Tag: publishing

Spell checking functions are built into many tools these days including Microsoft Word, blog editing programs, and even now into browsers such as Firefox and Opera.  However, this doesn’t stop web publishers or bloggers (including me!) from slipping and including an occasional spelling error into our posts.

NetMechanic aims to help. Begin using this service by entering in your URL on their website. Their robot checks your site for spelling errors and gives you a report based on its findings. You can specify a custom dictionary if you’d like the service to ignore certain words. Additionally, you can set NetMechanic to check either a single page or go drill down 20 pages into the site.

A new site called Spellr.us goes one step further.  The site, currently in a closed beta, will offer hourly, daily, or weekly analysis of your site and will give you a visual image of the page containing the spelling error, annotated with strikethroughs.  Pricing is hard to find on Spellr’s homepage but if it’s kept at a reasonable rate, I could easily see publishers paying for this type of service.  Perhaps a more efficient way for Spellr to operate is to scrape a blog’s RSS feed and provide error notification using this as a tool.

How do you keep track of the grammatical health of your site?  What’s your method of monitoring these types of issues?

[From [email protected] via TechCrunch]

What type of content works well on the web? Something short, funny and engaging. Now, what makes for a memorable TV commercial? Generally something short, funny and engaging. Heck, the web is where TV commercials catch viral wildfire, so it’s no wonder commercial production companies like Hungry Man are moving into the web content business.

Chances are good that you’re familiar with the work of Hungry Man. It has a stable of 20 directors that have produced commercials for the likes of Pepsi (PEP), Monster (MNST), and Mastercard (MA). One of its directors, Bryan Buckley, just won an Emmy for his American Express (AXP) commercial featuring Ellen DeGeneres.

So they have a roster of professional talent. But like many creative outfits, some of their directors had ideas that just wouldn’t work for clients. To showcase these extracurricular activities, the company launched the web channel Hungry Man TV.

Read More about Hungry Man Bites Into Original Web Shows

Local governments are up in arms over FCC ruling that deems cable system and its modem service as an interstate information service, and not a telecom or a cable service. Local governments stand to lose as much as $470 million dollars per year in cable modem franchise fee revenue, which should have been paid as a result of the cable operator’s use of the public’s property. Five national organizations have asked the Supreme Court to review the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to also review the underlying decision of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The National League of Cities, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the International Municipal Lawyers Association , and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, formed the Alliance of Local Organizations Against Preemption to pursue legal and regulatory actions as a result of the FCC’s ruling that cable modem service is not a cable service. In October 2003, the Ninth Circuit ruled that cable modem service is not a cable service but has separate telecommunications service and information service components. This development could have some serious ramifications for the VoIP players as well. If cable modem-based services are forced into following the same regulatory rules as phone companies, much of the inherent advantage of VoIP players is going to go away.