Webmasters Journal

View as: | Webpage | Doc | Activity Feed | Discussion |

How I combined my elements

Everything I write starts out in Google Documents. It is really easier for me to simply let my audience read my content in the same platform where I handle creation and editing, but this isnt always practical. But, I do count the Google Document version of my content as the view part of the four elements. Initially, I also referenced the Google Webpage version of the same document as a part of the view function--so, I had two links for viewing. This was because Google Docs dont always show up properly on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, so I needed an alternative. But, Ive since begun referencing content that has been entered into a ebook publishing service. Ill talk more about why later on. Whenever I launch a new document, I will click on comments, and then enter a comment which says Post your comment. Then, I grab the URL for this comment and use it to create a link called discussion. This was the easiest way to direct users somewhere that they could respond to the document. On the subject of discussions, I am aware that there are a lot of different places where a reader would be able to post a comment or write a response. For example, on Facebook, or in Twitter. This just makes it even more important that you keep a record of every place where your piece of content is referenced. However, you do want to establish one primary way in which readers might respond. I chose the comments/annotations in Google Docs because it is already included in the document, where I enter my edits and updates. Finally, there is the question of the Activity Feed. I have done the most experimenting with this aspect of the elements of online content. I dont have very many solid answers, but I have seen some success with using Storify, but as a fall back I have also had success with referencing the tickets I create in FogBugz.