USA Today has a nice profile on the educational potential of YouTube, something we highlighted a few weeks ago. In particular, it mentions a great non-profit, one-man organization called the Khan Academy, which has published almost 700 videos on YouTube dealing primarily with math but also touching upon finance and banking — including compound interest, home equity loans and the mortgage crisis. The Khan videos have become popular with high school and college students looking to supplement their schoolwork — and no doubt adults hoping to make sense of why their house is now worth less than their car.

Of course, YouTube videos shouldn’t be used as a replacement for formal education; they’re more of a study aide. Think of them as video CliffsNotes, which we all know shouldn’t be read in place of the actual book (ahem). While these videos have the benefits of convenience and replayability, viewers should be wary of both the picture and content quality. If a video claims that Harriet Tubman was Harry Truman’s post-op stage name, for instance, think twice about its reliability.

On the surface it appears that the present is a terrible time to launch a writing career. People are reading less, print publications are dying out, and people are diverting more and more attention to digital media.

While this is a disaster for the literary establishment, it’s a fantastic opportunity for writers agile and talented enough to capitalize. While the Web makes it difficult for old publishing models to survive, it enables individual writers to publish at virtually no cost and distribute their work to anyone with an internet connection.

The Web is a powerful medium, but online success isn’t as simple as starting a blog, throwing up a few posts, and waiting for the book deals to come in. This article provides advice on writing content that readers will love, building a passionate audience, and using that audience to make a living from your work.

Online Writing Style

A popular saying on the Web is “content is king.” In order to build an audience for your writing, you’ll need to write about subjects that people are passionate about with a style that differentiates you from the crowd and motivates people to share your writing.

There is no surefire formula for great content, but here a few general rules:

1. Never be boring - Boring content is the kiss of death on the Internet. Users are always one click away from leaving your Website and never coming back. Don’t lose them by being tedious. Write with passion and focus on the interests on the reader. Edit yourself ruthlessly to avoid unnecessary words.
2. Be controversial - One of the major advantages small Internet publishers have over mainstream media is that they have complete freedom in what they write about. Readers are sick of the bland corporate speak that embodies mass media. Be a refreshing change of perspective by telling the truth that big publishers are too conservative to tell.
3. Be personal - Another advantage small publishers have is the ability to relate to readers on an individual basis. Readers feel connected to writers that share personal details and past experiences, so don’t be afraid to expose yourself — people will relate to you.
4. Be useful - Focus on helping readers. Attention is precious, so don’t waste your readers’ time by straying off topic or rambling. Always keep in mind how the content can best help readers to achieve their goals.
5. Be bold - In a world crowded by millions of voices fighting for attention, it’s essential write with conviction. No one ever stood out by writing like they sort of know what they’re talking about. Blow your readers away by writing with authority. If you’re proven wrong, you can always correct yourself. You’ll never gain a following if you don’t appear supremely confident.
6. Use Web-friendly formatting - Studies have shown that people read much differently on the web than in print. People are more likely to scan an article before they dive in. Make sure to format the content for easy scanning by breaking blocks of text into short paragraphs and using of subheadings, lists, and bold text to highlight important concepts.

Getting the Word Out

Once you’ve established a Website with a decent body of work, you’re ready to start attracting your first readers. Recent Internet trends like social networking, bookmarking, and news have made it much easier for great content to spread. If you’ve created something people are passionate about it can become viral and take on a life of its own.

Of course, nothing will happen if you just let it sit there. You need to get the ball rolling with some guerrilla marketing. The most important ingredients for success are genuine enthusiasm for your work and the willingness to hustle.

Here are some basic strategies for attracting the first few thousand readers:

• Become active in relevant communities - To get people to pay attention to you, it’s important to establish yourself as a contributing (or better yet, leading) member of a community. You can do this by finding the active conversations relevant to your writing and joining the discussion. Good ways to do this are commenting on blogs, posting in forums, and using social tools like Twitter and Facebook.

• Utilize social news and bookmarking sites - One of the best ways to get large amounts of traffic is through social sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit. These sites have the potential to send thousands of visitors so taking the time to learn how they work and become an active user is well worth the investment.
• Network with similar writers - It’s also important to form personal connections with other writers and site owners that can help you get more exposure. People with popular Websites get hundreds of emails a day, so don’t waste their time and don’t ask for help without offering something in return. When you’re just getting started it makes sense to approach small bloggers first and work your way up as you gain credibility.

Getting Readers to Stick Around

Attracting readers to your site for the first time is only half the battle. It’s all for nothing if they leave quickly and never come back. To retain as many readers as possible, you need to show them your very best content and encourage them to subscribe to updates from an RSS feed or email newsletter.

We recommend displaying your best content prominently in the sidebar where it’s easy for readers to find. Another good idea is placing links to related articles at the end of each post so readers have something new to read when they finish an article. You can also encourage more readers to subscribe my putting links to your RSS feed and a sign up form for your email list at prominent location on the page. The closer to the top the better.

Making a Living

Once you’ve found an audience online, the next step is figuring out how to use it to make a living. This can be a challenge because readers often complain and revolt when websites become more commercial. The truth is you deserve to be compensated for your work and need to find a balance between selling out and going broke.

The topic of making money from a Website has been covered many other place I won’t try to cover it here, but there main alternatives are:

• Using your audience to get a book deal from a traditional publisher
• Advertising, with the Google AdSense program or direct ad sales
• Affiliate marketing

We’ll elaborate on these topics in future articles.

Alan Turing, 1912-1954

Artificial intelligence is a broad, fascinating subject that has been studied relentlessly over the last several decades. The idea of a computer developing the capacity to think causes one to question the inner workings of our own minds, and even raises questions of how one might tell the difference.

One of AI’s earliest experts, mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing, began experimenting with the concept in the 1950s. In “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” an essay he published in the British journal Mind, Turing theorized that if a computer can fool an interrogator into thinking it is human, it will have demonstrated intelligence. He developed the Turing test, in which a human interrogator interviews a computer and a human at the same time, via written text. The challenge is for the interrogator to decide which of the two subjects is human and which is silicone. (Technically, this is not the original version of the test, and there is some question as to how close this interpretation is to Turing’s original description.) There are actually annual competitions in which AI developers enter their programs in an attempt to pass this test. Though no bot has yet fooled enough of its interrogators to officially pass the Turing test, they are given awards based on responsiveness, personality and other factors.

Whether you’re an AI expert or just a blog-hopping Internet jockey, talking to one of these bots provides insight into how artificial intelligence works, or at least some quick fun. We’ve gathered a few of the friendlier bots below. Click a link to start a conversation with a machine that endeavors to be human. Just try to keep the contempt under wraps, they can be sensitive.

igod – This is probably the most comprehensive bot easily found by users. igod pretends to be the big man upstairs, requiring a sense of humor from its conversation partner (as well as the temporary disabling of pop-up blocking software.) Feel free to ask questions, talk about yourself, or get philosophical. He’s an all-around chill guy, with semi-legitimate musical opinions.
http://www.titane.ca/igod/

A.L.I.C.E. – the Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity is an award-winning bot that uses Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) to create responses to your queries. She is pretty basic, and can still be confused. But like other bots, if you let her control the conversation it can be kind of eerie.
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1

Talk-Bot – Talk Bot was found in alien wreckage in 2001, and his discovery was covered up by the FBI. He is somewhat damaged, and tends to have identity issues as he tries to decide whether he’s a robot or a human. He also becomes suddenly distracted if you ask him a hard question. But he seems mostly good-natured.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~wcowart/story.html

Turing Enigma – This site features an Enigma encryption machine of the sort used by the Germans during World War II. This one is somehow infused with the spirit of Alan Turing, whom you can chat with. Turing seems rather confused most of the time here; however, he does produce interesting animations and sound effects.
http://fullhouse.uiah.fi/turingenigma/

Lissie – Lissie is a rather vampy bot who tends to give goth-like answers to queries. She doesn’t trust many people and can be a bit of a brat, but don’t give her any lip and she’ll be nice to you.
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=b3f4b1d34e36a3a4

TuringHub –  This hub uses four bots: Alice (see above), Eugene, George and Landru. The challenge at this site is to decide after 5 minutes whether you’re talking to one of them, or one of their human administrators. It gets tricky, because they are damn well trying to make it that way. For some reason I was never asked to identify my partner, but had I been asked, I’m not sure what I would have thought.
http://testing.turinghub.com/

SimonLaven.com – A virtual mall of chatterbots, 27-year-old programmer Simon Laven’s Web site provides access to dozens of the critters, under nine categories. Fred, for example, is a bot who loves classic Star Trek, so much so that he refuses to discuss anything else, much like an annoying little brother. Brian pretends to be an 18-year-old college student (but only seems to run on Mac software, darn him.) Some of these are Web-based, others need to be downloaded from other sites.
http://www.simonlaven.com/

With more information available than ever before, students are increasingly challenged to fight through the clutter and be productive. The following are free, simple, and effective tools for managing the wide variety of tasks required by students.

Evernote

Evernote just might be the perfect note-taking application. It allows students to take notes on a mobile phone or computer and synchronizes the notes so they’re available online or off from any device. Whether you need to take notes during a lecture, bookmark an interesting website, or tag a few images for inspiration, Evernote provides an elegant solution.

Twitter

Twitter is both an excellent tool for a collaboration and a real time community buzz tracker. Students that need to organize meetings with classmates, keep in touch during school events, or have discussions about coursework, will find Twitter.com to be a highly efficient replacement for IM or email. Students that need to research current events should monitor Twitter Search to learn what real people are talking about right now.

Google Apps

Back in the day, students that wanted a complete office productivity suite had to shell out money for Microsoft Office, and forget about online collaboration. Fortunately, those day are gone forever. Google provides a complete range of web-based software that includes word processing, spread sheets, email, and calendar. All of which can be shared with fellow students online and accessed from any internet connection. Google apps is such a good deal, some schools have switched to it for all their email needs.

Facebook Groups

Facebook started as a viral phenomenon at colleges, and nothing has disrupted it’s dominance as the premier social network for students. For organizing students around study groups, school events, or social causes, Facebook Groups is the best way to leverage the existing social connections of your fellow students to spread your message.

NowDoThis

For students tired of work groups that can’t stay focused, NowDoThis is a fantastic way to keep people on track. Simply enter the list of tasks that need to be competed into NowDoThis, then work from one to the next without distraction. This is perfect for keeping a group on track and getting work done fast.

Hope you enjoy reading this list as much as I did putting it together!

1. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~Aristotle
2. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Hector Berlioz
3. An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. ~Niels Bohr
4. Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. ~Albert Einstein
5. What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. ~George Bernard Shaw
6. Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. ~Perelman
7. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. ~Mark Twain
8. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. ~Jim Rohn
9. Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. ~Ambrose Bierce
10. In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
11. The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change. ~Carl Rogers
12. A liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear. ~James B. Stockdale
13. A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~Thomas Carruthers
14. The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn. ~Cicero
15. Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. ~Chinese Proverb
16. I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. ~Socrates
17. Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. ~Sir William Haley
18. In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. ~Lee Iacocca
19. The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves. ~Joseph Campbell
20. Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. ~W. B. Yeats
21. A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets amongst the stars. ~Linnaeus
22. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. ~Confucius
23. The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple. ~Amos Bronson Alcott
24. Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. ~Abraham Lincoln
25. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand… what he learns and the way he understands it. — Soren Kierkegaard
26. The highest result of education is tolerance. — Helen Keller
27. Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
28. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. — William Arthur Ward
29. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. — Gandhi
30. I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. — Dudley Field Malone
31. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. — Henry David Thoreau
32. Genius without education is like silver in the mine. — Benjamin Franklin
33. How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. — Alexander Dumas
34. If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. — Abraham Maslow
35. There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. — Thomas Jefferson