From Paris avec love and sans haste.

Paris. Beautiful architecture, Notre Dame minus Quasimodo. The Musee d'Orsay, a converted train station houses an excellent collection of impressionist art, Sigley, Monet, and another guy that sounds like Picasso, but i think is Pissarro. Sartre and Simone de Beauvoire turn in their graves as we pay 18 Euros for a Heineken and vin blanc in Cafe Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The Latin quarter is full of cool jazz cats and cigarette socialites sitting outside bistros in the cold, covered only by an awning and their lapel collared coats.

The Eiffel Tower glows with an UV blue underlight and sparkels on the hour, every hour. Vertigo must be overcome to make it to the top and stand in awe at the panoramic neon map that stretches out to the horizon and disappears as the earth curves round. Everything is reduced to light and dark. Walk up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, also spectacular at night. Sculputres of Renaissance warriors battle with their tackle out, naked and vulnerable.

Pigalle, the Moulin Rouge and sex shops stretch out along the south of Montmartres challenging Amsterdams red light district. Depravity in-house and out-sourced. Fat hookers don't intice and fail to live up to the images plastered on the outside of the bars. Still, horniness and hardons force a hasty retreat to the hotel Saints Georges. Debauchery taken home and disciplined.

The Centre de Pompidou boasts an impressive archive of modern art. Basquiat. Beuys. Picasso. Man Ray. Fishli and Weiss, The Way Things Go. Marcel Duchamp's Urinal. Humbled by seeing such significant pieces in the proverbial flesh. Right wrongs, count to 10 more often. The buildings insides are on its outside. Transparency.

Ride the river Siene and kiss under the most romantic bridge. Exhibitionists love to be watched by nearly a thousand different voyeuristic statuesque heads hanging over the water. The Oberkampf is uber fun. Fine dining and drinking to the sultry sounds of Amy Winehouse, Phil Collins and The Police. Shakespearian book shops in the Latin quarter. Smoke menthol Vogues, casting fashionable shadows. Berets, pointy shoes and over the top lapels, are all Parisian lo-fi haute couture. Rain wets high spirits as every tear you fail to cry dampens your heart further. Communication.

Croissants and pain au chocolat. Eurostar vs Eurolines. Ferry and coach team up to take on the train. Over or under the channel?

Blogging Isn't Dead, It's Just Emigrated!

Apparently now it's all about micro-blogging. Thank Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook status's for all those often banal one line updates on how people are doing, what they're thinking and who they're hating most.

Lily Worth is attending THIS / EXISTS - October 28th Edition.
Benedict Hampenstein is an anagram of Bent Dice, or Decent Bi, whichever you prefer.
Gideon Baltrus splashed out on some fuckin' Ricicles.

140 characters of pure genius. Ive got nothing against micro-blogging, there are many advantageous and even innovative applications for it. Like your boss telling you to be in the office at 8.30am tomorrow for an impromptu but very important meeting. Brilliant, thanks a lot. Im not a Twitterererer but im an advocate for new media. However when a friend posted this article on my Facebook wall this afternoon i was compelled to react immediately.

Over the last 5 years blogging has been celebrated, ridiculed and most poignantly, feared. When everyone got over the cacophony-of-over-opinionated-amateurs argument, the public and mainstream media realised the potential of blogging and its place in the future of journalism. Then of course it was heralded as this perfect conduit for regularly updated information that can be accessed across the globe by anyone with the means, and all the oldschool elitists of broadcast journalism started quaking in their chinos, anxious they were going to be shunned aside by the fleet footed young web-savvy bloggers. Now, it seems we've gone almost full circle and there's this hyped up hysteria about the end of blogging. I hope this is far from the truth.

The original pioneer bloggers and tech geeks are indeed upset that they're clicky inner blogosphere has been hijacked by the likes of Perez Hilton, and i would be too. The intellects and creatives utilised this medium to great effect but it's the sexually ambiguous celeb stalkers that get all the fame and fortune. Cheated yes. But this and the rise of micro-blogging does not spell some apocalypse for the blogosphere. It is true that there is a significant lack of community in the once charming blogosphere and amatuer wit has been ousted for professional tautology and a Google search will rarely deliver more than a Wikipedia article and BBC News page but there's still quality content and shrewd perception floating around out there, somewhere. It's finding it that's the problem.

Paul Boutin's article from Wired is the catalyst for this debate and an astute piece of writing it is. Just a shame it's posted on the monolith of all digital media blogs.

SEO not CEO, Search Engine Optimization and Keyword Kingpins

Search engine optimization, social media marketing, whatever you want to call it this is a hot topic at the moment and as Web 2.0 continues to evolve, more and more press and publishing companies are outsourcing to small agencies to improve their presence on the internet. But should they be incorporating these skills in-house?

In Layman's terms search engine optimization is getting your website at the top of the Google rankings. This of course can be simply bought at a price with PPC, pay per click bidding for keywords. But there's also organic or natural search optimization where organisations can employ a number of different methods to increase traffic to their website. Primarily they should check that their site is recognised by the major search engines remembering that Google accounts for over 80% in the UK. Ensure that not only navigation from page to page works but also that all embedded video and moving image clips play and that any links aren't broken.

Keywords make up a large part of the process, so choose wisely. Popular keywords can improve your site visibility but relevance also remains important. Charlie Brooker recently commented on the contrived placing of controversial and celebrated words in titles and subtitles of online content. Which raises the issue of journalists and editors compromising their content to best perform on the web. Although this isn't as much of a problem as some worry warts would have you believe, the important point is the expansion of skills now necessary for all journalists wanting to have a shot at airing a story. Print and online content writing are significantly different styles. Familiarity with the blogosphere, social media sites such as Delicious and general developments in online media are all essential. Without knowledge and practical experience in these areas journalists will struggle to find work.

It's true Google is largely responsible for this shift in the industry, but it was laser set in stone as soon as the internet became a mainstream source of information for much of the public. Plus it's Google who provide the applications to review website's traffic with Analytics and the performance of keywords and adverts with AdWords. It is a complete combination of creativity and data interpretation. The most adept team will have skills and knowledge across the broadband board and will not only keep abreast of advancements but set the trends themselves.