The point of a website, when you get right down to it, is to provide compelling content so advertisers’ ads show up on the page and people (maybe) click on them*. Facebook has very non-intrusive ads on their site, and Twitter doesn’t have any (at the moment).

Now, I’m a power internet user — as most of my colleagues at 11Alive will attest. Instead of going to Facebook.com and Twitter.com whenever I want to know what’s going on with my friends, I go instead to my RSS application, Google Reader, and open a folder that has all of my friends’ status updates in both Twitter and Facebook.

At least, it used to. But in a single day, both Twitter and Facebook have made changes to their sites that prevent me from doing it this way. From a business standpoint, this makes perfect sense — now I actually have to go to Facebook’s site or Twitter’s site to see what’s going on.

Or do I?

Facebook and Twitter both make a big deal out of the fact that they’re great for people on the go — you can update your status and upload your pictures from your mobile phone with relative ease. I do it all the time. And, unlike their on-the-internet counterparts, the Facebook Mobile App and the TwitterFon app for iPhone have not changed their interfaces at all since I downloaded them.

So instead of going to Facebook.com, I’ll hit the little blue-and-white “F” on my phone to see what’s going on on Facebook. Instead of going to Twitter.com, I’ll hit the little blue-and-white “t” on my phone to read and reply to my friends’ tweets**. I won’t see any Facebook ads, and as for TwitterFon… well, that’s free to begin with, but it’s such a useful app to me that I’d probably pay the programmer 99 cents if he started charging.

There are a lot of ways to consume web content — going to sites, reading or watching video on your phone, aggregating everything into an RSS reader (my preferred method). But no matter what, companies should never do anything that makes their web-based consumers go somewhere where ads can’t be seen. Facebook? Twitter? You just pulled that off marvelously.

* Don’t lie. You know you’ve clicked on a few ads this month. We all do it.

** A “tweet” is a status message on Twitter, like “Josh is posting a blog on 11AliveBlogs.com”.

My friend Dennis, who Dad calls my trainer, took me around on a leash to help me get used to wearing one and being a good dog. That meant no jumping up on people. I love to jump up on people, so this wasn’t so awesome, but it’s okay. If no jumping except when told is part of being a good dog, I guess I can handle that.

My friend Shawn, who’s a producer at 11Alive, took some pictures of me on his cell phone. I’m still waiting for him to send them to Dad, but when he does, they’re totally going in my official photo gallery.

I wish I could’ve run around outside, but it wasn’t going to happen. Too rainy and wet. I think I like keeping my paws dry.

Anyway, if you didn’t get to see me on TV last night, that’s okay, because Dad’s friend Josh showed me how to embed video onto my blog:

If you want to embed it, all you have to do is click the fourth icon from the left (the little picture of a piece of paper with the end folded over) and you can embed me on your blog too! Or you can e-mail me or post links on your Facebook.

Oh, that reminds me: Chris, who works on 11Alive’s website, made a Facebook group for me! If you’re on Facebook, please join it. I’m going to get on Facebook really soon, I promise, but I’ve just been so busy and haven’t had time!

Okay, that’s all for today. Have a good weekend. I know I will!