Article to go with website directory

The internet is full of so many pages, so many words, and so many websites. It’s like a maze with endless directions, and you don’t know which to pick. But, because there is so much to choose from, some websites get lost in the shuffle.

You work so hard on your web site, that you want millions of people to visit it. But when no body does, all your hard work goes unnoticed. It’s not that your website isn’t amazing… it’s just unknown.

HOW TO GET NOTICED

You can set your ‘signature’ (on the bottom of emails, chat room names) to your website URL.

Exchange banners (logos) with other sites. Advertisement for advertisement.

Socialize! Talk to your friends and have them spread the word.

Flyer Wall is a great site to advertise your site. Usually, it costs $40 for the creator to make your ‘flyer’ and post it on the ‘wall’. However, if he likes your site especially, he’ll put it up there for free. The web address is theflyerwall.co.uk. The only catch is… you can’t use copyrighted images.

Google AdWords is a program off of Google. It also costs money, but only by the click. You see, what it is, is someone searches something related to your ad. Your ad shows up on the right-hand side of the search page and they only charge you when your ad is clicked. This works best when you are selling something.

This website directory will also help you get your site around with your ‘peers’.

Is this okay?

2nd Article

For my second article, I was thinking of doing a website directory. A lot of comm arts majors - and minors - have made sites that nobody knows about and it might be cool to get the word out. It would just be a list of sites and names. Can I do that and would that count as an article?

Title

The title would be "When I Grow Up...." (linked to the previous article). I would work it into the end by elaborating that we could always invent the things that haven't come true, but I still have to edit the begining.

Article

I may add on bits and pieces later, but this is my rough draft. I'm thinking of a way to work the title into the begining, then I'll add the end.

Almost daily, there are theories published about what is to come, about what lay ahead of us. There are predictions about transportation, – bubbles and flying cars – about clothes, – tin foil – and so much more. Sure, half of these are logical predictions factoring in the progress of the past. But, if you think about it, the other half is fed by Hollywood.
Our picture of the future is very clear: robots, flying cars, tin foil, metal, and things appearing out of thin air. It’s always been the same; never changing, even as time passed by and so many futures were gone. Our predictions should be getting more complex and our visions should change as time goes by, right? They don’t, though.
Hollywood, even as the future is destined to change, keeps refueling that image we all have. Hollywood movies from the 1940’s have portrayed tin foil, too. Except their future was the new millennium… year 2000. Now that it has gone, do we really have a world like the Jetsons? Have we come close?
The Jetsons had roving sidewalks and teleports that magically gave you food. When the show came out, everything all looked so new, shiny, and impossible. It was like we could never have that. While we may not be ‘shiny’, we have developed devices close to the complexity of the times of the Jetsons. What about the moving walkways in airports? Are those any different from the 1960’s hit TV show? And we may not have fancy teleportation/food makers, but I think that microwaves come pretty close. All these comparisons really make you wonder if our predictions haven’t already come true….
In Back to the Future Part II, one of the most popular items was the car with doors that opened up. You may not see many of those cars on the road now, but believe it or not, they have already had their hay-day. The 1981 DeLorean DMC-12, was actually made before the movie. Our parents know that, but not many middle school students do. Also, in this movie, Doc and Marty travel to 2015, and the world already looks like a tinfoil bomb has gone off. Will we have all of that technology in 6 years?
With all of the space movies combined, like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Lost in Space, there are a lot of ‘future’ items. In Star Trek, which took place in 2151, they had computers and communicators before we had cell phones or desktops. But, in a different sense, we are ahead of their predictions. About 110 years ahead. However, we have yet to create a space ship that can travel that far away from Earth. The same goes for Star Wars. Also, I’m pretty sure that deadly beams of light (a.k.a. light sabers) haven’t been invented yet.
So, if you really think about all of the past future guesses, you’ll ask yourself: Are we there yet? Yes, Hollywood has made up a lot of it, but that has helped us to grow and accomplish (most of the time) so many new things.
It doesn’t even take a calculator or dictionary to predict the future. It just takes kids with a dream. Kids are our future, the people who make the future happen. We are the ones making the new clothes, and the ones developing new modes of transportation. It’s always been that way. Maybe you can tell your parents that, and ask if you can stay home from school one day to watch past future movies. After all, it could help you develop the upcoming world and exceed the expectations of your peers and elders.