Win $1M the Holovaty Way

In Just Seven Easy Steps

For anyone who has ever been to an online journalism conference, you know Adrian Holovaty. He’s either on a panel, winning an award or being referenced by newsroom mangers, usually with some phrase similar to “we need more people like Adrian Holovaty”

At the E&P conference in 2007, he won $1.1 million to take a leave of absence from washingtonpost.com and create EveryBlock, “a hyperlocal Web site that aggregates an unprecedented depth and breadth of public records, mainstream news sources, photographs, blogs and user-contributed information.”

So, what’s so special about this 27-year-old phenom, and how did he win $1 million dollars?

First, of course, you have to think like a journalist. Holovaty is a j-school grad from the University of Missouri. He did the editing, writing, reporting, interviewing and all that mess. He learned about libel, public records and news judgment.

But then what?

Here’s how he says to do it, all for less than $30 a step!

1. Learn HTML here or here.

2. Learn PHP.

3. Learn MySQL

4. Learn Python here or here.

5. Learn some more Python.

6. Learn Django.

7. Win $1M!!!!!

Of course, that’s all old news. But as Bill Cosby used to say, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one.”