Geekspeak

The joy of search, by Stan Hayward

1958. I rang the Writers’ Guild (then Screen Writers' Guild) and said “How much should I charge for writing a TV commercial?” The man said “wait a minute”; went away, came back and said “How much do you normally charge?”.

The Guild offers a much improved service now, but today I might ask the Guild how I submit my work for the Blooker prize, or whether my Mashup has to credit copyright.

Confused? Well a Blook is a book that started as a Blog. Lulu.com - the self publishing service - has a yearly Blooker prize. A Mashup is a web based work that combines two or more sources. You might use a Google map to superimpose crime statistics taken from another site and put this in your own presentation.

I use the web in several ways. First I use it to advertise my work - henryscat.com tells users what I am offering and how to contact me. I have included free stories and videos on the site as examples of style.

But the site has a second purpose. It is a Portal. That is, it has a link to another site, MakeMovies.co.uk, which is a teacher’s site for animation. This started out as a Millennium lottery award project in schools. Several educational websites have linked to it so I am in the process of making it into a Blook.

Apart from becoming a blook, it also links to my blog, which is an animation databank. This is important because my blog carries Google adverts, and if I get enough ‘hits’ I get paid. I essentially use the blog to direct readers to other sites rather than to read my comments. In this way I have an unlimited source of material: Writers blog replaces Writers block.

So, you can use a blog to put up your details and leave it there as a reference. You can use it as a diary and make regular comments, which can include feedback. Or you can use it as a portal for other sites. How do you know which other sites are worth visiting? Simply use a Google Alert to find them for you. I type in ‘Animation news’ and get the latest update on my screen every day.

Having problems finding what you want on Google? Start on Google main page and click on ‘more’ which takes you to Google products. Then choose ‘Blog Search’, ‘Book Search’, ‘Directory’, ‘Notebook’, if you are just surfing you can try adding an asterisk. The search on ‘Writers*’ will bring up anything connected to Writers, and will include Writing, and Write. On the other hand “Writers” in quotes will only bring up Writers. If you want to be specific and are looking for Writers in Drama you could use “Writers” + “Drama”.

For more searches go to ‘Google Labs’ and try ‘Google Suggest’ for keywords, or use ‘Google Sets’ for similar ideas. You don’t have to use Google. Type ‘Search Engines’ into your browser to get a listing of many alternatives.

If geekspeak confuses you then try Webopedia or Wikipedia for enlightenment.

I have a third website at parentalalienation.co.uk which started as an article in a charity newsletter, then became a website, and went back to being a published guide.  Question: if you put your work on a website will it get copied? If it’s any good, almost certainly. Does it matter? Probably not in most cases. I discovered my website translated into Japanese and Swedish without my knowledge, and literally copied on several other ‘Parenting’ sites. The result was several offers to write books and articles on the subject.

If you are worried about someone stealing your work then don’t put it on the web in any form. Copying is now an art form in itself, and you might well be surprised if you type your name or your works into the browser.

It would not surprise me if Google or Microsoft offered to buy the Writers' Guild for a billion or so. As the service it offers is 100% information, and as most of its members process information, it probably has access to more fields of information than any other group in the UK.

Of course, getting access to that information is something else. It is called data mining, and is what all large organisations are doing. How does this apply to the Writers' Guild members? Well, if someone 20 years ago had asked me how to become a writer I would have said: "Just do it". Now I’d say: "Learn to use a search engine".

I’d go as far as to say that when ‘How to Write’ courses are replaced by ‘How to Search’ courses we would have moved into the twenty-first century.

Oh, and by the way, if you type "How to search" in your browser you will get around 1700,000,000 hits. That should keep you busy.

Stan Hayward is the writer of Henry's Cat.

Article published: 18.06.2007