What is the length of the ideal blog post?

Modern Life Is Rubbish is a cool blog written by Stuart Brown that seems to feature a never-ending flow of posts on topics of interest to bloggers and technophiles alike. The latest is titled “How Long is the Ideal Blog Post?” and details some interesting and no doubt time-consuming research the blogger did into blog post length. His methodology:

Taking the Technorati Top 100 as my sample, eliminating those which aren’t in the English language, and those which aren’t identifiable as conventional blogs, I took an average word count of the 10 most recent posts on each blog.

What he found was that most of the blogs posts were between 100 and 250 words. Pretty short, in other words. Seems blog readers like short, punchy prose that gets to the point quickly and dispenses with the pleasantries. Not too surprising I guess, given the medium. Most blogs, the most popular ones anyways, are about the links elsewhere. Tell me quickly what the link is about and then gimme it so I can see for myself.

It made me wonder about my own blog. How long are my posts on average? How do I compare with the most popular blogs, with which I aspire to compete? So, I took my most recent 10 posts and calculated the average number of words, including quotes from the news stories I invariably highlight. The result? An illuminating one:

318.7 words on average, median of 302.5. Ranging from 475 on the top end to 201 on the bottom. I’m basically a little higher than the average, which probably has something to do with the quotes from the original source I’m blogging about. Most of the time I just want to bring your attention to a story related to accounting, throw my two cents in, and link it. Stuart’s take:

There’s a distinct jump in word length for some blogs – in these cases it’s usually a transition between writing for entertainment to writing for reference. With the transition comes the ability to post much longer articles, without the fear of losing interest.

So that’s what it is! I have a subconscious fear of losing your interest and I write more for entertainment than reference!

The power of unique names in the age of Google

The Wall Street Journal has published an article recently titled “You’re a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well” that’s been making the rounds on various popular blogs. Reminds me of what I found when I Googled myself a short while ago. I took a screen shot of it and put it on my Flickr.

In the age of Google, being special increasingly requires standing out from the crowd online. Many people aspire for themselves — or their offspring — to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites’ member lookup functions.

So, instead of doing it the hard way by starting a blog and building up enough inbound links to climb to the top on merit, people are resorting to assigning their kids very unique names in what is clearly black hat search engine optimization!

As for making sure people know Neil McIntyre means me, I’ve done the proactive thing and set up my identity at ClaimID and Wink. My ClaimID page also lists links to other Neil McIntyres, under the heading “Not Me”. Everyone should be setting up their own ClaimID and claiming things online that they’ve done or are about them.

ClaimID’s blog even has an entry related to the above article.

The approach that seems to be popular in identity search is a hybrid of search + claiming. Knowing that models will never fully disambiguate or find any one individual, the search engines allow individuals to claim related results, creating a dossier of sorts. Of course, this is the approach we’ve always taken in ClaimID – you know yourself, and we’re not going to try to design an algorithm that knows you better than you do.

Making a name for yourself has never been easier. At the same time, it is only going to get more difficult maintaining your name as the Web continues to grow.

Indeed, it’s such a challenge that there are blogs dedicated to the idea and art of personal branding, such as QuickSprout, which written by a fellow Neil. He blogs about branding through social networks like Facebook, provides some quick and dirty ways to brand yourself, and explains a key reason for taking control of your personal brand.

What are you doing to set yourself apart from the crowd? Will you do anything to ensure your kids are Google-able?

UFE Report is out… Finally!

The UFE Report for the 2006 test is finally available on the ICAO website. It’s been many months, since November 24th when the results came out, but it’s here!

I would link to it or provide it for download, but it’s behind the paywall that only members can access so I have a feeling I may run afoul of the Institute by offering it – and I know that people at various Institutes read my blog!

The UFE Report is fun to read because in it the Board of Evaluators talk about how disappointed they were while reading candidates’ responses. I mean they really lay into us. It’s great entertainment. Some gems:

  • “In some cases candidates discussed treatment options at some length even though they were evidently not suitable in the circumstances or were clearly not allowed by the profession’s standards… [which] would be a waste of a client’s time in real life.”
  • “Many candidates failed to demonstrate their understanding of the various types of risk (audit risk, inherent risk, control risk and detection risk). They would often state ‘risk is high’ without specifying which risk was high.”
  • “The board was shocked and disappointed by the number of candidates who did not attempt even a single calculation on this simulation, considering that they were specifically asked to calculate the preliminary adjustments.”

Shocked and disappointed in that last one! I can’t remember whether I tried a calculation on that case, but I do remember the case and feeling like if I failed, it was because of that case. So maybe I did try a calculation.

After the listing of the grievances the Report goes through each case in detail, providing a marking key for future writers to study from.

However, I’m realizing now just how useless it is for me since I don’t have my test. It was encrypted and saved on a USB key each of the three days and we don’t get it back. I can’t remember the details of my responses, since it’s been since mid-September.

Oh well. It’s done, I passed, I’ll be a CA soon!

Experts weigh in on interest deductibility issue

The Globe and Mail, a Canadian daily, has a feature on their website today where three tax experts from Couzin Taylor LLP and Ernst & Young LLP answer questions from readers about the interest deductibility “feature” of the Federal government’s budget.

Caribbean beachI’ve blogged about this complicated topic a couple of times now but never really felt I understood the issue as clearly as I could’ve. I think I made that apparent to my readers! The discussion on the Globe really helped me get the gist of this situation better than my rudimentary research before.

Some highlights:

The government has ignored the adverse macroeconomic impact of the proposals. The measure has specifically targeted double-dips that reduce foreign taxes. Reducing foreign taxes increases Canadian wealth and enhances Canadian companies’ ability to compete abroad. There is no benefit to Canada or hard working Canadians from the measure announced today, which increase foreign taxes.

Seems pretty counterproductive to hurt Canadian companies and think this is going to have any kind of positive impact on our country. This will reduce jobs here and abroad in Canadian multinationals and will not increase federal tax revenue here (but it will abroad).

In practice, companies headquartered in countries like the US and UK will have a competitive advantage as they are able to reduce their foreign taxes and thereby reduce their cost of capital, relative to Canadian companies. The budget materials suggest that other countries are considering adopting similar policies, but that remains to be seen. No other country of which we are aware has compromised the international competitiveness of its own multinationals to this extent.

Why are we enhancing the competitive advantage companies already have over our companies? Because those other countries have looked at the same measure in their own tax laws, but have yet to implement them? Sometimes it’s better not to be ahead of the curve.

The proposal as drafted encourages Canadian companies to deduct interest in the highest tax jurisdiction. In this regard, Canada has among the highest marginal tax rates in the industrialized world. In addition, there is often additional complexity and cost associated with obtaining a foreign interest deduction. Most companies will forgo trying to get a foreign interest deduction for these reasons, and will instead just take the Canadian deduction. This will increase foreign tax revenues and reduce Canadian tax revenues.

Wow. I guess a pretty important question is whether there was anyone in the Finance department warning the Minister of these very serious drawbacks to his plan, or whether they were just being ignored. This whole thing is approaching debacle status.

Your business needs a Backbone

Backbone magazine is a Canadian bi-monthly focusing on business and technology issues. In their own words:

Our primary focus has been on how technology enhances business processes, markets, profitability and productivity. Backbone magazine’s aim is to provide business people with a tangible tool to enhance the way they do business in Canada’s New Economy.

Compare this to the short bullet describing this blog and its focus:

I’m interested in the future of the profession and how technology is changing the way accountants do their job.

Seems like there might be some overlap there. Perhaps an opportunity to work together and learn a thing or two about how technology is changing the way business is being done here and abroad, not just by accountants, accounting firms, but by any and every company.

So I was thrilled to see they picked up a recent post I made about Facebook and LinkedIn for their blog, Backblog.

I found out about Backbone when I strolled through the lobby of my firm’s office and lo and behold, we have a subscription. Naturally, since I was at work, I sat down on the plush sofa and dove right in. Professional development, I figured!

I hope to contribute more of my writing to their fledgling blog in the future. Check it out: