tinywords haiku news
tinywords' purpose:
humanize technology,
spread haiku worldwide.
As it turns out, I was a little premature in proclaiming XHTML compliance. I had used Dave Raggett's way-cool Tidy utility to clean up my code. I figured that was all I needed to do. Wrong. Tidy is utility, not a miracle worker.
Fortunately, the W3C has a spiffy markup validation service that can check HTML and XML files to see whether they're valid, comply with their stated standards, and so forth. It's free. It tells you, line by line, exactly what is wrong with your page. Once I got over my dismay, I set about fixing my pages. Now I'm proud to say that the home page, archive page, and haiku pages are valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Even the style sheet is certified kosher, thanks to a separate CSS validator.
tinywords.com is now XHTML compliant -- at least, the main parts are (including the home page, archive page, and all the pages for previously published haiku). The site has thus in one day leapfrogged completely over HTML 4.0 and landed squarely in the future, or at least the leading edge of the present.
More big changes are in the works right now, including some substantially cool new features. I'm setting this blog up as a simple way of keeping track of tinywords news -- of which I expect to be generating a fair amount -- and other interesting haiku news, if it seems warranted. Stay tuned.
tinywords topped 2,000 subscribers for the first time over the weekend. Woo hoo! That's an average of about 922 subscribers per year, or a little more than 2.5 new subscribers every day. OK, so it's not exactly earth-shattering growth, but it is pretty respectable for a site with zero advertising and marketing budget (and almost no promotion of any kind).
Quick facts: tinywords.com was founded in November 2000 by D. F. Tweney to deliver haiku to wireless devices and Internet email addresses. Haiku are short poems of 17 syllables or less, and most tinywords messages are under 100 characters long -- making them ideally suited to delivery on mobile devices.
As of February 2003, tinywords.com has more than 2,000 subscribers in a wide variety of countries, representing every continent on Earth except Antarctica.
Haiku poets published on tinywords.com include rank novices as well as distinguished haiku poets and translators. "We welcome fine haiku of all kinds, regardless of whether it's your first haiku or your ten thousandth," says Tweney.
For more background info on tinywords, see our page about haiku. Find out about tinywords.com's purpose by reading our business plan. And don't miss our archive of haiku published on tinywords.com, including a handy search engine.
Read our press releases:
tinywords.com contest results. The winners of our first-ever National Poetry Month Contest (14 May 2001)
tinywords.com surpasses 1,000 subscribers. The shortest press release you will ever read. (10 May 2001)
Want to know more? Looking for a press contact or a good quote? Send email to publisher d. f. tweney, dft at tinywords dot com!
Coverage of tinywords.com:
jessamyn west's weblog for librarians pointed out some of tinywords' recent library haiku on 10/4 and 10/5/2001.
San Jose / Silicon Valley Business Journal (9/24/2001)
memepool mentioned tinywords on 09/07/2001
GnomeFAVORITE award from Chris Pirillo's newsletter, Lockergnome. "Nothing like a little ancient culture to start off your day right, right? Hold me closer, tiny words," writes Pirillo. (24 April 2001)
Haiku casts big Net: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (31 March 2001).
The Vancouver Sun names tinywords.com a Hot Site. "'Fresh haiku delivered daily' is the promise here and that's exactly what you get." (22 March 2001).
Netsurfer Digest recommends tinywords.com. (6 March 2001).
