Weekly Swipe file

Photography: Filing cabinet by alexstaubo

This week’s Swipe file contains 10 links.

Learn how to review a book by example, leave gifts for your readers, argue with a blog skeptic, master the art of stress-free blogging, contract the IdeaVirus, keep the menu simple, say more in less words, try out 5 new headline formulas and forget about gaming StumbleUpon. Bonus: 50 tips to re-clutter your blog!

• This book review of The 4-Hour Work Week at Get Rich Slowly should serve as a model for any online product review. It draws out broad ideas from the book, describes what is good about it, what is not so good about it, and who it is and isn’t well-suited to. They key, however, is summarizing the author’s ideas in bite-sized chunks: providing just enough detail to get hooked on them. I’m sure the review writer has made a bunch of sales.

• The Drop Spots website rests on a unique premise: visitors create a ‘drop spot’ (a real life hidey-hole in their area) and leave an item there. Another online user can go to the drop-spot, take the item and leave another in its place. I thought this idea could be adapted by any blogger with a large audience: you could leave goodies for your blog visitors in real-life hidey-holes. A little kooky, I know, but it’s an idea.

• Blogging is not new anymore, yet there are still those who remain decidedly unconvinced of its value.

• You may have noticed that I’m in the middle of a productivity kick at the moment. Two jobs, study, a blog and guest-posts will do that to you! This article on stress-free productive blogging comes from probably the most productive blogger around, Leo Babauta.

• Unleashing The IdeaVirus is a free, +100 page eBook by User Experience doyenne Seth Godin. It’s amazing how many User Experience principles can be translated to content creation. It’s also required reading if you’re seriously interested in creating viral content. While we’re on the topic, here’s a recent interview with the man: less applicable to what we do, but should be studied by anyone hoping to conduct a great interview.

• In Keep the Menu Simple Jeff Atwood talks about the importance of simplicity in user interfaces. The principles are directly translatable to web simplicity: the less you have, the easier it is to interact with.

• Even if you’re disinterested in design, new blog A Brief Message is one I’d recommend keeping tabs on. Its raison d’être is to provide meaningful design articles in under 200 words — a good example for anyone hoping to say more with less.

• Copyblogger lists off five surefire headline formulas. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a ‘headline formula’, but nonetheless, they’re quite snappy.

• StumbleUpon is perhaps finally receiving the attention it deserves. A number of articles have been written on creating a powerful SU profile and how this can be used to generate traffic for your site. Maki goes against the grain by arguing that SU is not like other social media in that a powerful profile does not necessarily mean everything you stumble will be successful (hint: it actually has to be good content). I’ve observed Maki on StumbleUpon and when he says he’s grown to love and enjoy the service for its own sake, it’s the truth.

• Bonus: As if in answer to my post, 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog, Web 2.0 and its endless stream of widgets has fought back. The source is Mashable, the post: 50 Great Widgets For Your Blog. Right, because the one thing every blog needs is more widgets! I only wish Mashable would use its immense list-making, digg-baiting powers for good, not evil…