http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/scenes_from_the_gulf_of_mexico.html
There isn’t much we can do to express our outrage over this mess except write a letter to our elected officials, never buy anything from BP ever again AND use as few plastics as possible. This is just what Metaprinter Inc. will be doing from this day forward.
Robert Ivan
Owner, Metaprinter Inc.
In a stunning turn of events for the newspaper industry Q1 2010 numbers show that readers and advertisers have returned to this medium. Experts suggest the return is real and that long-term the outlook for newspapers and newspaper revenues look strong. One ratings analyst with April Capital Management was quoted as saying, “look, where else are people going to raise awareness for their brand or read the news? Newspapers seem the best option for both customers”.
No comment from the Google Topeka executives who are now scrambling to unload their digital advertising and data mining enterprises.
Found via @ehelm on Twitter
Bing.com is a new search engine that advertises itself as a “decision engine” becuase it helps you make decisions I guess. The site is not up and running yet but they have a video you can watch to see what they’re offering. I always like to try new offerings which may make my web experience more enjoyable, like Wolfram Alpha’s comparison feature, anyway so I sat through the Bing video.
…they need to redo the video. Why? Because right as the following is being said, “…instead of spitting out search results by popularity we break them into logical categories and bring the best match to the top… and show related searches right there in the results page” The picture below is being shown.
See that? In the search history. Colbert Report… what the hell does that have to do with anything? Nothing! It’s distracting. The running search example in the video is Home Depot, so colbert? Take it out! I’m still looking forward to seeing how Bing will actually work though. Will it help me realize self actualization? It better because that is how high the bar is set.
UPDATE:
Bing is now up and running. I did a simple search comparison for “NJ Boater Safety Course” on Google and Bing and Bing came out on top. It came back with the most relevant sites.
Google – Results 1 – 10 of about 1,130,000 for nj boater safety course. (0.17 seconds)
Bing – 1-10 of 80,500 results
A number of people have asked me to write some reflections on running The Metaprinter Giveaway this past week.
4Gig iPod – Jeff Emsweller. Jeff spent 22 year in the journalism field, starting as a photographer for the Rushville (IN) Republican newspaper. At Rushville he served as sports editor, assistant editor and then was named editor of the Batesville (IN) Herald Tribune. Jeff also served as editor of the Greensburg (IN) Daily News and then as Publisher of Greensburg, Rushville and Batesville.
1Gig iPod - H. J. Mann. H. J. is the Vice President of Financial services sales Firethorn LLC, a Qualcomm company. H. J. has 15 years of experience in technology and business development. He has held leadership roles in leading organizations such as Acxiom, Epsilon, and DoubleClick. H. J. lives in Dallas with his wife and daughter. Thank you Robert! www.firethornmobile.com
$20 Amazon.com Gift Certificate – Maikel Neris. Maikel is a 27 years old Brazilian web designer and WordPress developer. Thanks for the prize! www.maikelneris.com.br
Over the course of the 4 days we ran our giveaway there were 39 on site entries (and a total of 108 entries via twitter, linkedin, and email. But those don’t count. Sorry). RSS subscriber numbers remained unchanged over the week (in a normal week it goes up by a handful) however site visits were up ~5%. Pageviews up ~10%. Pages per visit up ~5%. and Bounce rate fell ~11%.
The week wasn’t a massive success in terms of driving traffic – however that wasn’t my overall goal. The main thing that I wanted to do over the week was to add to the sense of community on the site – to have some fun – to get a few lurkers participating and to thank readers for being a part of Metaprinter. In this regard the week was a big success with many first time comments and a lot of thank you emails from readers who seemed to enjoy it.
Thanks again! Any Ideas for the Next Giveaway?
I attended two big newspaper conferences recently and was horrified at the powerpoint presentations I had to sit through. If you are going to use powerpoint (and remember YOU DON’T HAVE TO) please follow the best advice that I ever got from my days in graduate school.
Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 PowerPoint Rule
10 slides
20 minute presentation
30 point font minimum size
A popular blog hires some old media guys who’ve been laid off. Featuring Winston Noel, Brian Barrett, Gil Ozeri, Nate Shelkey, Saj Pothiawala, Mike Schroeder, Jared Neumark and Jen Statsky. Written by LandlineTV.com.
The Financial Times is suing the Blackstone Group for multiple use of a single online subscription. Since 2002 the suit alleges!! Come on, seriously? A subscription is like $179 and Schwarzman is worth about $6billion!
Read on:
Schwarzman: Too Cheap to Pay for a FT Subscription! -from CityFile
FT Accuses Blackstone of Login Abuse -from WSJ.com
Steve Schwarzman -from forbes
Star Tribune files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy -from StarTribune.com
“The Star Tribune, saddled with high debt and a sharp decline in print advertising, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition Thursday night.”
NYT going back to Facebook well -from NiemanLab.org
“The New York Times will be poking around on Facebook again next week with a marketing campaign focused on Barack Obama’s inauguration.”
Facebook Blows a Whopper of an Opportunity -from Techcrunch
Privacy issues on Facebook result in eliminating this great marketing campaign. It didn’t have to be this way.
Gannett Forces Employees To Take Unpaid Week Off -from TheOnion
The newspaper industry make it into The Onion’s “American Voices” series.
Lots of good links, video and pics of today’s US Airways flight 1549 emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York / New Jersey are available via this link at Kottke.org
The Headlines in Tomorrow’s Newspapers should be, predictable. What will the stories say in print that hasn’t been already explained and/ or better explained online?
UPDATE: January 18, 2009
Passengers tell the inside story of US Airways flight 1549 -from Guardian.co.uk
UPDATE: January 16, 2009
Doc Searls Links out to more Data and Pilot Bios
Twittering the US Airways Plane Crash -from WSJ.com
“Notch another win for citizen journalism.”
Twitter user becomes star in US Airways crash – Janis Krums sets Internet abuzz with iPhone photo -from NYdailynews.com
The plane hits the water at the 2:02 mark from the left side of the screen.
‘Fake Steve Jobs’ attacks CNBC in on-air tirade -from Cnet The Social
“You can try to backpedal and say that what you reported was true,” Lyons said to Goldman on CNBC, adding that the broadcast journalist had been “played” and “punked” by his sources at Apple, “but look, you should apologize to Gizmodo for having criticized them and apologize to your viewers for having gotten it so wrong.”
Carter heralds Digital Britain by 2012 -from FT.com
“An eagerly awaited report from the government’s new communications minister concludes with the grand aim of making 2012 the digital age’s equivalent of 1851 – when the Great Exhibition celebrated the transition of the UK from agricultural to industrial status.”
The strip-mined net -from RoughType
“According to the research, “a typical search generates about 7g of CO2″ while “boiling a kettle generates about 15g.”
Imagining a prosperous (but shrunken) Gannett -from Gannett Blog
“Gannett is aiming for a high-profile home run by deploying its nascent ContentOne news service to cover President-elect Barack Obama‘s inauguration — just in time to rally investors when the company releases fourth-quarter earnings in the weeks ahead.”
Time to start a newspaper -from Seth Godin’s Blog
“What should not-so-busy real estate brokers do? Why not start a local newspaper?”
French Solutions to the Newspaper Crisis -from Editor’s Weblog
“There are also suggestions of a doubling of state advertising investment into the French written press in order to compensate for the effects of the global recession.”
What are the odds of all these things happening at the correct time and location? This is insane.
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I really dislike writing about non-news like this, but a few of my regulars asked what went down between me and Jeff Jarvis on Twitter last week. Seems I don’t have to do an entire new blogpost about it though because Marketing Bean Blog picked up on the whole thing. Enjoy.
Q&A with Talking Points Memo 100 second video creator Ben Craw -from Nieman Journalism Lab “Their newest feature, “The Day in 100 Seconds,” summarizes the day in politics with tightly edited and often surrealist clips from cable news shows.” Go read this great interview and watch some clips.
Which Google Products Make Money? -from Blogscoped.com via NiemanLab it isn’t Google News that’s for sure or these 46 other profitless google features.
What to Expect for Newspaper Companies in 2009 – from Rick Edmonds at Poynter “I’ll place a small bet that one of 2009′s headlines will be the emergence of a more motley mix of owners”
89 year old newspaper discovered, Interesting Headlines – from Tracy Kibble at YorkRegion.com “breakthrough vegetable compound for “rundown, tired and generally worn-out women of 46″ going through the change of life”
USA Today Going on Amazon’s Kindle -from AP Newswire So their growth strategy is to target the ~240,000 people who own a Kindle? Wonderful.
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
“l’ll buy anything shiny and made by Apple” hilarious.
How can I become less ignorant regarding current events, without having to read dry, third-person-omniscient points of view? -from ask.metafilter.com
Best Links of 2008 -from Kottke.org …if he does say so himself…
Do ads work? -from SethGodin’s Blog “If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?”
The Public Press is seeking an experienced, part-time editor who will help lead a staff of volunteer journalists in producing in-depth and quality journalism about the San Francisco area. The 30-hour-a-week contract position will last through mid-August with the possibility of a full-time position when more funds are acquired. Continue reading this post for more details:
News Editor for The Public Press
Hours: 30 hours/week
Location: North Beach, San Francisco
Compensation: $15/hour
Timeframe: Mid-February through mid-August (26 weeks)
Application deadline: 5 p.m., Jan. 20, 2009
Description: http://www.public-press.org/blog/2009/01/06/wanted-news-editor-for-the-public-press
Oops! Twitter phishing scam snares CNN anchor – from Cnet “I am on crack right now might not be coming into work today”
Mash Maker wins Sodosky Award – from the the mashmaker site “What if you could take data elements from multiple websites and mash them together into a single, integrated view? Intel Mash Maker gives you a radical new way to browse the internet. Whether you’re a novice or a power user, with Mash Maker it’s easy, fast, and fun to create personalized, intelligent mashups on-the-fly.”
Who are the digital natives? And what do they want? – from TimWindsor.com reports on Don Tapscott’s book, Grown Up Digital
Huffington Post worth $2million, not $200million -from Adage.com wildly different forms of valuation. This is why Warren Buffet says that if he asks a student what a tech company is worth and they give him any answer that is not, “it is impossible to accurately say” gets a failing grade.
Newspaper Publisher Lee Delisted From NYSE? – from Milwaukee.bizjournals The company’s share price has fallen below the acceptable minimum level for listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The Journal Register Company was delisted in April of 2007.
Connecticut Lawmaker Petitions for Newspaper Bailout – From Fox News: Connecticut, “Frank Nicastro, who represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, is asking the state government to do something to salvage The Bristol Press”
Some Industries Are Incapable of Profit: Is Communications One of Them? – from TMCnet.com Like the airlines and record companies, this article makes the argument that there are some industries that are incapable of making money, with newspapers being the latest edition.
The San Francisco Film Noir Festival returns to the majestic Castro Theatre in San Francisco, January 23 — February 1, 2009.
Making a special appearance at this year’s festival will be 1950s favorite Arlene Dahl, 
who will appear for an onstage interview between screenings of two of her favorite films, made back-to-back in 1956: Slightly Scarlet (based on the novel Love’s Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain) and the rarely screened femme-fatale classic Wicked as They Come.
The theme of this year’s festival is Newspaper Noir, with many of the films set in the world of newspapers, or, in some cases, publishing or radio. Come see how mid-20th-century media stack up against today’s fourth estate.
Programmers Eddie Muller and Anita Monga have made a special effort to have NOIR CITY’s nightly double bills (and for the first time separate Saturday matinees) reflect the traditional programming of theaters in the 1940s. To that end, they sought out rare, legitimate B films—shorter movies that were intentionally made to fill out the second half of a double bill. “I think this will probably be as close as you’re going to get to actually going to the movies in 1948,” says Muller.
Visit http://www.noircity.com/ to learn more.
Best Southwest Citizen on the decline of the newspaper – “A number of displaced newspaper journalists like myself are entering the blogosphere and taking our readers with us. When you combine us with the numerous …” also references mulshine
The Year in Online Newspaper Advertising: a Brief Overview -from Clickz “According to the Newspaper Association of America, online paper sites brought in $749.8 million in Q3, a drop of 3 percent from a year before.” Notes Layoffs will get worse in 2009
Make Something Valuable to Journalism and Give it Away: Stanford Re-Deploys its Journalism Fellows -from PressThink “noting the sharp drop in applications. “Many journalists are afraid to take a year off their job if they get accepted in a fellowship program, because they’re not sure that that job will still exist after the year’s over”
Remember when we used to call Santa to listen to his stories and tell him what we wanted for Christmas? The internet killed off that wonderful childhood activity of mine. But now we have an interactive NORAD / GOOGLE MAPS mashup!! ahhh… progress? Scramble the jets!!!!!! Continue reading
Washington Metro to Google Transit: Take a Walk (or Not) -from GIgaOm “Update: Looks like WMATA has backed off and is going to be more open. The decision came after lot of local criticism at the action to not give Google access to the data.”
Big Gains Among Top 30 Newspaper Web Sites -from editor&publisher …They boldly claim that the StarTribune.com has experienced 265% growth for the month of November. The problem is that when you look at the big picture you can easily see that site traffic has been flat for about 2 years.
Apparently my letter below was published in the December 2008 / January 2009 issue of Fast Company magazine on page 30. My comments are in response to this article by Robert Scoble. Adrian Holovaty’s name is published incorrectly (as Holloway), so I just wanted to correct it here.
Mr. Scoble,
I’m really disappointed with the example you gave of “newspaper innovation”. The Star-Ledger’s newscast is more of the same middle of the road junk application we need less of. This is about as industry saving as putting a newspaper widget on a MySpace page.
I wish you had used this opportunity to show what kind of innovations are being created and used by Rob Curley, Adrian Holovaty, anything from the Knight Foundation and the Medill School.
I wish you had written about boston.com‘s The Big Picture blog and how it is so fresh and exciting. You blew it.
-Robert Ivan
New York Times (NYT): Here’s How Much Cash We Need To Survive -from AlleyInsider.com “a schedule of how much cash the NYTCo needs to come up with and when. Barring asset sales or further deterioration of the business, here’s the bottom line for the next three years…”
Twitter’s hunting for a moneymaker -from Cnet “Another sign that Twitter is finally growing up: The company has put out a job posting hunting for a product manager to help it start raking in revenue.” which answers the most oft asked question by traditional media, “…yes, but how will you make money?”
A Scenario For News -from BuzzMachine “there’s no one permalink summarizing my apparently endless prognostication. So here is a snapshot of – a strawman for – where I think particularly local news might go”
Most Emailed News: All The News That’s Fit To Link -via MagnetBox “You know the most emailed news is gonna be a good read since a lot of people took the extra step to tell a friend. MostEmailedNews.com takes those boxes from a bunch of popular different news sources and puts them all together for you on one concise page.”
MediaNews Sees Bad Timing on Newspapers, Not Bad Bets -from NYTimes.com “Dean Singleton expanded his newspaper empire at the worst possible time” oh yeah, when was that? after the internet was invented? Jeeze, think of how many programmers and developers that money could have been used for.
Canadians Miss Out On Doctor Who Season Finale -from Slashdot by
-darthcamaro writes “Canadians were among the last people in the world to get the season 4 finale of Doctor Who which already aired in the UK and Australia. The Canadian public broadcaster — CBC — decided to cut out nearly 20 minutes from the episode, leaving fans wondering what was going on. Doctor Who isn’t the easiest show to follow at the best of times — but Canadians are now up in arms (or at least hockey sticks) over their taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s lack of respect for SciFi hosers.”
Looking For a New Journalism Business Model? Try Cable -from Poynter by Rick Edmonds
“There is still one media format, however, growing and making money hand over fist: cable television.”
Detroit Papers Set To Curtail Print -from WSJ.com
“end home delivery on all but the most lucrative days — Thursday, Friday and Sunday. On the other days, the company would sell single copies of abbreviated print editions at newsstands and direct readers to the papers’ expanded digital editions.”
Not Tonight Dear, I’d Rather Blog -from WSJ.com “An online survey commissioned by Intel has found, among other things, that 46% of women would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up the Internet for that long. The numbers get bigger for certain age groups; 49% of women aged 18-34 would make that choice, and 52% of women aged 35-44.”
The Rumplo Holiday Tshirt Guide -from rumplo where else can you get your kid a cmyk tshirt?
You’re Not Going To Win A Pulitzer Prize -from Seth’s Blog “As newspapers melt all around us, faster and faster, the people in the newspaper business persist in believing that the important element of a news-paper is the paper part.”
Nicholas Carr is off writing his next book, Into The Shallows -from Rough Type
Weymouth: WaPo ‘must be the indispensible guide to Washington’ -from Politico.com “focus our increasingly scarce resources on things that will make us indispensable to our customers, and thus create value for our business, while eliminating efforts that no longer make a difference to our readers.”
The New York Times Cash Crunch -from Gawker.com “Though apologist analyst were apparently out in force, and though the firm bragged about selling $1 million in Barack Obama knicknacks (whee!), there was no hiding the New York Times Company’s financial distress at a bank’s media conference in New York Tuesday.”
Poor Chicago -from BuzzMachine Is Jeff Jarvis the real “grave dancer”?
The Newspaper Industry and The Future of Journalism -from AmericanUniversity Radio “A panel joins guest host Katty Kay to discuss how the on-going recession is affecting the already struggling industry and what it could mean for how Americans get their news.”
Tribune Company Files for Bankruptcy -from NYTimes.com I got the alert for this yesterday via wsj.com It was a paid only article. 2takeaways from the experience. 1. you want beaking news first? Pay for it. 2. we may see a rapid division of upper and lower class as less fortunate people rely on free sources of news.
The Fundamental Problems of Newspapers on the Internet -Seeking Alpha my article “The Krugman Paradox” got picked up on seeking alpha.
if gamers ran the world -from Infovore via kottke “So what does a future run by gamers look like? Well, if they can handle complexity, and they’ve stocked up all the magic item chests ready for when scarcity hits” this is amazing
Twitscoop.com -”We could tell you how we combined cutting-edge financial markets mathematics with Ruby and Jabber magics but we won’t. We’d rather have you tell us what doesn’t work in our algorithm by sending us an email to feedback [at] twitscoop [dot] com – we know we still have a long way to go and are prepared to work on it.”
Tribune Co. Taps Lazard,Weighs Filing for Chapter 11 -from wsj.com -pure online players are suffering from The Krugman Paradox and Unbundling.
Survival is Competitive Differentiation -from Gigaom .whether you own a pizza shop, or General Electric, these are probably ideas you have considered. Read through the comments section.
Neighborhood Watch Puts Florida Home Sales on the Map -from MediaShift .The article is about the st. Petersburg Times Django database for house hunting, but it raises other points about traditional media’s failings. I love this example, “There are two crimes I care about: There’s the crazy dude with the machete who hacks his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend’s head off and mounts it to his car and waits for the police to show up; and my neighbor’s lawn mower getting stolen out of his garage.
One of those you’ll find in the pages of the newspaper, guaranteed, the other is the opposite: you’ll never, ever, in a million years read about my neighbor’s lawn mower getting stolen out of his garage in the pages of the St. Petersburg Times.”
Image Courtesy of forbiddendoughnut via Flickr
We can’t always work right? I headed into NYC to see Wintuk at the WaMu theater near madison square garden. Nice venue, we get there and some older lady is in our seat. She won’t move, the show is starting so they move us up to the 6th row!!! Awsome! Thanks old lady!
The show starts slow, but when the puppeteers come out with the monsters and the HUGE birds, and dogs… Those were amazing. At the very end we got snow (blue and white paper) blown at us from the cieling. It was really cool.
To end the night we went over to the paker meridian hotel 118 W57 street to the burger joint. If you don’t know about this place… you just found out. The best burgers in new york city without a doubt. Then a quick look at the tree in rockafella center, yep there it is, and then we went home. I’m going to sleep now.
-robert
So Robots Can’t Do Everything After All -from Gigaom “Well, well, well — maybe there’s a place for human beings in the new media landscape after all” Human editor needed
The Death of the Middle -from The New Yorker
Times Extra -from NYT.com a new linking tool on the front page. will it work? Who knows, but I like that it’s free, and cost little to attempt.
Everything you wanted to know about Google but were too afraid to ask -from Slideshares.net
Wikipedia gets $890,000 for the Luddites -from Cnet If they make it more user friendly, I could totaly see wikipedia becoming the next big thing for newspapers to develop into “local focus” websites.
Why Twitter Didn’t Sell to Facebook — Really -from GigaOm
Who needs newsprint when we have the Internet? -from Inlandpress.org “The site is still focused on building audience, in the hope that it will be profitable in the future.” I still cannot find an economically viable online newspaper that does journalism. Help me.
StateStats is hours of fun. It tracks the popularity of Google searches per state and then correlates the results to a variety of metrics. -from Kottke.org
How Gannett Newspapers Got into This Fix -oberjuerge.com profit figures leaked ahead of anticipated layoffs
Digg: Not for Sale -from businessweek.com yet another wildly popular web business that is not yet cash flow positive.
Advertising is falling fast online and in print -NAA.org (click on the “quarterly” tab)
I am the future of journalism contest -from Publish2 The prize is a job!!! Contest ends on December 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm ET. wow, a job an’ everything!
Pownce to shut down after Six Apart sale -from Cnet.com ”Additionally, we heard that the self-funded Pownce was trying to secure a round of venture capital. It looks like that didn’t work out. This is, after all, not a great time to be raising money.”
NYT sees success in Facebook push -from NiemanLab Yeah, the NYTimes is doing extremely well online. The problem is their print costs and family dividend are bankrupting the company. It is rumored that Rupert Murdoch will buy the paper.
Indy gets cosy with Daily Mail to cut costs -from FT.com UK newspaper news, “The Independent newspaper has taken the radical step of moving into the same office building as the Daily Mail, in a drive to cut costs.”
The iPhone and the Ensuing Wireless Broadband Boom -from GigaOm.com WOW. Look at slides #10 and #12. The move to data away from voice is clearly apparant.
UPS Promotes Regifting On Web Site, Facebook -from MediaPost.com With PR like this, who needs newspaper advertising? Uh Oh… Shhhhhhh
Citizen Journalists Provided Glimpses of Mumbai Attacks -from NYTimes.com I’d say it was more than “glimpses”. The coverage on twitter good. Try #mumbai
India Security Faulted as Survivors Tell of Terror -from WSJ.com In my opinion, the best newspaper article about the Mumbai attacks came from the Wall Street Journal
Building the data desk: lessons from the L.A. Times -from OJR.org I’m going to turn this into an Interview, their work at the LA Times is amazing.
Newspapers’ bitter prospects for survival -from FT.com “A former British newspaper owner, who asked not to be named, said: “The plain truth is that there is an oversupply of newspapers and an undersupply of advertising revenue.’But there is no lack of demand for information, for intelligent comment, for good journalistic writing. It is just a question of being innovative with regard to using the web and keeping your costs under as great control as possible.’” Speaking about newspaper business in the United Kingdom.
Post-Recession: Big Rebound for Digital, Internet -from MediaPost.com ”If history is a guide, digital out-of-home advertising will return to percentage growth rates in the high double digits…”
Detroit newspaper Daily Tribune says it will cut its print edition to four days a week from six -from Businessweek.com If their website http://www.dailytribune.com/ is any indication of how they are planning for the present and future economic sustainability of their enterprise, I fear for the viability of the business. Get some original content up on that site ASAP mr. publisher.
Cumulus CEO: Radio In Death Spiral -from MediaPost.com ”Everyone in the radio business knows the medium is headed for tougher times, but one of the starkest predictions comes from Cumulus Media President and CEO Lew Dickey Jr. He says that “half the companies in business today will be gone within 36 months.” ”
McDonald’s double cheese goes up to $1.19 -from Chicago Tribune GREAT! cpm rates are dropping 21% quarter over quarter and newspapers are too scared to charge for online access buy McDonald’s has no problem raising the price of its cheeseburger, why? “The move stems from soaring ingredient and commodity costs, which have reduced profits on the dollar menu.”
Man Walks On The Moon -from THE ONION remember when everyone was getting excited on November 5th when Obama was elected and The New York Times ran a headline with 96 point font for only the third time in its history? Well, this blows that font out of the water. Warning, Explicit Language on that link.
How to start a Twitter event hashtag -from contentious.com Excellent summary and cited sources for starting hashtags for events.
Watch as Vladimir Nabokov reads the first paragraph of Lolita in English & Russian, shares his favorite books, and lists a bunch of things that he doesn’t like. -from Kottke.org
Guardian Launches Full RSS Feeds, First Media Company Not To Suppress RSS Adoption -from publishing2.com
This is not a post, but a website proving that not everything on the internet lives forever -”A compendium of what services and companies are no longer available for our Internet pleasure and use.” ItDied.com
Facebook targeted Web 2.0 start-up Twitter ”The negotiations, which put a valuation of as much as $500m on the 2½-year-old private company, could throw a fresh spotlight on its rapid growth and prompt other big internet companies to consider bids.” -from FT.com
The ‘O’ in Obama interesting interview with the designer of the “O” Obama logo. -from NYTimes.com
Our Core Value Problem a discussion stemming from Pubmatic’s disclosure that cpm’s have fallen again. -from MediaPost.com
Newsrooms Can Grow Twitter Followers By Using Twitter For Link Journalism ”Newsrooms should make Twitter into a platform for link journalism. Local news orgs should set up Twitter feeds where they link to interesting non-local news (i.e. NOT AP!).” -from Publishing2.com
Google Seduces With Utility -from NYTimes.com David Carr Excellent article highlighting how Google is getting into our daily lives and how we are using new media to run our lives.
The Newspapers: Rating The Top 25 Newspaper Websites -from 247wallstreet.com This is an older article from June 2008, but it has lots of newspaper website analytics and I love comparing past to present. My favorite is that they declare what we’ve been suspecting on metaprinter. That “The New York Times (Average daily circulation 1,007,256) (Compete online audience: 12,188,886) NYTimes.com is the single best daily newspaper site in the country. “ BUT THE PAPER IS LOSING MONEY! This is a revenue model problem, not a readership problem.
Should Newspapers Become Online Ad Brokers? -from PBS Mediashift I’m not convinced that this is the correct direction newspapers need to go in order to remain profitable. I do think that newspapers need to dramaticaly simplify their advertising process, but to become a broker would shift the focus away from their core product which is generating and reporting news.
Rating agency’s outlook down on newspaper industry -from Axcess News Moody’s outlook on the newspaper industry for 2009 is bleak. The article cites the biggest problems as Cashflow from declining print ads and their resulting liquidity ratios which drive up debt costs.
Don’t Blame the Journalism ”The economic and technological forces behind the collapse of newspapers” -from American Journalism Review
The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago. -OVERVIEW from stateofthenewsmedia.org A very long read, but well worth it.
State of the American news media in 2008 NEWSPAPERS -from stateofthenewsmedia.org ”Newspapers are still far from dead, but the language of the obituary is creeping in. The industry has been in declining health for some time now. It got sicker rather than better in 2007, and 2008 offers no prospect of a quick cure.”
Nine Questions: How Will CNN Change the Wire Game? -from ContentBridges Interesting article on how CNN’s announcement to create a new Wire Service may affect the newspaper industry. This is in advance of the CNN Newspaper Summit in Atlanta on Dec. 1
The 7 Greatest Stories in the History of Esquire Magazine… in Full -from Esquire People love lists and ranking. Newspapers need to do more stuff like this to increase reader engagement. What’s the greatest Washington Post article ever written? I’m sure there are many, but I can’t know that. Memo to newspapers: create lists.
HuffPo Raises $15 Million Third Round From Oak Investment Partners; $100 Million Valuation Ballpark -from PaidContent.org ”The Huffington Post has raised another $15 million in funding, according to the Times UK, as it continues on a high growth trajectory, which also means a high cash burn….to be fair, the site’s traffic went through the roof and sky during the election season, and it has been investing a lot in expansion.” Newspaper owners take note. This is a successful link site that spins your content.
Mainstream News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites -from NYTimes learn more about what the Huffington Post is doing.
Now see how a newspaper site, readingeagle.com is getting in on the link game. ”Sure, we love readingeagle.com, but we like to see the world beyond Berks, too. Here are some web sites or articles of interest to Reading Eagle newsroom staff. Check them out!”
“With the swift pace of change in the media landscape, it’s easy to overlook how far college news media has come in a short time. There has been some great innovation in college media, even as some lag behind.” -from MediaShift
“Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web” -from 37signals.com The author makes a pretty good case for why this one page site is damn good. Branding, Revenue, Usability, its all in there.
Printable High Resolution Poster of Barack Obama November 5th newspaper mosaic. Very Cool and Free. -obamanewsmosaic.com
“The market and the internet don’t care if you make money” Tribes author Seth Godin discusses free content and the publishing industry -from 26thstory.com
“Common Trends of Newspaper Websites” -from SmashingMagazine
“A 30-year study of television habits published in the December issue of scientific journal Social Indicators Research suggests that unhappy people watch considerably more TV, vote less, read fewer newspapers and are generally less socially active than happier people.” -STL Today
“Ziff Davis To Close Print PCMag, Focus On Online; Still Looking For Options For Gaming Division” -from PaidContent.org
“Adobe Max 2008, Michael Zimbalist, vice-president, research and development operations at the New York Times Company demoed an advanced news reader application that properly renders articles and media content as they were intended, regardless of what size of display or what platform the user is on.” -from itbusiness.ca
“Pacific Northwest regional news Web site Crosscut.com, founded by David Brewster, likely will morph into a nonprofit, as online advertising revenue has fallen short of projections.” -The Seattle Times
“Google has just added image archives from LIFE Magazine, the storied American photo journal, to its image search. Google Images has launched a special page for the collection, allowing you to browse photos by specific topic like Marilyn Monroe or Winter Olympics. You can also now append “source:life” to any Google Images search to see photos from the magazine.” -Mashable
“Economic crisis a boon for “FT’ U.K.-based newspaper’s push in U.S. pays off as readers seek global perspective” -BtoB Online
“Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American Flag Cake” and other moments of genius in an interview with the The Onion assistant editor Megan Ganz and feature editor Joe Garden. -The Washington Post
News Websites: More bucks for the click -Monday Note’s Frédéric Filloux shares some great thoughts on newspaper website page one links, page view numbers, and why the ratio needs to be better managed.
CEO of News Media Corp. sees prosperous future – Inland Press Q&A with Rochelle, Ill.-based News Media Corporation, owner and founder John Tompkins. “The publisher at all our papers is the ad director and handles accounts and leads the sale staff. They meet twice a day, once to set goals and a second time to see how well they did. There’s much more accountability against goals…”
CEO Summit on Saving an Industry in Crisis -I requested a pass to attend and was denied, because I was not a newspaper CEO. Ok, so what great ideas did the CEO come up with at this summit? “Don’t sit and cower and weep about your problems. Inspire.” wow.
Can Crowdfunding Help Save The Journalism Business? -Great in depth article
GigaTweet has recorded the Billionth Tweet and counting click watch the running tally in real time.
Online Piracy Costing Publishers Millions, Study Says -Forbes.com article
YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A ‘Good’ Video -”the only requirement for our winning video is that it be somewhat watchable or provide even a shred of enjoyement for people other than those who made the video”.
The news coming from Condé Nast gets bleaker. – from TheBigMoney.com “You live and die by the quality of the content you create,” says Jellinek. “If you’re just a magazine clone, you’re never going to attract an audience. The failure of [Condé Nast's] Web sites is a failure of vision and ability to translate the DNA of their titles into an online environment.”
Is Jeff Jarvis gloating too much about the death of print? -
Jeff Jarvis Slate rebuttal -”I am the honoree of an attempted hatchet job by Ron Rosenbaum in – what’s the name of that site? Salon? no, Slate (I always get them confused).”
