Blog Scan: Elsewhere Online
Are We Living in a Perfect Storm for Print Media?
I have been giving a lot of thought lately to what impact rising inflation might have on digital media. One strong possibility is that print will get crimped.
Consider this a rather simplistic theory for a Saturday morning. However, it's my view that - as if they didn’t have enough to worry about - newspaper and magazine publishers may see a perfect storm accelerate if gas prices continue to escalate. There are three factors at work here - some go beyond the current economic situation.
For starters, as gas prices go up, so will the distribution costs. This could have a significant impact on margins. However, there are larger societal factors at bay here too.
Second, there's a greater awareness among consumers of their environmental impact. At the Forbes Online Brand Summit earlier this year, Jeff Cole from USC Annenberg predicted that as this broadens, consumers will cut back on print in favor of digital media. I think he's right.
Last but not least we have the growing popularity of speedy 3G-enabled smart phones, including the new iPhone 3G. The devices are declining in price while offering a lot more sophisticated experience for reading news.
When you combine these three trends the future for print doesn't feel bright. The big media companies know this and they're looking for new models that can be as lucrative as what they have now. The question of course is whether or not there will be enough revenue to replace what they have coming in now, even as their costs decline.
5 Jul 2008, 3:40 am | Source: Trimmed MicroPersuasion |
Basecamp for Organizing Projects
For the past several years I’ve been involved in a variety of projects ranging from education to startups. All have involved collaboration, and in most cases the people involved were not in a single location.
One tool has risen above the others for helping keep projects running smoothly. It’s called Basecamp, an online collaborative-organizing system, and it’s gaining adherents all the time.
Basecamp was created by the team at 37signals, a company that offers a suite of Web-based applications aimed at helping you get things done. 37signals is also the crew behind Ruby on Rails, an open-source Web development framework that has a growing and passionate user base.
The philosophy at 37signals is to do a few things — the ones that users truly want and need most — really well, and skip the rest. Basecamp exemplifies this notion. It’s not nearly as powerful as some other project-management tools, but it’s proved to be indispensible.
I’ve used Basecamp in a number of things ranging from a class project, where we worked on creating a website for the new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship (alpha site here); planning and operating a nonprofit center; and organizing and operating the development of a for-profit startup.
There’s enough flexibility in the service for lots of different uses. I’ve found the messaging; to-do lists; and milestone planning especially valuable.
You can create RSS feeds of almost everything, and there’s a nifty email method for handling message. Recently, Basecamp added the ability to respond to an emailed (via Basecamp) message in an email reply.
There’s also access to “Writeboards” — where you post documents you’re sharing. This is modestly useful, but doesn’t come close to matching Google’s online document collaboration system; if several people in a small organization are tweaking a spreadsheet, for example, Google or a round-robin email is far superior to the Basecamp method.
The system has its flaws. One that drives me nuts is the inability to add new people to projects in “batch mode” — that is, more than one at a time — forcing me to do each one separately, a time-consuming process. I asked the company in a support email about adding the feature and got the kind of non-committal response that I took to mean, “We’re not interested in doing that, so don’t hold your breath.”
More problematically for me and others who are offline (typically in airplanes) a lot: There’s no offline mode. By this I mean there’s no way to suck down the entire project to your personal computer, make changes and then have them reflected back to the online project when you reconnect. Admittedly, this is difficult, and can cause versioning problems, not to mention oddities in online conversations where the thread can get confused. But it’s not impossible, and I’d be much happier if Basecamp had this capability.
Overall, however, Basecamp has proved to be a great tool for small-team collaboration, and expecially so when people are distant geographically as they are in several of my projects. There’s a free, limited-feature version. Monthly charges for the more extensive features range from $24 to $149; I pay $49 a month for capabilities that include SSL encryption security and as many as 35 active projects at once.
4 Jul 2008, 6:38 pm | Source: Center for Citizen Media: Blog | Dan Gillmor
Flowgram: Illuminating and Explaining
It’s a system that lets you guide someone through several websites or pages, showing various items — but where the pages and links stay “live” for the user. Here’s a smart one by a Flowgram developer, Tony Lopez, showing some great blogging tools:
For example, take a look at this brief introduction to the Washington Post’s superb “Faces of the Fallen” project:
Here’s another, a look at how bloggers are becoming some of the best of today’s media critics — in part by pointing directly to errors and sources that show why the original stories are mistaken.
4 Jul 2008, 6:36 pm | Source: Center for Citizen Media: Blog | Dan Gillmor
What's this?
We’ve directed you to this page, which has some of our most recent content, because we are upgrading our Web servers. You should be able to visit the full Poynter Online within an hour.
4 Jul 2008, 6:23 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Feds Discuss Possibility of Euthanizing Wild Horses
By Al Tompkins
There are about 33,000 wild horses
living on federal ranges in 10 Western states. The Feds have said
27,000 horses is the "appropriate management level" and are considering
euthanizing the animals to deal with the surplus. Rising hay and grain
costs may be contributing to declining horse adoptions. No doubt, this
is a problem that will grow, not only for wild horses but for all
owners of big animals.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says:
As of June 2008, there are more than 30,000 wild horses and burros that are fed and cared for at short-term and long-term holding facilities. It is essential to keep the BLM's wild horse and burro program in balance. Right now, the cost of keeping these animals in holding facilities is spiraling out of control and preventing the agency from successfully managing other parts of the program. For example, this fiscal year, holding costs will exceed $26 million, more than three-fourths of the BLM's congressional appropriation of about $37 million for this program.
In addition, rising energy prices have increased costs. In one year alone, energy costs for transportation and feed have increased almost $4 million. It is clear the agency cannot continue current removal and holding practices under existing and projected budgets. Neither can the BLM allow horses to multiply unchecked on the range without causing an environmental disaster.
The BLM offers these additional links:
- Sale and adoption of wild horses and burros
- Public input on wild horse and burro management
- Wild horse and burro fact sheet
- Extreme mustang makeovers highlights
3 Jul 2008, 9:01 pm | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Boston businessmen no longer interested in buying the Globe
Boston Herald | Boston Globe
In 2006, a group of Boston businessmen that included retired adman Jack Connors and former GE chief Jack Welch expressed interest in buying the Boston Globe. Connors tells Jessica Heslam (second item) that they no longer want the paper.
3 Jul 2008, 8:55 pm | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Jon Carroll: "Felker was not afraid to be cheeky or gaudy"
San Francisco Chronicle
Jon Carroll was hired by Clay Felker in the 1970s to be Village Voice's West Coast editor, then a New West magazine staffer. His memories of the late editor:
* "He had boundless ambition, but he didn't want to be a mogul, really.
He was an editor down to his spine; he didn't want to own things just
to own them - he wanted to make them better.
* "His enthusiasm was huge and omnidirectional. When he was in a room, he was in a room."
* "Driving with Clay was not an experience to be missed - or repeated.
He drove slowly and talked continually. I was terrified the whole 2
miles."
3 Jul 2008, 8:33 pm | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Buy The Boston Globe? That’s so 2006
One of the top parlor games among undertakers reporters covering the newspaper business is figuring out who would buy The Boston Globe if The New York Times Co ever decided to sell it.
That game might get harder to play, now that the top candidate is out of the running. Here is the Globe’s competitor, the Boston Herald, with the scoop (see the second item):
A group of Boston businessmen that included Connors and former GE chief Jack Welch had “expressed interest” in negotiating with the New York Times Co. to buy the Globe. Welch and Connors were willing to pay between $500 and $600 million, but the Times wasn’t interested.
…
Connors told MediaBiz he’s retired and Welch is showing signs that he wants to spend more time in New York. “I’m fully retired now and engaged in a lot of philanthropy,” Connors said, “and the industry hasn’t gotten any healthier.”
Rack up Connors and Welch with Cheryl Chase, whose family-owned real estate development firm Chase Enterprises had been the only group to step forward to buttonhole Tribune Co for the Hartford Courant. She told Reuters in May that the business isn’t good enough to make a purchase worthwhile.
Then look at the other development in newspaper M&A this week: Rupert Murdoch said that News Corp unit Dow Jones & Co would sell the remaining local papers in the Ottaway chain, but those papers reported that he’s pulling back.
Conclusion: You know things are bad in the newspaper business when it’s cheaper to keep the albatross.
(Photo: Reuters)
3 Jul 2008, 1:15 pm | Source: MediaFile | Robert MacMillan
Number of analysts following the newspaper biz dwindles
Reuters
Two years ago, investors could get research
from more than a dozen newspaper industry analysts. Now, they are lucky
to find half that number, reports Robert MacMillan. He writes:
"Failure to replenish these ranks could wipe out decades of
intelligence, and critical thinking about the business of newspapers
could well disappear over time."
3 Jul 2008, 12:18 pm | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Stakes, Expectations Rise as Copy Desks Shrink
The stakes have always been high for copy editors, the last set of eyes to see a story before it hits the presses or the Web. Now, as copy desks nationwide shrink, the stakes are even higher.
Especially troubling for some is the controversial trend of news organizations outsourcing copy editing work. Recent news of the Orange County (Calif.) Register outsourcing copy editors has gained attention in the blogosphere and comes at a time when journalists such as The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten and The New York Times' Lawrence Downes are using words like elegy and death to describe copy editing.
Those in charge of hiring copy editors aren't so quick to call copy editing a dying profession, but they know change is on the horizon. The future they envision for copy editors includes a merging of responsibilities, a greater focus on editing blogs and multimedia and an understanding that even with fewer resources, the basic fundamentals of copy editing still need to be upheld. Outsourcing, meanwhile, has reminded them of the importance of knowing a coverage area at the local level so they can catch mistakes that might otherwise find their way onto sites like "Regret the Error."
Changes on the Copy Desk
The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times,
which The Poynter Institute owns, has consolidated its copy editors
into a more universal copy desk throughout the past 18 months. Copy
editors were once divided into separate sections of the paper. They now
have to be more flexible by sharing editing responsibilities among the
various sections. The sports section still has a designated team of
copy editors.
 John Schlander |
"It certainly helps when staffing gets tighter to have more flexibility," says Executive News Editor John Schlander, who hires copy editors at the Times.
Schlander said the number of copy editors at the paper will likely decrease as the paper prepares to shrink its staff, but he doesn't expect the cuts will be disproportionate to those made in the newsroom as a whole. Last year, 90 of the 440 full-time and part-time news staff members were copy editors, designers or a combination of the two. This year, they make up 82 of the 389 news staff members.
Schlander said that, increasingly, Times copy editors will be asked to do a more thorough edit of blogs, audio slideshows and videos so that print and Web content are given equal attention.
The need for Web skills has changed the way that traditional copy editors are marketing themselves, says Eric Wee, founder and president of JournalismNext.com, a career site for minority journalists. Wee said he has noticed that up until a year ago, copy editors were in high demand, even when some newsrooms were cutting back. The number of copy editing jobs on JournalismNext.com has declined by about 30 to 40 percent, he estimated, while the number of online editing positions has increased by 30 to 40 percent.
 Eric Wee |
Job seekers selecting "copy editor" as one of their interests make up about 10 percent of those who post resumes on JournalismNext.com. This is consistent, Wee said, with percentages in the past few years. Of the 2,400 job seekers who have posted resumes on Poynter's Career Center in the last year, 25 percent listed "copy editing" as a skill.
"The difference is they're now not just selecting copy editing by itself," Wee said of the job seekers who post to his site. "They usually package themselves so they're telling employers, 'I'm a copy editor, but I can also be a content editor, a general editor, a proof reader, or a reporter even.'"
Schlander said the skills he seeks in copy editors are similar to the skills he has always looked for. "I would look for ... a sharp copy editor with an eye for detail and an eye for the big picture. Somebody who's versatile and flexible and who has experience with the Web is definitely a plus. But really, the bottom line hasn't changed that much." In the spirit of helping copy editors to continue developing their skills, Schlander holds group copy editing critiques at the Times twice a week to review what makes a good headline, what recent story packages in the paper worked well, etc.
Knowing Coverage Areas at the Local Level
 John McIntyre |
During a time when many news organizations are focusing their attention on local coverage, it doesn't make sense to outsource copy editors who are not as familiar with the communities being written about, says John McIntyre, assistant managing editor for the copy desk at The Baltimore Sun.
"If its local news that newspapers have to offer readers," McIntyre said, "they need to have local copy editors who know the areas, who know the streets that are parallel and those that don't intersect, who know how local figures spell their names, who know the area."
| RELATED | |
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But it's not enough anymore for copy editors to be able to save reporters from saying that Broadway and Fifth Avenue are parallel. They now need to handle Web production and page layout and design in addition to editing. McIntyre said he believes the added responsibilities reflect the unfortunate reality that accuracy, in some cases, isn't as important as it once was.
"I think accuracy is jeopardized
widely," McIntyre said. "As newspapers have fewer copy editors, there
is less opportunity to check for accuracy, and the level of accuracy is
going to decline. It's possible that the industry will just think that
an increase in the number of errors is the cost of doing business so
long as they say they are not losing circulation."
It's
difficult to gauge whether the errors you'd expect a copy desk to catch
are on the rise or decline, says Craig Silverman, author of the "Regret
the Error" book and blog.
Silverman noted that throughout the four years he has been tracking
mistakes, the most common mistakes he finds are misspelled names, typos
and misused words.
"For me there's a bit of concern that we may see some things like misspelled names and typos starting to work their way into papers because there are less people manning the copy desks," Silverman said. He pointed to an Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel column that the paper's former public editor, Manning Pynn, wrote last year about the correlation between the paper's shrinking copy desk and the increase of errors in the paper.
"When the Sentinel tightened its financial belt," Pynn wrote, "... it lost a wealth of seasoned veterans, many of them editors. Those journalists not only wrote headlines and captions. They also scrutinized the work of reporters -- correcting spelling, straightening out syntax, double-checking facts -- before publication. With fewer people to do that now, less of that important work gets done, and the result is more published errors."
Younger Copy Editors in the Classroom, Newsroom
The copy editing responsibilities that Pynn describes often go unnoticed, says Jan Leach, assistant professor at Kent State University who specializes in copy editing and ethics.
 Jan Leach |
"When all is said and done, some copy editor has spent a great amount of time making sure [an article] is accurate, timely and grammatically correct, and it never says 'lovingly and carefully edited by John Jones,'" said Leach. "Everybody thinks that the reporters write their own headlines. They don't know that some poor editor had to do all the micro editing, or macro editing, in 15 minutes."
Most of her students do not go on to be copy editors, but every semester, she said she identifies a student for whom "the love of the language is just Nirvana," and who will decide to go into copy editing.
As a younger copy editor at The Dallas Morning News, Helen Humphrey, 29, has a lot of questions about the future of copy editing. As news organizations cut back, she said, she believes copy editors might assume responsibilities traditionally ascribed to originating/line editors and, by default, enhance their interaction with reporters.
Despite her worries about the journalism industry as a whole, she remains hopeful about the future of copy editing.
"There's no question our industry as a whole is in trouble," Humphrey said. "But whatever incarnation newspapers take in the future, I really can't imagine that there would be no copy editors. Perhaps the copy editor's job will be more [like] that of a line editor/originating editor, but I do feel pretty confident, maybe naively, that news organizations will always need editors."
For now, this much is true: the stakes aren't getting any lower.
What is the state of copy editing in your newsroom -- in print and on the Web?
3 Jul 2008, 10:20 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Gawker cuts rate of pay per pageview for third straight quarter
Radar Online
For Gawker writers, a million pageviews a month to an individual writer's blog posts will now net that writer $5000, notes Choire Sicha. Six months ago, a million pageviews would have gotten a writer $7,500. In June, Gawker's top traffic-getter was Richard Lawson, with 1.5 million pageviews (under the new rate, that's $7500).
3 Jul 2008, 9:07 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
LA Times Cutting Again, Merging Web/Print: Too Little, Too Late?
By Alan Abbey
Yesterday the LA Times announced
that it is cutting its 876-person editorial staff by about 17 percent
(to about 700). This is remarkable only in that it is unremarkable.
Across the continent, yesterday the Tampa Tribune also announced major cuts: 11 newsroom employees now and 10 more by early fall, as part of a 20 percent cut in news staff to an editorial department of 200. These cuts count an additional 29 who took buyouts, according to the report.
But wait, there's more! A June 25 Reuters roundup catalogued another bloody week:
- Tribune Co. will cut 100 jobs at The Sun in Baltimore (60 in the newsroom) and Hartford Courant another 60. (Fellow Tidbits contributor Tish Grier notes that the Courant says it's adding staff to better monitor their message boards. She's checking whether news staff are being shifted to these jobs.)
- Cox Newspapers announced 300 job cuts at the Palm Beach Post.
The LA Times also plans to merge its Web and print departments into one operation with a single budget.
Editor editor Russ Stanton was quoted as saying: "We're great about putting out a paper; we're getting a lot better at putting up a Web site. We're not very good on TV or radio, and we don't do mobile at all. We need to do all of those things going forward."
And how are they going to do that with less of a staff? I'm not sure that old-line print media ever will "get it." It is still virtually impossible, for example, to enter reader comments on news articles on major newspaper sites. People want to talk back, to have a say, to join the conversation.
Wednesday's crazy bulldozer attack in Jerusalem (unnervingly close to where my son was in summer camp) which left three dead and dozens wounded, was all over YouTube and media-savvy sites like BBC long before even the NY Times got to it.
Let's not get too apocalyptic: The U.S. economy, led by a drop in real estate, is sinking right now. This kind of economic slowdown hits newspapers first in areas such as classified advertising. Newsprint, ink, and transportation costs are skyrocketing at the same time. But these things are cyclical. I'm old enough (53), and entered the jobmarket at a bad enough time (1976-77 recession), to know there are good times and bad times.
For media workers, these aren't necessarily bad times. For every job shutting down at LAT, there is probably one (albeit less well paid, less prestigious, and more nose-to-the-grindstone) opening up in new media. However, for media veterans, this downturn does feel similar to the widespread closures of coal mines and steel mills 25-30 years ago. What can we do with our outdated skills?
3 Jul 2008, 8:51 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Philly Inquirer, Daily News may combine some newsroom jobs
Associated Press | Philadelphia Weekly
A team of
managers at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News has been appointed
to oversee consolidation of some functions at the two papers. A union
official says the two papers may share photographers and merge copy
desk and other functions. || Inky ME's memo: "Significant changes ... will take place in the next few weeks."
3 Jul 2008, 7:45 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Fourth of July Story/Summer Stories You Can Localize
By Al Tompkins
Here are some July Fourth/summer-related story ideas:
Fireworks Shortage
A month ago we heard warnings about a potential fireworks shortage. Did it pan out? Find out by talking to local vendors.
Grill Fires
What's July Fourth without a cookout? The (Louisville, Kent.) Courier-Journal offers grilling safety tips.
More grill fires occur when people dispose of their ashes, says Buster White, inspector with the fire department in Nixa, Mo.
He recommends waiting three days before getting rid of charcoal coals and ashes. Place the coals in a noncombustible container to dispose of them.
Do not move the grill inside the garage, next to the house or indoors. "If that grill is on, it's producing carbon monoxide," White says.
Grill at least 10 feet from the house, and don't grill on a deck or balcony. And of course, keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Swimming Pool Inspections
Go to your local health department and look at its swimming pool inspection records. The Dallas Morning News did,
and found that inspectors closed 20 pools earlier this year because
they were too unhealthy. You might look at hot-tub inspections while
you are at it.
I think you should consider posting the
inspection records for country clubs, hotels, municipal pools and
condos just as many newsrooms post restaurant inspection scores. Tri-Cities.com posts pool inspection records, as well as records for restaurants, tattoo parlors and more.
In
Canada where I was working recently, I noted that some local Canadian
governments are posting pool inspection records online. The Vancouver Courier reports:
In 2006, Montreal's mayor shut down 48 of that city's public swimming pools following a media investigation into swimming pool sanitation. Some pools were found with high levels of fecal matter, urine, E. Coli, C. difficile, legionella, hepatitis A and giardia, the last of which may cause nausea, diarrhea, respiratory problems and skin and eye infections.
What do pool inspectors look for?
Why Don't Black Children Swim?
USA Swimming, the organization that oversees competitive swimming in the U.S., recently conducted a poll
that found nearly 60 percent of black children cannot swim. That is
twice the rate of non-swimming white kids. Not surprisingly, then,
black children drown at a much higher rate than white children. Click here to read the study [PDF].
The study found that 31 percent of the white respondents could not swim safely, compared to 58 percent of the blacks. The non-swimming rate for Hispanic children was almost as high -- 56 percent -- although more than twice as many Hispanics as blacks are now USA Swimming members.
The lead researcher, Professor Richard Irwin, said one key finding was the influence of parents' attitudes and abilities. If a parent could not swim, as was far more likely in minority families than white families, or if the parent felt swimming was dangerous, then the child was far less likely to learn how to swim.
The USA Swimming Foundation provides these statistics:
- 9 people drown each day in the U.S.
- In ethnically-diverse communities, the youth drowning rate is 2-3 times higher than the the national average.
- Nearly six out of 10 African American and Hispanic/Latino children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their Caucasian counterparts.
- The key indicator in this was not race, but family -- Children from non-swimming households are eight times more likely to be at-risk of drowning.
- While about 1/3 of white children from non-swimming families go on to learn to swim, less than 1/10 of children in non-swimming African American families do. By teaching these children, Make a Splash is breaking the cycle and creating generations of parents-to-be who will know how to swim.
Fireworks Injuries
The National Fire Protection Association says:
On Independence Day in a typical year, more U.S. fires are reported than on any other day, and fireworks account for half of those fires, more than any other cause of fires.
Five states ban the use of fireworks by consumers (DE, MA, NJ, NY, and RI). The other 45 states and the District of Columbia permit some or all consumer fireworks. The American Pyrotechnics Association has compiled a helpful map and directory of state-by-state fireworks control laws.
The National Fire Protection Association provides these two charts:
 National Fire Protection Association |
3 Jul 2008, 6:37 am | Source: Poynter Online | Bill Mitchell
Yahoo in the news, again
Does anyone love Yahoo? It’s difficult to say. But everyone sure does love talking about Yahoo.
After a flurry of media and blog reports this week (including ours) on whether Microsoft is holding new talks with media companies about Yahoo, AllThingsDigital turns to the looming proxy battle between Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and activist shareholder Carl Icahn on Aug. 1.
Kara Swisher reports that Yahoo is contemplating offering two board seats to Icahn to assuage his demands for a new slate of board members. The problem though is that Icahn wants at least four, according to ATD.
Keep an eye on:
* Weather Channel’s $3-3.5 billion sale to NBC Universal, Blackstone Group and Bain Capital could be announced in the next day or two, source said. (Reuters)
* Taylor Nelson rejects improved 1.08 billion pounds offer from WPP (Reuters)
* L.A. Times to cut 250 jobs, 150 in editorial (Reuters)
* Music sales plummet by 11 percent in 2008 (NY Post)
(Photo: Reuters)
3 Jul 2008, 6:23 am | Source: MediaFile | Yinka Adegoke
Writers Set Slate for Strike.tv
Web net unveiled slate Wednesday featuring contributions from the minds behind the likes of "The Office" and "Die Hard."3 Jul 2008, 4:55 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
McClatchy VP Weaver Goes 'Wiki' on Industry Crisis
"I can assure you that thousands of McClatchy employees, like me, will take some time to grieve the loss of colleagues being laid off and to curse the conditions that led to it."3 Jul 2008, 4:47 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Study: E-mail Tops Among DR Tools
The results of the Direct Partners study were derived from 30,000 surveys sent in April to senior executives at companies with 2007 revenues exceeding $100 million.3 Jul 2008, 4:37 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Mozilla Claims Guinness Record for Downloads
Firefox 3's additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet3 Jul 2008, 3:03 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Independent's Day: Digital Nomads Rising
The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.
As I write this column, all the talk is about the recession. There were nearly 40,000 stories in Google News in the last week mentioning the R-word. In addition, a gallon of gas, now at four dollars, may hit seven bucks by 2010, according to CIBC World Markets. Meanwhile, layoff announcements are up 21% in 2008, Challenger, Gray and Christmas reports.
Recessions often accelerate social shifts that are already percolating under the surface. One of the key trends I have been watching is the growing number of Digital Nomads.
If you spend as much time on the road as I do, you’re likely to run into Digital Nomads. This sector of the workforce includes both independents and corporate workers. They use web-based tools like Twitter, wikis, Google Docs, social networks and Skype to collaborate and work wherever, whenever and however they want.
Digital Nomads are already extremely influential. Many of them blog and hang out on sites like Web Worker Daily. In addition, they shun traditional communication tools like email.
Luis Suarez is one such corporate nomad who I met recently at a conference in Brussels. Suarez has a successful career in knowledge management with IBM. He lives in the Canary Islands and has virtually eliminated all business email in favor collaborating via social networks. Suarez has chronicled this extensively on his blog.
Others are declaring free agency. Charlene Li, an influential Forrester analyst who tracks digital trends, blogged that she is leaving the research firm to go independent. Some believe that the growing ranks of free-agent analysts may spell trouble for traditional research firms.
The reality is that many of the tools that workers need to do their jobs are becoming free or low cost. This extends into verticals as well. For example the Google Ad Planner, which launched last week, theoretically could allow anyone to become a nomadic media planner.
Digital Nomads are growing in numbers and they will create ripples. This trend will accelerate use of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace. Over time, this may slow the efficacy of email marketing and accelerate the reliance on social media engagement.
However, it goes deeper than that. If you don't allow your employees to become nomadic, they may do so and even compete against you in the process.
3 Jul 2008, 2:00 am | Source: Trimmed MicroPersuasion |
Analyst: Google Needs Better MySpace Search Algorithm
Pali analyst Richard Greenfield says update needed based on types of searches that social networking users regularly conduct3 Jul 2008, 12:24 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Rush is having fun — and making boatloads
It’s turning out to be a pretty good week for Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk radio host beloved by millions of weekly listeners.
A powerhouse in radio since he began his national show in 1988, Limbaugh has renewed his contract with Premiere Radio Networks and Clear Channel Radio AND has landed on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Not too shabby.
The release announcing the contract is light on details, but does a pretty good job of piling on the platitudes. Premiere Radio Networks President Charlie Rahilly said he was “proud to partner with Mr. Limbaugh deep into the next decade.” Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan tossed in that “broadcasters of Rush’s quality come along once in a lifetime.” Limbaugh himself stated that “I’m having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.”
Yes, but how much money is he making?
It had better be a lot. As the New York Times Magazine profile points out, he drives a black Maybach 57s, which costs in the neighborhood of $450,000, and has another half dozen similar cars on his estate. He also recently bought a Gulfstream G550 for about $54 million, the magazine said.
Limbaugh can afford to live the way he wants. When we met he was on the verge of signing a new eight-year contract with his syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks. He estimated that it would bring in about $38 million a year. To sweeten the deal, he said he was also getting a nine-figure signing bonus.
So $38 million a year. At least $100 million in signing bonus. No wonder he’s having so much fun.
(Photo: Reuters)
2 Jul 2008, 11:55 am | Source: MediaFile | Paul Thomasch
Google, MacFarlane Forge Deal
Will create 50 animated Webisodes, each two minutes in length2 Jul 2008, 8:28 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Organic's New Media Chief Joins Startup
Spent two years at Organic, where he led an innovation group that partnered with startups on new client apps, programs2 Jul 2008, 8:25 am | Source: Mediaweek - Digital Downloads |
Buying on the rumor; selling the rest of the time
Yahoo’s stock price was rescued (yet again) by rumors that Microsoft is getting ready to bid for the web company’s search business (yet again).
The shares had looked set to fall below $19.18 on Wednesday — the level they stood at on January 31 before Microsoft first announced a takeover bid for Yahoo. But thanks to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo shares jumped about 6 percent in electronic trading early in the morning.
If this reversal of fortune sounds familiar, it should. These days, Yahoo’s stock seems more likely to rise on speculation about possible deals than anything having to do with its actual business. Check back on a MediaFile posting from June 24 that points out Yahoo shares jumped 15 percent after TechCrunch reported that it was back in takeover talks with Microsoft.
Here’s what the Wall Street Journal is saying about the latest talks:
“Microsoft Corp., positioning itself for a new run for Yahoo Inc.’s search business, has approached other media companies in recent days about joining it in a deal that would effectively lead to Yahoo’s breakup, say people familiar with the discussions.
Microsoft has held discussions with Time Warner Inc. and News Corp, among others, say people involved in the talks.”
Investors seem pretty pumped about the report, given the stock’s early morning surge. But they may want to read a bit further — and keep in mind all the past speculation that hasn’t resulted in a Microhoo deal — before getting too bullish.
“Some of the people familiar with these talks say they are preliminary and unlikely to result in a deal with Yahoo. Indeed, two weeks ago, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock to suggest they meet to discuss a new idea involving other partners, according to a person familiar with the matter. The meeting, scheduled for Monday, was subsequently canceled by Microsoft, which Yahoo took as a sign that Mr. Ballmer’s efforts to find a partner have so far failed.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that the Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation into the advertising deal between Yahoo and Google.
“It doesn’t mean they have drawn any conclusions,” Peter Guryan, a partner with Fried Frank and formerly an antitrust lawyer in the Justice Department, told the newspaper. But “it is a significant step beyond a request for voluntary information,” he said. “It demonstrates that the DOJ clearly has questions.”
Keep an eye on:
- The 2008 presidential race, which has already drawn a record number of dollars and voters, is poised to shatter another record: the amount of money spent on television advertisements (Reuters)
- Sony Corp is seeing little or no sign of softer demand among U.S. consumers for its range of digital TVs, cameras and computer goods despite a weakening economy, a top regional executive said (Reuters)
- “Kit Kittredge: American Girl” has her work cut out for her as she expands to movie theaters across North America on Wednesday after two weekends of solid returns in limited release (Hollywood Reporter)
2 Jul 2008, 6:10 am | Source: MediaFile | Paul Thomasch