Today is May 1st. Aside from being the 56th anniversary of the day Mr Potato Head was introduced to the public (a historic day indeed), it is also RSS Awareness Day.

As enthusiastic purveyors of RSS here at Tactical Thinking, we were as keen to play our part in the initiative as kids were eager to stick plastic eyes and ears into potatoes in the 1950’s.

So why do we need an RSS awareness day? Well, as useful and powerful as RSS is, it has yet to become a mainstream technology in the big picture of global internet use. (more…)

Lately we’ve noticed many RSS-themed posts popping up on blogs of all shapes and sizes. What’s caused this little surge in interest on the topic of RSS? That would be the up-and-coming ‘RSS Day’ on 1st May.

What’s the purpose of RSS Awareness Day?

All blog writers want more readers. We all know there’s a thirst for knowledge around the world and many of us have something worth sharing, so this awareness day is simply about making the knowledge-sharing process much easier (and less time consuming). As the old proverb goes, ‘Time is money’.

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It’s something we’ve been waiting a while for here at Tactic Group, but yesterday it arrived. The guys over at WordPress posted a sneak peek of the new version (version 2.5), of their formidable blog engine.

Being ardent WordPress fans here (as it powers Tactical Thinking and is our recommended weblog solution), we’re very excited at this news. Since reading about the usability and interaction design work by Happy Cog I’ve been itching to see the end results.

The re-designed administration interface looks just as good as the new features sound. Features such as a customisable dashboard, built-in photo galleries and Gravatar support. To give you an idea of the emphasis on this major new release:

This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint — we’ve re-thought the look of WordPress, as well as how it’s organized so that you can forget about the software and focus on your own creative pursuits.

We’ll be giving this new version a whirl here in the next couple of days, as it’s reputedly very stable, and will post our early thoughts as we put it through its paces.

Update 26.03.2008: View a short screencast of the new WordPress in action.

Ever wondered why it feels good to write bullet points in sets of three? Two just doesn’t seem worthwhile, whereas four can feel a little excessive.

Brian Clark at Copyblogger explains How To Use The ‘Rule Of Three’ To Create Engaging Content. In this rather compelling post Brian describes why the human brain is drawn towards three-part structures. (more…)