Architecture Update started in 2006, as a way for me to keep up with the latest news about my favorite architect, Santiago Calatrava.  I've added a number of high-profile architects, but to this day, Santiago Calatrava easily outranks all other architects as far as traffic levels. Does that mean that Calatrava is the most sought after architect out there?  Who knows?  But I do know that it's nice to have a way to keep up with what he's doing, and if you have a favorite architect, I invite you to follow them with this site.

BTW: Soon, the site will be updated with more content, RSS feeds, a new look, and a new name, along with a lot more subjects to keep updated on (it will also merge with its sister site, University Update ). In the meanwhile, please check out the architects that we keep you "in the know" about.

If none of the information below is helpful to you, or you just feel like asking me about the site directly, feel free to email me at webmaster@universityupdate.com, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

So how does the site work, and what's the point?
Using public web services from Yahoo and Technorati, my updater application gathers news and blog entries every couple of hours for a number of subjects.  The list of articles, and the summaries I show, are entirely from those services, and are not a result of "screen scraping," and are in no way intended to be "stolen" or protrayed as content that I wrote.  To be clear, this site is about giving people a way to keep up with the goings-on of subjects that matter to them, kind of a "one-stop-shop" for information.

Isn't this site just a "splog" site?
As I understand "splogs," they are sites which take blog entries in their entirety, put the content on their page, and don't direct users to visit the original site that the content came from.  The splog's entire purpose is to become a search result on Google, and often masks links to ads or more content on the splog site by making it look like you'll be clicking into the original content site.  My goal with this site is to be transparent about what I'm doing.  My links do not use "no-follow" attributes, and always link directly to the original content.  I even have taken the extra step of hiding even the summary text when I detect a Copyright notice on the blog entry.  Having content on my site should benefit content authors by giving 1 more link to your site (Google ranks search results by a mix of criteria, including how many sites link to you), and should give you some additional traffic.

Stop stealing my content!
I take issue with the idea that I'm stealing content, but I understand that not all content owners agree with me, and I'm happy to oblige them by removing links to their sites, and preventing future linking.  Please contact me and I will make sure your site is added to the "blacklist" in my database.  But to the point of "stealing," my response is this: I do not show any content of any blogs that contain the word "copyright" in them (though I once got a nasty email for stating a site was copywritten that was not, so I guess I can't win them all!), and the summaries I do show are simply excerpts as provided by Yahoo News Search API and Technorati Blog Search API.  I never show all of the blog's content on purpose, though I have seen instances where the blog entry was so short, that the summary pretty much was the entire entry, and for those times, I apologize.

Lastly, I never hide the links to the original blog entry, and I very clearly show that the visitor should click a link to view the article on the content owner's site.  The side benefit to you, the content owner, is that Google likes links into your site, when it is calculating the pagerank for your site, and my site is driving additional traffic to your site.  Like I said above, I have no intention of stealing traffic; in fact, the purpose of the site is to give visitors an easy way to find content like the blogs that content owners provide.

But, again, if you would like me to remove links to your site, and prevent future links, let me know at webmaster@universityupdate.com.

Why are you pinging my blog with Trackbacks/Pingbacks?
Part of my desire for transparency is to make sure content authors are aware that my site is linking to their site.  And yes, I'm not blind to the fact that links to my site are good for my Google ranking and my incoming traffic.  I would like my site to have an increase in traffic, and as long as I'm being open and legit about how my site operates, I don't see that as a bad goal.

Sites that are just links, and nothing else, are a waste of time
Well, I have seen that this site is definitely lacking in some areas, and that is what I hope to remedy with the next site, which will replace this one. The new site will be much more about "community," allowing interaction between site visitors, by way of forums, discussions about articles linked from the site, etc. I will also do my best to add some of my own content, though I don't claim to have any authority on some of the subjects tracked by the site. Lastly, I will update it so that it isn't quite so aggressive about grabbing content, and will tailor the content it does get on the traffic trends. But in the meanwhile, I don't think the site is useless, as it helps me keep up with several topics that interest me a lot, and I think that's the beauty of the site. I don't know of too many sites that let you focus on a subject, and get content from all over, updated constantly.

Oh yeah, but what about all the ads/celebrity gossip?
Ok, I admit it: I want to bring traffic to my site, and yes, I want visitors to click on the ads.  But I don't feel like my use of ads is inappropriate, in that I do not make the visitor choose ads OR link to the original site for the content I link to.  I also do not put the ads in a spot that makes it likely to be mistaken for normal site navigation.  Lastly, I have 1 ad per page, and the positioning of that ad is consistent throughtout the site.  No attempt has been made on my part to "hide" the ads, nor am I "hoping" that visitors will click on the ads "accidentally."  If you see an ad that interests you, click it.  If you prefer not to see ads, I recommend Firfox with AdBlock add-in installed, or IEPro for IE, either of which would allow you to enjoy the site without ads.  I have no problem with visitors using my site without ever seeing an ad, but yes, I do purposely have ads on the site for those visitors that are ok with seeing them.  As an aside, I will soon be offering RSS feeds for visitors to subscribe to, and those will link DIRECTLY to the original content site - the RSS links will never route the user through my site first.

As far as the "celebrity gossip" stuff, I have made the decision that my future revisions of the site will minimize such content.  At this stage, I'm still somewhat experimenting with the site, and while celebrity news seems to draw the largest number of visitors, it also seems to lessen my site's standing in the content owners' minds, so I'd rather take the cut on traffic and prove myself to be "not so bad."

Still have questions?
If you have more questions, feel free to email me at webmaster@universityupdate.com, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.