Liniment Formulae

links for 2008-01-31

• Because it bothers me … – editor on the verge
  Insert context here.
  (tags: delicious bookmarks blogs)
• Fade to Black – Recovering Journalist
  “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.”
  (tags: newspapers movie-critics)
• Why newspaper sites will continue to struggle with reader participation – Howard Owens
  “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.”
  (tags: newspaper.com community commenting)

A milestone for search engine vanity

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.

links for 2008-01-29

• Losing Local – Recovering Journalist
  “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 …”
  (tags: newspapers advertising local)
• Target Tells a Blogger to Go Away – New York Times
  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.
  (tags: blogs business-news target)
• Lawmaker Seeks ‘Do-Not-Deliver’ Registry for Free Papers – AP via E&P
  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
  (tags: free-newspapers litter)

Paper View Monday: St. Petersburg Times

Microsoft just dropped full oblique coverage of Pinellas County in its latest imagery update, so here’s the home of one of my top two all-time favorite newspapers named the St. Petersburg Times. Mash your mouse here for the Times, and right here for all the hot map action.

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.

Oh, what the heck, here’s one more bit of bonus fun, The Poynter Institute.

Am I done yet? Pfft. Here’s the printing plant.

Best Paper View Monday ever? Probably, yes. Yay, Paper View Monday.

links for 2008-01-27

• New Imagery, January 2008 – Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
  27+ TB of new imagery, including oblique coverage of Alachua, Pinellas and Volusia counties in Florida.
  (tags: virtual-earth birdseye mapping)
• The Cult of Michael Essien – Goal
  “‘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.’”
  (tags: essien soccer ghana african-cup nyt chelsea)
• Six roles, or job duties, of modern journalism – Howard Owens
  “In the era of distributed media, the relationship between journalist and audience is asymmetrical. … Here are six roles the modern journalist should serve … “
  (tags: journalism reporters)

Random picture of my cat, Vol. 49

Florida Home 48: 2008-01-26, BallenIsles, Palm Beach Gardens

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.

DOWNLOAD THE PRINT SECTION
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (19.3 MB, 13 pages)

links for 2008-01-25

• Youre On Notice! – The Stephen Colbert “On Notice Board” Generator
  Maybe you’ve seen it already, maybe you haven’t. The important thing is that you don’t end up on my “on notice” list.
  (tags: colbert television humor)
• Why shouldn’t the press cover elections as if they’re horse races? – Slate Magazine
  “In Praise of Horse-Race Coverage: If campaigns are contests, then why not obsess on who’s winning?”
  (tags: politics journalism slate horse-race)

links for 2008-01-24

• Times Company in Group Investing in Blog Publisher – New York Times
  “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.
  (tags: nyt wordpress open-source)
• Going down for the wrong cause – Random Mumblings
  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.”
  (tags: newspapers lat)
• A few thoughts and ideas on local web apps – Joe Think
  Three “local internet/hyperlocal web app ideas,” two seemingly quite easy, one theoretically not that much more difficult.
  (tags: data local newspaper.com)
• Introducing EveryBlock – The EveryBlock Blog
  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.
  (tags: local data everyblock)
• Indian newspaper trades equity stake for advertising – Talking Biz News
  “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.
  (tags: newspapers business advertising india ethics)
• The not so MINI problem – Confidential/Autocar.co.uk
  “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?
  (tags: auto bmw enviro)
• Tallahassee Bureau Chief – JournalismJobs.com
  The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville is looking for a new capital bureau chief.
  (tags: jobs newspapers politics fl-tu)
• Eddie Johnson leaves Wizards for Fulham – The Kansas City Star
  “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.
  (tags: soccer fulham mls)
• Don’t shoot the messengers – Reflections of a Newsosaur
  “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.”
  (tags: newspapers business)

Comment spam I really wish was real

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.