News of the Week 3/30/08

The News Business: Out of Print
"The death and life of the American newspaper."

Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On
"…habits suggest that younger readers find themselves going straight to the source, bypassing the context and analysis that seasoned journalists provide."

The Buzz on the Campaign Bus: Pinched, Press Steps Off
"There used to be a self-defined cadre of campaign reporters. Now the news comes from everywhere — from bloggers, maybe some guy with a video camera. Anyone can generate news and everyone can generate news. What’s the advantage of being the 50th guy on the bus?"

With BlogTalkRadio, the Commentary Universe Expands
A look into the growth, and possibilities, of online radio & podcasts. (Thanks to Dave Farkas for the link!)

Social Site’s New Friends Are Athletes
Professional athletes "…want to move beyond holding soda cans or holding a Big Mac in their hands." So their PR agencies are sharing home videos and photos on sports themed social networks to connect with their audience.

Links are Dead: A Look into Lifestreaming
"Links are dead. What I mean by that is that I often choose not to link not as a measure of disrespect but as a measure of an increased recommendation or gesture of authority. In essence I’m suggesting you link to or follow the person, not the individual post or item."

Passion fuels entrepreneurial journalism
J-schools need to encourage and develop, not inhibit, students’ passion — not only for the favorite topics, but for the craft of journalism itself.

FriendFeed Launches API: This Should be Interesting
"The FriendFeed experience will now be accessible on platforms outside of the web page and FriendFeed user data should have all kinds of interesting things done with it…. Casual users should take note that FriendFeed is far more than just an RSS aggregator…"

Essentials of a multimedia journalism package
"The time and effort devoted to the core will be for nothing, in other words, unless the outermost signals and enticements persuade a visitor to come inside, to invest time, to look deeper."

The Lifestreaming Backlash
"…lifestream aggregators are starting to become "noise aggregators," the solution to the problem lies in the development of filters that learn what you want to read."

The State of the News Media 2008
"An anual report on American journalism.

Newspapers’ New Owners Turn Grim
"These are all smart businesspeople, with significant success in other endeavors, who took a hard look at the wave-tossed publishing sector and appointed themselves as life savers. And very soon after jumping in, they too began foundering in the tall waves."

Media cos. battle Web portals on ads
"Traditional media companies trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and other large Internet companies are increasingly building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands."

A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites – New York Times
Google’s new search-within-search feature has caused concern among some businesses, as it maximizes Google’s opportunity to display competing ads, and keep people within the Google domain.

A Culture, Buried Under Digital Communications
"…the benefits of the new ways we communicate also mean there’s a lot more of it. The volume of communication requests for most people today are far, far beyond what they can handle… an increasing number [of people] don’t even claim to be able to read every communication they receive, let alone respond."

Online Content: More Than A Formula
"I’m concerned that the dreams people articulated when video first hit the web are becoming threatened as they depend on a still-yet undeveloped market…"

Gates Predicts TV With Be Based on the Web
Bill Gates: "TV will be based on the Internet; it will be an utterly different thing." Will the web be the single platform for everything, with print or tv sets simply being a use-specific delivery channel?

Using Friendfeed’s Imaginary Friends as a Master Aggregator
"…when you dig into Friendfeed, there’s much more than meets the eye here. Using the site’s Imaginary Friends feature you can turn it into a powerful, master aggregator."

Blogonomics: Gawker’s Payroll, Redux
A look into the payment structure for bloggers at Gawker Media, where writers earn their money in direct correlation to the number of page views their articles receive.

Why Old Technologies Are Still Kicking
The article looks at how technologies and platforms evolve. To me, it describes the possibilities for the future of publishing… "To survive, technologies must evolve, much as animal species do in nature."

The next trend to watch: Live Streaming
"How could traditional news and media companies best use live streaming video?"

Blogging: the equal of in-depth narrative journalism?
"[It is] proposed that eye-witness reporting in real-time via blogs is a[n] interesting and complementary component to long-form narrative journalism."

Is writing for search engines a dead strategy
"…writing for search engines is a strategy that needs updating. It does work great now, but you have to think ahead, and structuring everything for a search engine is only part of the equation for establishing long-term growth." 

You can now access Forrester Technographic Data
"On it’s own, data doesn’t mean anything, so we have made the information (when it comes to social media adoption) easier to understand using technographics."

Google News Has Archived The New York Times, TIME magazine
"Besides the searchability of all this content, there is a very cool tool that allows a graphical display of search results. "

Why (and when) the print edition works
"In my current lifestyle, I concluded, the printed newspaper just does not fit. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, in various environments." 

 Demystifying Wikipedia: How to Be a Model Wikipedia Contributor
"In an attempt to demystify the process for myself and for you, I spoke to a few active Wikipedia users to get the real story have compiled a walk-through for any would-be Wikipedia contributor." 

Q&A: Battelle talks blog roll-ups, Google, and Federated Media’s future
"[John Battelle] is once again in the vanguard of what’s hot on the Internet–so-called vertical advertising and publishing networks."

Social Networks: Owners Profiting from their Communities
What happens when your community creates a valuable web platform, that is then sold?

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