Google is now offering free digital books for download. There are quite a few limitations to the service so far, but the scale of what Google is doing behind the scenes with books is amazing. Their goal is to scan every book – collecting all the worlds knowledge. I am just glad that future generations… Continue reading Free Digital Books
An Often Ignored Publishing Niche
Coupons. Yes, it is indeed publishing. The New York Times looks at the state of the coupon business, which has held its own against digital coupons, so far. However, change is on the way: “The next stage, according to marketing experts, will come with the spread of digital cellphones with location-tracking and automatic short-range communication… Continue reading An Often Ignored Publishing Niche
Collaborative Journalism
Wired is running an interesting journalism experiment: “In an experiment in collaborative journalism, Wired News is putting reporter Ryan Singel at your service. This wiki began as an unedited 1,059 word article on the wiki phenomenon, exactly as Ryan filed it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do the job of… Continue reading Collaborative Journalism
Web News Roundup
Just a few interesting articles: There has been a ton of talk online about Google’s foray into Microsoft Office’s territory, with their “Google Apps for Your Domain” announcement. Chris Anderson has the most interesting theory about how this will affect the web. AdSense alternatives A rant about why RSS is not such a big deal… Continue reading Web News Roundup
Tagging the News
Jeff Jarvis started an interesting discussion on how to categorize and tag news. Some of the comments he received are interesting: “…tags are crap. I tried to get analysts to do it, and it didn’t work (good luck with reporters). The reasons are that “your taxonomy isn’t my taxonomy” and it requires a discipline that… Continue reading Tagging the News
Citizen Journalism – Consumer Style
Advertising Age reports on the growing importance of user-generated reviews: “Product reviews written by real people are perhaps the most underappreciated slice of the consumer-generated-media universe, the explosion of which has captivated the advertising and media worlds.” In related news, Fred Wilson introduced me to a few phrases that scare me: shopcasting and social commerce.… Continue reading Citizen Journalism – Consumer Style
Blogs Rewrite Journalism
Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote a piece in The New Yorker about the US pension system. On his blog, he has been clarifying statements, and responding to comments that contest points in his article. In his most recent post, he makes some clarifications about what it means to be a journalist, and “report,” as opposed to… Continue reading Blogs Rewrite Journalism
News Sensationalism
An interesting piece in the Boston Globe got me thinking about some of those “most popular” story listings on sites like CNN.com and the dangers of social news sites. The Globe’s article looks at the oversaturation of John Mark Karr coverage on television news: “`It’s an embarrassment,” says Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University’s… Continue reading News Sensationalism
You Can’t Cut Your Way to Success
The New York Times profiles the fall of Knight Ridder, the newspaper giant. A cautionary tale for publishers in the Internet age: “The real story of the fall and decline of Knight Ridder is… the notion that you can continue whittling and paring and reducing and degrading the quality of your product and not pay… Continue reading You Can’t Cut Your Way to Success
Ranking Newspapers
A new study takes a look at which newspapers have the greatest reach: “When we look at individual markets, the general trend is that the online audience is growing — not by leaps and bounds — but growing [while] the print audience is on a slow and steady decline,” said Gary Meo, senior vice president,… Continue reading Ranking Newspapers