Brockhaus Konversations-Lexicon, 1902Image via WikipediaLately there’s been a whole lot of learning going on around here, and mainly from Word Sell readers, not me. Here’s what I’m talking about …

Karen Swim recommended Addictomatic as a newsgathering tool in response to a post on Google Alerts. Check it out — it collects Web pages from a wide range of news sites, bookmarking sites, social media sites, and blogs. I’ve chucked my Google Alerts and am now feeding my news habit on Addictomatic. Thanks, Karen!

Justin, also in response to the Google Alerts post, suggested Filtrbox, a fairly sophisticated media monitoring tool. I haven’t had a chance to investigate — has anyone had experience with Filtrbox?

Amit Aviv, in response to a post about the blog publishing assistant tool Zemanta, talked about Kaalga, his Firefox extension. Like Zemanta, Kaalga seeks out links based on relevant content.

Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty gives us a clue about what “relevant content” is, and it’s implications –

Zemanta is based on semantics. At least one Uber geek (I am in a technology institute) told me very recently that semantics is the future of the net. There are some mind-boggling potentials for stuff like zemanta (basically semtantics) for gleaning “interest” feeds (one step ahead of RSS feeds) and in general making the web more personal and relevant than ever.

Chris Cree shared his wisdom on a recent post about blog “category creep” –

Brad, Though it will on your blog, changing your category structure will not break post links in all cases with WordPress. It depends how the permalink structure is set up.

For example my permalink structure is /postname/postID
Robert’s looks like /postname
Joanna’s seems to be /year/month/postname

Changing categories around won’t break the post links on any of these blogs.

It will break any links that someone has made to one of your categories, but in most cases that is probably a very small number of inbound links.

(There’s quite a bit more in this conversation from Chris and other readers if you’re interested in this topic.)

Saad Khan, a new Word Sell reader (I think), blogs about corporate social leadership in Pakistan. Browsing through his blog gave me a whole new perspective.

Jeanne Dininni and Ulla Henning wandered off topic (which is A-OK around here) on a post about storytelling techniques and talked about the movement against home schooling in California and in Germany. It’s a rather sad story in itself, and similar to that of business development in Pakistan, one we don’t hear much about in the mainstream media.

And then there is this nugget from a mysterious “myse dundee” who went to a lot of trouble and left a custom made short story in Scottish dialect on a post about Scottish dialect. Thank you, sir! An excerpt –

A Wee Carnaptious Wifie and her Blootered Man

The wind was fair snell and then it began tae Ding doon wi’ rain when a wee Dundee wifie was seen walkin’ wi’ a hirple doon the Overgate in her baffies. Now this wife wis kenspeckled as she was a right Carnaptious cratur because of her man, a real Mink and a Bampot he wis.

Now wee Jess wis aye kent tae be Perjink, but the day, she seemed tae be in a richt Guddle and looked fell Puggled. “Whit’s up wi’ ye Jess,” I says,” yer in a fair Fankle the day?” …

Joanna, Amy, Bob, Jackie, and Karen in particular might want to check out the whole thing.

Thanks to all of you, and so many others, who are making Word Sell a place to learn! What have you learned today about blogs or business or writing that’s worth sharing?

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