“You can try all kinds of tricks to improve how highly your site ranks in Google and other search engines, but ultimately it comes down to linked content — which generally correlates with good content. And in order to get good content, you need journalists.” — Paul Bradshaw, Media Tidbits]
Amy Gahran points to (and comments on) an essay by news industry consultant Vin Crosbie (Transforming American Newspapers.) that includes some dooms-day predictions:
“More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the U.S. won’t exist in print, e-paper, or Web formats by the end of next decade. They will go out of business. The few national dailies… will have diminished but continuing existences via the Web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode. Those plus a very many smaller dailies, most of whose circulations are steadily evaporating, will decline to levels at which they will no longer be economically viable to publish daily.”
Ms. Gahran sees a somewhat brighter future:
“I think that people who want news will still get it through other means, possibly less directly, probably more collaboratively. It may not look like what journalists think news “should” look like. It may include a strongly automated, algorithmic component layered with human insight. It may look more like bullet points than stories. It’ll probably be strongly focused on mobile and social delivery channels. It may not even call itself journalism. But will it offer people the benefits they currently seek from news orgs? I think it could — maybe even better, in some cases.”
Twitter was clearly the communication tool of choice at Gnomedex. Folks were using it for just about everything. Arranging meet-ups; announcements; and snarky comments/praise for the speakers. I heard several people say they were blogging less and relying more on Twitter.
Just googled “twitter democratic national convention” and see that lots of people will be twittering the Dem’s convention this week. Find someone you trust/enjoy (Rocky Mountain News?) and follow them.
On the way to dinner on our final evening in Seattle, we discovered a team of artists finishing up what I would describe as a graffiti piece. They’d been spraying away all day and looked a little pooped. We chatted with what appeared to be the boss artist and learned he was a graphic artist and this was a paid gig.
We also learned they don’t use any old paint from the hardware store. It’s special spray paint created for this kind of art. Costs about nine bucks a can and comes from Germany. There were a lot of cans strewn about but the company apparently gives it to them for promotional purposes.
I mean no disrespect in using the word faux to describe their work. I’ve always liked the raw, bold look of graffiti art but suspect the owners of the building would like for passers-by to assume some talented street urchins and done this in the wee hours with back-packs full of Krylon.
UPDATE: Received email from one of the artists, asking me to pull the images from flickr. At least the ones that showed the artists faces. While this piece was commissioned by the owner of the building, sometimes these guys get creative without being asked. I was happy to yank the images. It never occurred to me that a tagger (?) might do a legit job by day while still answering the call of the wild. The artist offered to send me a photo of the finished wall. I’ll post it if and when.
UPDATE: Here are some more photos by one of the artists who did the wall we saw in Seattle. Sneke, Myth, Hews and Kel 1st who is one of the original NYC subway writers from the late 70’s – mid 80’s.
Gnomedex 8.0 has was damned good and it couldn’t have happened without the sponsors above. And these fine companies had the savvy to let Gnomedex control the speakers and the content.
Losing is a disease… as contagious as polio.
Losing is a disease… as contagious as syphilis.
Losing is a disease… as contagious as bubonic plague…
…attacking one… but infecting all.
But curable.
Now, I want you to imagine… you are on a ship at sea…
Gently rocking.
Gently rocking.
Gently rocking.
–The Natural (YouTube)
“It’s going to be a bumpy six months for advertising, according to results from a new survey of advertisers released Thursday (Aug. 21) by the Association of National Advertisers.
More than half of the 100 advertisers (53 percent) surveyed expect their ad budgets to be reduced in the next six months because of the tough economic climate.” — MEDIAWEEK
Kris Krug is a fashion and editorial photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. His photographs have appeared in JPG Magazine, ION Magazine, Business Week, Wired Magazine, and others. I think he’s kind of a big deal but I’m sure he’s a terrific photographer. His Gnomedex pix are some of the best I’ve seen so far.
