2006: The Tipping Point

I’m back at my desk for 2006. This will be a pivotal year for the news industry. The tipping point has been reached. Most news broadcasts and printed newspapers and news magazines finally realize that they are, if not yet dying, then dinosaurs in the tar pit. Meanwhile, the many upstarts who hope to replace those dinosaurs will this year be realizing that their solutions (such as just ‘citizen journalism’) are neither as functional or appropriate as they think. Stay tuned for an exciting year. Plus , I’m pleased to be entering my 27th year in the news industry.

A Perspective: The Myth of the 'Owned' Newspaper Reader

Traditional publishers and broadcasters aren’t the only faction whose perspective creates an illusion. Today at Corante’s Symposium on Social Architecture, I’ve heard speakers state as fact that ‘newspaper publishers think they own their readers.‘. I’ve been working in the newspaper industry since…

Today's Congratulations and Boos

Congratulations to Adrian Holovaty, Matt Thompson, and Inform Technologies. Boos to U.S. newspaper corporations for claiming that newsprint price increases are forcing them to cut staff (an excuse that Slate’s Jack Shafer roundly debunks) and boos to FIFA for banning immediate online publication or broadcast of digital images of the next World Cup.

Jupitermedia sells Search Engines Strategies, Search Engine Watch, and

Long-time online entrepreneur Alan Meckler‘s Jupitermedia is selling its Search Engine Strategies trade shows and its ClickZ.com Network of Web sites, including its SearchEngineWatch.com, for $43 million in cash to Incisive Media plc, a public company in London. UPDATE: Alan Meckler explains…

Narcopoding

It’s sometimes easy for new business ideas to blur the line between satire and reality. An example is the following idea we conceived while mulling over new markets for podcasting. Many users of iPods and other portable audio file players seem to…

R.I.P. Lucien Carr, 1926-2005

Lucien Carr, Gordon Joseloff, and Gary Paul Gates at UPI reunion, Oct. 2003. Beat luminari, killer, and wire service journalist Lucien Carr, one of the most interesting characters with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work, passed away Friday. Who was Lou…

Back from the Holidays

After a long holiday period, I’m back in my office and now working on a broadcast industry project that I’m not yet at liberty to disclose. (I hope to tell more about it later month).

Crowning the 'Number One" Online Activity: Change the Channel

The Online Publishers Association often induces statistics to prove that content is king online. This association’s first attempt was two years ago, when it released statistics that purported to show U..S. consumers spent $675 million for online content in 2001, a 92…

Free Fall for U.S. Newspapers' Circulations

There is more and more evidence that U.S. newspaper circulation has begun a possibly fatal free fall. Beginning around 1964, daily newspapers’ print circulations in the U.S. began steadily to decline at a compound rate of approximately half a percent per year.…

Contacts in London?

I’ll be in London this Sunday through Thursday on business. I’d like to meet some of the Londoners in new-media about who I’m read or heard. If you’re one of them and care to have a pint with me then, please feel…