Compliments to Wendy Biddlecombe for pointing out how effective a well-placed tag cloud can be. And I’m always a sucker for any interesting use of font size.

9.1

percentage of the labor force unemployed in the U.S. as of May 2011 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

10,000

Pew Research Center estimate of U.S. journalism jobs lost between 2001 and 2009 (Forbes)

2,828

estimate of U.S. journalism jobs lost to layoffs and buyouts in 2010 (Paper Cuts)

302

estimate of U.S. journalism jobs lost to layoffs and buyouts so far in 2011 (Paper Cuts)

38

percentage increase of applicants to the Columbia journalism program in 2009 (Forbes)

20

percentage increase of applicants to the Stanford journalism program in 2009 (Forbes)

6

percentage increase of applicants to the NYU journalism program in 2009 (Forbes)

2

U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats projected percentage increase of entry-level reporting jobs by 2016 (Forbes)

10

U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats projected percentage increase of writing/editing jobs for experience applicants by 2016 (Forbes)

1

number of airlines that just named a plane #nerdbird (Mashable)

Stay tuned…

Camille Seaman has more photos of the icebergs on her website.

I love Twitter. I think it’s a great way to connect with people you may never have had any connection with otherwise, and to find interesting stories and keep up on the news. I made a separate follow list for The New York Times Twitter accounts, so now I’m following all of them except the obituaries and the sports-related accounts (not my thing, sorry).

I’ve followed @nytimes since I started using Twitter a few years ago, but following so many of their editors and reporters gives me a whole different view into what goes into such a massive publication. It’s more than just this untouchable behemoth of a newspaper, it’s made up of groups of people with a passion for news pouring themselves into so many things–court reporting, travel deal-finding, multimedia, the magazine, etc.

It’s an interesting, if small look into the minds of the people that make it happen. A lot of them link to their personal websites too–I like being able to go beyond the byline and find out how the people behind the papers I admire most got to where they are now.

I’ve found similar Twitter account lists for The St. Petersburg Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Guardian.

(And you can follow me on Twitter @KeeleyMSheehan.)

I don’t have a lot of photographs to display on my website yet, so in the meantime, I’m experimenting with Cincopa using photographs of paintings I’ve done. I like to paint in my spare time (mostly acrylics)–it’s relaxing. I’ve never really displayed my paintings anywhere, and don’t have too many with me that I can post pictures of (I left most of my canvas at my parents’ house in New York when I moved to St. Pete), so for now they’ll find a home on the Creative Work page on my site.

I interviewed LA photographer Francis Specker about how he uses blogs and social media to get his name out there and build a successful brand. In addition to answering all of my questions, he also sent me a link to this article from The Next Web: “How blogging gives student journalists an edge in the job market.”

The article interviews several students who have found success by starting blogs and producing their own hyperlocal reporting and content. By keeping up with their sites and experimenting with multimedia, they’ve gotten attention, made invaluable contacts, and become great information resources for their viewers. One student, for example, live blogged the 2010 UK elections, with photos, video and audio, updated constantly to keep viewers connected.

Francis made an interesting point in his interview. His blog, website and social media accounts are about more than just promoting himself as someone with a service to offer–he uses them to connect with people and establish himself as someone with knowledge to share, as someone clients can trust.

Stand tuned for the full story, with more from Francis, and other journalists on how they harness the web.

The posts are pretty interesting reads. They talk about their travel mishaps, adventures in packing, the weird/quirky shops, museums and restaurants they visited along the way, etc. And even better, they’ve posted pictures of nearly everything they saw during their ’round-the-globe excursion. The photos are gorgeous.

The one picky thing about the blog is that the posts aren’t broken up at all so each entry is posted in its entirety on the home page, which sometimes makes it hard to scroll through because you’re just scrolling through so much, but the pictures are amazing, so it’s not too bad.

I think the overall design of the blog is very clean and pretty. Overall their blog is pleasing to the eye and pretty readable.

Plus they’re just an adorable couple.

St. Sophia Cathedral, Kiev, Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons

Bonus: They’re both Ukrainian, so they visited the Ukraine for a while during their trip, and Julia interviewed her parents about what it was like to move to the U.S. in the late ’80s/early ’90s. It’s a fascinating read, especially because I tend to think of “moving to America” in terms of either my great grandparents or today’s increasingly heated immigration debate. This offers a whole other perspective, the availability of which is one of the great things about the Internet, and why I became interested in journalism in the first place.

Inquiring minds want to know–what are some of your favorite blogs?

Rachel Kane’s blog WTForever21 critiques the store’s less-than-appealing finds, like the blue ruffled romper with the zipper down the front (seriously?), or the seizure-inducing vacation jumpsuit (seriously.).

Forever 21 is not amused.

The company is threatening to sue Kane for trademark infringement and unfair competition unless she takes down her site, based on the fact that she uses the company’s name in the title and URL of her blog. (Kane has a little blurb on her website stating that it is in no way affiliated with the company Forever 21.) They also take issue with the fact that she posts pictures of the clothes from the company’s website in her blog entries.

Forever 21 is no stranger to legal issues. The company has found itself in hot water more than once over copyright issues for allegedly ripping off other designers and companies. It’ll be interesting to see how they fare on the other side of things.

I’m particularly interested in this idea of “unfair competition.” I don’t really know what they’re getting at with that one. She’s not selling anything… Can they extend competition to include competing for space in people’s heads? If I walk by a Forever 21 in the mall, and it reminds me of the blog, is that competition? Maybe the blog is making her some sort of exorbitant sum of money that I’m not aware of from the few Google AdSense ads on the site?

She has until tomorrow to take her site down. I guess we’ll see what happens, but in the meantime, I’ve found my new favorite humor blog.

Part of the focus of my web publishing class has been creating content for the web that will stick. We want search engines to pick up what we’re posting, and to create consistency between our websites, blogs and social media accounts to draw in readers and viewers.

We’re slowly becoming little web/social media “experts” (or making the attempt, anyway), which leads me to believe I have found my calling: Rep. Anthony Weiner’s personal social media guru. If not guru, I’d settle for intern–any title that means he hands me the keys to his social media accounts.

It’s pretty much common knowledge at this point that Andrew Breitbart broke the news that the recently-married Weiner had been sending “lewd” (good word, CNN) photos of his… ehm… last name (har har) to girls via Twitter, Facebook, etc. After trying to fib his way out of it, he came clean a few days ago in a press conference. He hasn’t resigned, but Rep. Nancy Pelosi called for an ethics investigation.

It’s a story already near and dear to my heart as a New York State native, especially after Chris Lee’s recent foray into Craigslist. But I also smell a job opportunity. Weiner seems to have been one of the savvier politicians in regards to social media. Until recently, he used his Twitter account constantly, joking about his profile picture at the Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner (starts at about 5:40).

But he made the fatal error of mixing his professional account with his personal life–any good j-school student knows that’s a no-no. Future employers don’t want to see photos of your drunken escapades. Future voters don’t want to see photos of your… you know.

(And as an interesting aside, New York Magazine points out that this sex scandal involves absolutely no actual sex. Contemplate that one.)

So Rep. Weiner, I know you’re Net-savvy, so if you read this, please see my resume. Objective: To obtain a position as a Congressional social media intern. Think about it.

The narration makes it feel very old school psychoanalytic-esque, and not at all like you’re wasting time on something with no real meaning for your day-to-day life. And in case you’re wondering, I’m archer hairline:

Check out those little pops of elegance on the ends.

So tell me, which font are you?