipeline
publishes every other Thursday instead of every other Monday.
Our
contributor's free ads have gone the way of T. Rex, although
we may decide to do a Jurassic
Park-style revival of them in the future. We'll try to get
Michael
Crichton's advice on how to implement the revival process
if we do.
Our
special thanks go to Ginger Geracitano for her rapid response
in making her article available to us. As we mentioned elsewhere
in this e-zine, Ginger is a gifted artist; her redesign of the
header and footer graphics used on every page of the Perfect
Text Web site is based on a CoolText
original.
Center
Stage with Tom LeBlanc
Our
ongoing mission is to find, test and evaluate free and low cost
products and services that are aimed at helping Internet entrepreneurs
('Netrepreneurs) build and grow successful on-line businesses.
TinyURL
joins me at Center Stage for this issue of Petey's Pipeline.
We've
all seen those super-long URLs that break to a second line (and
become inoperative in the process). We've also seen numerous
Web page URLs that contain this address: http://tinyurl.com/xxxx
That's
TinyURL, folks. This sweet little gem of a free service can
make your super-long URLs super short, redirect visitors to
different pages on your Web site and even hide your affiliate
URLs. The best part is it's easy to use.
Why
not get on over to TinyURL,
now, and see for yourself how simple life can be.
Tom
LeBlanc is a licensed physical therapist, published author,
home entrepreneur and 'Netrepreneur. His Web sites include Home-Entrepreneurs.com
and Transition-Home.com.
Guest
Writer, Not Ghostwriter
Ginger
Geracitano, our contributing author for this issue, makes her
first appearance in Petey's Pipeline E-zine. Ginger is a woman
of many talents; gifted artist, graphic designer, Web site designer,
marketing coach and prolific writer.
When
we first contacted Ginger, we found her to be one of the friendliest,
most helpful people we've encountered on the Internet. We sincerely
hope that her first contribution of a perceptive, insightful
article won't be her last.
Web
Stats Reveal Web Master Responsibility
by Ginger Geracitano
Monitoring
a Web site's statistics is an important part of any Web Master's
job. You can easily determine your most popular content, your
search engine effectiveness, and the flow of visitor “click-throughs.”
Your
Web site statistics are the most tangible proof of effective
marketing, layout and design. Your navigation can also be evaluated
by studying the flow of your viewers’ visits.
Not
surprisingly, I found out, in a recent review of my stats on
ThePortalToSuccess.com, that my visitors most commonly view
the current issue, the archives and the resources pages in one
visit, one after the other in a variety of combinations. Being
that this particular domain is based on my e-zine, this is a
natural progression that I planned for when designing my site.
Web
site statistics used to be a way to monitor my marketing and
design. After
what I saw tonight, I've realized that Web stats can also supply
quite the reality check, and an added sense of social responsibility.
Educators
Fight Plagiarism; Web Masters Gain Responsibility
I
found a new domain spidering my site last month, and again this
month. The number of hits was high enough to make me investigate
the interesting domain name: http://www.turnitin.com/robot/crawlerinfo.html
I
had never heard of TurnItIn.com, so I took the tour off of their
main page. It's really an incredible system. In an attempt to
combat plagiarism in our educational system, teachers and students
across the country are using this site to evaluate the content
of papers that are handed in by students.
I
hadn't really given much thought to the fact that with the incredible
amount of information available on the Internet today, homework
must be a lot easier than it was when I was in school! With
this mass of information comes the temptation to “borrow”
content to prove a point in a thesis or term paper.
I
was happy to find out that there is such a site in existence
to help our teachers encourage and support originality! Further
thought made me realize that if I'm seeing the TurnItIn.com
spider on my site so frequently, there must be a lot of research
into my target market by today's students.
Think
about this for a minute. Large numbers of students are out on
the Internet surfing around for the very information I offer
through my online publication. Good for me, right?
Is
it good for them, though? Suddenly, I feel a renewed surge of
responsibility. Is my content worthy of these visits? Am I offering
quality information? Are these students learning from me?
Publishing
as a Responsibility to Society
Tomorrow's
leaders are researching and learning through the content we
publish. Every Web Master should feel obligated to publish high
quality, meaningful content to ensure that the next generation
is well prepared to tackle whatever our future may bring.
This
realization has made me re-evaluate my content. What are tomorrow's
leaders learning from your Web site?
Copyright
© 2002–2003 by Ginger Geracitano
Used by permission.
Random
Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
Readers
Respond
Next,
in issue #7, we'll continue our probe into the reasons behind
business "shakeouts" to get a better sense of what
the future holds in store for Internet entrepreneurs. In the
meantime, if you have ideas, opinions or commentary of your
own regarding this subject, why not share them with Petey's
Pipeline readers?
Submit
your thoughtful, thought-provoking comments to editor@perfecttext.com.
Write
Thinking
12
Steps to Better Proofreading and Editing
by Phil Hanson
1.
Use a word processor. Type, or copy-and-paste, your text into
it.
2. Read! Correct any misspelled words. (Use a spelling checker.)
3. Read for context and meaning.
4. Read! Correct any typos, commonly confused words or misused
words.
5. Read! Remove redundancies.
6. Read! Insert the proper word(s) where omissions occur.
7. Read! Check for missing, misplaced, incorrect or unnecessary
punctuation.
8. Read! Check for proper formatting and spacing.
9. Read! Check for appropriate or inappropriate uses of capitalization.
10. Read! Correct errors in sentence structure and grammar usage.
11. Read the text a final time, to double-check your results.
12. Forget about reading every sentence backward to detect spelling
errors. It's the worst advice anybody ever gave on the subject
of proofreading.
Copyright
© 2003 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
Preview
of Coming Distractions
The
next issue of Petey's Pipeline brings you more off-the-wall
editorial content, an interview with another successful 'Netrepreneur,
part five of our series on e-business shakeouts and an in-depth
explanation of the 12 steps to better proofreading and editing.
Disclaimer
The
articles appearing in Petey's Pipeline E-zine are based on information
believed to be true at the time of publication.
Neither Perfecttext.com, Petey's Pipeline E-zine nor their publisher
assume any liability or responsibility as to the accuracy or
efficacy of any information, products or services that are submitted,
advertised or rendered by contributors to Petey's Pipeline E-zine.
While we make every effort to screen out scam artists and bogus
offers, you should still do your homework. Caveat emptor!
