Some End-of-the-Year Reading

As a public service alternative to football games, here are a few end-of-the-year items of interest:

The 100 Essential Websites from the Guardian of London

How Google Changed the Game in 2009 from Smartware

Newspapers and Technology: Network Effects from The Economist

What Does it Mean to be Literate in the 21st Century? a video from bibliosmartgirl

Happy new year to all!

Can the Kindle Really Improve on the Book?

Thinking about buying a Kindle 2? Nicholson Baker from the New Yorker bought one, but then again, how could he not?

"Everybody was saying that the new Kindle was terribly important—that it was an alpenhorn blast of post-Gutenbergian revalorization. In the Wall Street Journal, the cultural critic Steven Johnson wrote that he’d been alone one day in a restaurant in Austin, Texas, when he was seized by the urge to read a novel. Within minutes, thanks to Kindle’s free 3G hookup with Sprint wireless — they call it Whispernet — he was well into Chapter 1 of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty ($9.99 for the e-book, $10.20 for the paperback). Writing and publishing, he believed, would never be the same."

Baker gives a thorough review (seven pages online) of his Kindle 2, elaborating on his personal experience, as well as citing celebrities and "ordinary people" alike. With convincing arguments both for and against digital media, I do wonder if the Kindle or other similar devices will ever become mainstream and functional enough to truly replace ink on paper.

[via The New Yorker]

The Whole World is Watching the Failure of Old Media

A brief and highly interesting article about the failure of old media and the rise of the Internet as a political/media tool, The Whole World is Watching aka #oldmediafail #iranelection.

The author, Johnee99 writes:

"The revolution is not being televised in Iran, nor is it being covered very well in any “old media” format. Old media in the West has failed. The Internet is now accelerating change in geopolitics, and has officially eclipsed old media as the first source for immediate and actionable information. As our Clinical Director, Dr. Jeff Rohde emailed me yesterday about Twitter: “It's more than a fancy microblog. It's the foundation of free speech in a country that normally denies it.” Powerful."

Quincy Jones Will Not Let Vibe Die

Earlier today we learned that Vibe Magazine was folding. Now Vibe founder Quincy Jones is distraught over the news and determined to save the magazine. How? "I'm'a take it online because print and all that stuff is over."

Jones created Vibe back in 1993 to showcase rap and R&B music in a voice that was younger and edgier than other publications existing at the time, hoping to appeal to young, urban music fans. In 2006 the magazine was purchased by the Wicks Media Group.

[via Gawker]

Student Uses Wikipedia to Test Media

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

[Read more from msnbc.com, Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia]

More Trouble in the Newspaper Industry

More newspaper giants are struggling.

The Washington Post Co. reported a quarterly net loss, as print advertising revenue plunged more than 30% at its flagship newspaper. The Post posted a net loss of $19.5 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with a net profit of $39.3 million in the same quarter last year. It was the second time in less than a year that the Post fell into the red. It recorded its first ever net loss in the second quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, right next door, the Baltimore Sun slashed its newsroom by nearly a third in the latest cuts at the ailing newspaper owned by the bankrupt Tribune Co. Sixty-one staffers in the newspaper's 205-person newsroom were laid off at the end of April. The move came one week after another Tribune paper, the Chicago Tribune, eliminated 53 jobs in its newsroom.

Traffic to Newspaper Websites Up 10.5%

While more and more print editions of newspapers fold, newspaper websites attracted an average of 73.3 million unique visitors per month in the first three months of 2009, a 10.5% jump from the same period last year, according to Nielsen Online.

The average number of pages views climbed nearly 13 percent to 3.5 billion. Both figures were the highest since 2004, according to the Newspaper Association of America, which commissioned the analysis.

The Nielsen figures are the latest to show a growing audience for newspapers on the web, even as publishers continue to struggle in their search for a viable online business model to replace falling print revenue.

[via Yahoo Tech]

Detroit Papers to Test New eBook Reader

Plastic Logic announced that it is partnering with the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News to test a thin, lightweight ebook reader to deliver the papers’ electronic content to users. The reader is about the size of an 8.5" x 11" pad of paper and weighs less than a print magazine.

The companies plan to test 100 readers this summer. If the test is successful, the reader should be in the market in early 2010. At that time, subscribers of the Detroit papers can purchase or lease a reader as an alternative to paper delivery. "You could see 20- to 30,000 of these devices in a short period of time," said David Hunke, Free Press publisher and chief executive of the partnership. There was no word on how much the reader would cost to buy or lease.

Troy Eccentric Set to Shut Down May 31

The crumbling of the newspaper industry continues. Five Southeast Michigan Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, including the Troy Eccentric, will cease both print and web publications on May 31, according to an article published today on the Detroit Free Press website.

For more information, check out the original article here.

Online Journalists See Reasons for Optimism in News Industry

Journalists who work online are more optimistic about the future of their profession than are news people tied to more traditional media platforms, according to a new survey of Online News Association members by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Overall, the online journalists surveyed are less likely to think journalism is headed in the “wrong direction” than are journalists from traditional media. They are also more confident that online news will find a self-sustaining revenue model.

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed, who come largely from websites linked to traditional media, say the Internet is “changing the fundamental values of journalism.” Some of the biggest changes, the respondents said, were a loosening of standards and more carelessness in online news gathering, and an increased emphasis on speed.

But not all of the changes were considered worrisome. Some journalists praised the growing diversity of voices, the potential of technology, and in some cases, even the move toward more overtly ideological points of view at news sites.

Fun Friday: A Reason for Print? Part II

I have to agree with these folks; part of me is going to miss the newspapers.

How to Save the News Industry

We have written a lot about the decline of the print newspaper industry as more and more Americans find their news online. The industry seems to have been caught completely off-guard by the rise of the Internet as a vehicle for news.

There are some signs of hope, as a few news outlets and media strategists are trying to create a new business model for the industry.

The British Guardian, for example, will let anyone use the content on its website for free. How does the company plan on making money? Instead of trying to charge for content that can easily be duplicated, the Guardian will let anyone duplicate and use its content and then slap ads on top of everything.

The Financial Times of London has launched Newssift, a semantic search engine that sifts through business news across the Internet. It returns impressive results, especially for bigger companies and broader topics.

Meanwhile, social media strategist and blog author Woody Lewis, writes on five ways newspapers can avoid extinction for Mashable.com.

Several Daily Michigan Newspapers to Consolidate or Fold

Not only are big city newspapers in trouble.

According the Detroit News website, eight Michigan daily newspapers have announced plans to cut home delivery or close for good.

In July, the Ann Arbor News will close and be replaced by AnnArbor.com, which will produce news and other content daily on the Web and twice-weekly in print.

Starting June 1, the Flint Journal, the Saginaw News and the Bay City Times will publish print editions only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, while maintaining a daily Web presence. Four other papers -- the Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, and Muskegon Chronicle -- will publish daily but consolidate some operations and reduce wages and benefits.

The local newspaper industry has mirrored the chaos in the national industry. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are reducing their print subscriptions to three days a week, and in March, the publisher of the Oakland Press, the Macomb Daily and Royal Oak's Daily Tribune, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.

It will be interesting to see the state of Michigan newspapers at the end of 2009.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Goes All Online

As I wrote might happen, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ended its print edition today and has become the latest big-city newspaper to go all online.

[via boingboing]

An Insider's View of How the News Industry Will Survive

At The Tech Desk, we have been covering the state of the print news industry as we near the end of the first decade of the 21st century. It is not good.

An insider, Nick Bilton, an editor in The New York Times research and development lab, tells Wired how he believes The Times will survive:

"In-depth reporting can get a second life being re-packaged as a standalone e-book. Stories can be made to work with networked televisions, letting people see video interviews, high-res pictures, map views and timelines. They could even read excerpts from or even buy books written by experts quoted in a story.

"Paper is dying, but it's just a device. Replacing it with pixels is a better experience."

More Bad News for Local Newspapers

As many major big-city newspapers appear ready to collapse, more bad news for the print media industry: according the weekly News Interest Index, conducted March 6-9, by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

When it comes to local news, more people say they get that news from local television stations than any other source. Sixty-eight percent say they regularly get local news from television reports or television station websites, 48% say they regularly get news from local newspapers in print or online, 34% say they get local news regularly from radio and 31% say they get their local news, more generally, from the Internet.

Ten Major Newspapers to Fold or Go Digital in 2009?

The restructuring in the traditional print media business continues.

From Time magazine, here is a list of ten major newspapers that will either fold or go digital next. Analysts expect that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- Seattle's oldest daily -- will make the choice within a few days.

On the list are some powerhouses of print: the Detroit News, the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Writes Time, "It is possible that eight of the fifty largest daily newspapers in the United States could cease publication in the next eighteen months."

Magazines: Hard Copy or Electronic Copy?

The debate about whether you like to read your magazines in their original hard copy form or in their electronic form is becoming a moot point as more and more magazines are closing shop.

Effective in March, Country Home, the popular country-style magazine, will permanently shut down. In addition, the magazine's website will also go dark. The Meredith Corporation made the announcement in January. Meredith blames the economy for Country Home’s demise.

Last year, Hearst’s O at Home, Condé Nast’s House & Garden, and Time Inc.’s Cottage Living all stopped producing issues and shut down their websites, victims of the poor economy.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer to Go All Online?

According to Reuters [via Wired.com], it looks like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the longest-published newspaper in Seattle, is going to stop publishing a print edition and go all-online.

Several reporters said they had received offers from the paper’s owner, the Hearst Corporation, to work for an online-only successor to the print edition. One reporter was quoted as saying that an online-only paper would employ about 20 people. The newspaper now has a staff of about 150.

Hearst said on January 9, that it would close the paper or go all-online if it could not find a buyer in 60 days. No buyer has emerged and an announcement on the paper’s future is expected next week.

Times to Launch Blog Network

One thing about which we have been talking here at the Library, is the accelerating move from print to electronics in the news industry. Just yesterday -- touched off by this item about the Rocky Mountain News -- we were wondering why the traditional print media has so badly adapted to the web. It is not like they didn't receive fair warning. Like the automobile industry, the print news industry sometimes seems unaware of a new reality.

Perhaps The New York Times has finally learned a lesson: the Internet is here. Use it before you die.

This from TechCrunch.com: The New York Times Expected To Launch Local Blog Network.