“There’s nothing local about movie criticism – or TV criticism, or book reviewing, or any number of things that newspapers persist in doing long past the time when they make any sense.”
“How involved are reporters and editors … on their web sites? Not much. And until we fix that weak link in our participation strategy, we will continue to struggle with developing the kind of online community our newspaper communities deserve.”
Excellent news if you’re me, meaningless news otherwise: Searching for “hartnett” with Google returns my site as the 10th result, which finally puts me on the first page. This is no mean feat, mind you, given the inexplicable fame of … that other Hartnett. Yahoo brings me in at 27th, Live Search at 22nd and Ask stinks up the joint by putting me all the way down at 124th. Have I mentioned how much I hate Ask? Stupid Ask. You’re nothing without Jeeves.
“Lesson: Newspapers need better local online products to offer advertisers, and need to be much smarter and more aggressive about how they sell them, i.e., not doing stupid bundling deals or sending print sales reps out to sell online …”
Extremely little known fact: With widely varying success and commitment, I’ve been boycotting Target for more than five years because they sold me a series of extremely shoddy spray bottles and were brutally unrepentant.
Unsolicited home delivery of worthless free newspapers is annoying, eh? As ever, my finger is firmly on the pulse of the seriously cranky consumer: http://tinyurl.com/3b3wp9
Say, speaking of the Times, here’s a little Paper View Monday unrated exclusive director’s cut edition bonus material: The ID badge of the awesomest intern ever. Just about nine (!) years ago. Sigh. Had internets and everything back then.
“‘Michael is a world brand now, like Beckham,’ former Ghana captain Tony Baffoe told me when I ran into him at the Golden Tulip Hotel. ‘It’s good. It’s good to have a black hero, good for our nation, good for Africa, and good for the kids.’”
“In the era of distributed media, the relationship between journalist and audience is asymmetrical. … Here are six roles the modern journalist should serve … “
Neighborhood of the week is BallenIsles, a high-end, 33-subdivision golf and country club community in Palm Beach Gardens. Notable residents include Venus and Serena Williams. In other news, I dropped a page from the PDF because it was acting up. That’s the way I roll.
“Automattic, the commercial arm of the WordPress blog platform, has received $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including The New York Times Company.” Interesting. The NYT is really committing to open source.
Others have said it, but I like this concise summary: “The departure of Jim O’Shea from the L.A. Times shouldn’t be construed as fighting the gallant battle for journalism. It was the battle for status quo and business as usual.”
Knight News Challenge grant winner EveryBlock launches in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Will be interesting to watch, though I wonder how well the concept would work in a horizontal, suburban area like you see across most of Florida.
“Salil Tripathi writes on the SAJA Forum that the Times of India – the largest English-language newspaper in the world – is taking equity stakes in some of its advertisers.” Sure, no ethical problems with that.
“Stefan Krause, BMW’s boss of sales and marketing, has finally gone on record to confirm the rumours. The German carmaker thinks it might need a new ‘green’ brand.” Ha! How about a ‘green’ M3 that gets 35 mpg, generates 400 hp and costs under $30K?
“English Premier League club Fulham announced Wednesday that it signed the 23-year-old forward following a hearing to obtain Johnson’s European work permit.” That makes five Americans for Fulham. If only they weren’t so terrible.
“In the interests of saving as many jobs and as much quality journalism as possible, it’s time for journalists … to stop whining about the glories of yesteryear and start thinking of creative ways to make or save more money.”
Recent comment spam from my new best friend, a delightful fella named “Garden Centers in Kentucky,” not caught by Akismet:
Why didn’t anyone tell me about this blog earlier? Lol. Seriously, awesome work on this post (along with your other posts…) Keep it up!…
I almost approved it just because it was so cheerful and encouraging. Hey, we all need a little pat on the back every now and then, you know? Lol. Seriously.