Google CEO would save newspapers if he could

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the plight of newspapers:

“They don’t have a problem of demand for their product, the news. People love the news. They love reading, discussing it, adding to it, annotating it. The Internet has made the news more accessible. There’s a problem with advertising, classifieds and the cost itself of a newspaper: physical printing, delivery and so on. And so the business model gets squeezed.”

And what if the newspaper industry does go down?

“To me this presents a real tragedy in the sense that journalism is a central part of democracy. And if it can’t be funded because of these business problems, then that’s a real loss in terms of voices and diversity. And I don’t think bloggers make up the difference. The historic model of investigative journalists in any industry is something that is very fundamental. So the question is, what can you do about this? And a fair statement is, we’re still looking for the right answer.”

We’d be in deep doo doo if we had to rely on bloggers from the news. I wish we could get a tax credit for contributions to news organizations. A much better use of my money than funding campaigns.

Scott Adams: Cusp of fundamental change

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“I wonder what people mean when they say the economy will recover in 2010. The only way that can happen is if another irrational bubble forms thus creating an illusion of wealth similar to our previous illusions. If you take illusions out of the equation, there isn’t anything to get “back” to. The wealth was never there in the first place.”

“I said before that I think we’re on the cusp of a change as fundamental as the industrial revolution. But this time the change will be on the consumption side, not the production side. As a society we have dabbled with recycling and such, but it has always been fairly optional. There was no real penalty for waste.”

“The coming consumption revolution won’t be strictly for the benefit of the environment. It will be an economic necessity, driven largely by the huge numbers of retired poor. There simply won’t be enough stuff for everyone if waste is allowed.”

He goes on to share some thoughts on the Internet and home schooling. My nephews and niece were home schooled and they are very well educated and socially well adjusted. The post is worth a read.

Butt cheek blogging

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“The next time you’re in a public event, such as a lecture, play, or ballgame, look at everyone’s body posture. People who are disengaged are usually leaning back, resting comfortably on both butt cheeks. It’s only when they really get into it that they begin leaning forward, putting all of their weight on a single cheek.” —  Copyblogger

Jonathan Morrow explains why this is significant for bloggers. If you’re not a blogger you can skip his post. I just wanted to post the paragraph above. For the record, I’m usually a one butt check kind of guy.

It looks like TV to me

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From PoynterOnline’s  Al’s Morning Meeting (Al Tompkins):

“Monday morning, WTSP-TV anchor/reporter Janie Porter was on TV, reporting live from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on the run-up to this week’s national college football championship game. She didn’t have a big live truck accompanying her, or an engineer tuning in a shot or a photojournalist standing behind the camera and setting up lights.”

“Porter set up her own camera, opened her laptop, connected the camera to her computer, slipped a wireless connection card into her laptop, called up Skype and used her Blackberry to establish IFB (the device TV folks wear in their ears to hear the off-air signal). It all looked just great on air.”

So here’s my question: If a reporter didn’t know how to do what Janie did, why wouldn’t he or she make some effort to learn it? If you answered, “I’m not a TV reporter,” go to the back of the line.

iLife ’09

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Of all the things I enjoy doing on the computer, messing with images (still and video) has to be near the top of the list. You’ve heard me and others talk about how the Mac –or, more accurately, the software running on a Mac– makes working with media easier and more fun.

Today at Macworld, Apple made a number of announcements, as they do every year, including a new version of iLife, the suite of applications for working with photos, movies, music, etc.

The brief video tours of iPhoto and iMovie illustrate why we Mac users get so excited we pee our pants. My copy is on the way.

Tweeting the legislature and state government

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There are several reasons why a reporter covering the state legislature wouldn’t use Twitter to complement their MSM work:

  • Don’t have time
  • Don’t have access to net
  • Against the House/Senate rules
  • Don’t see value
  • Don’t have laptop or text-enabled phone

…and I’m sure there are others. But with state legislatures coming back into session, I believe this is the year we’ll see Twitter used to cover floor debate, committee hearings, and general under-the-dome gossip.

And I’d look for a flood of Twitter feeds from special interest groups, putting their own 140 character spin on legislation and state government.

Our company has provided live audio feeds of floor debate from the Missouri House and Senate since 2001 (2000?). What we have NOT been able to provide was audio from the committee hearings which, I’m told, is where all the action takes place.

We’ve made repeated attempts to get a live audio stream out of those committee hearing rooms but could never get past the technical/political obstacles. (Translation: the folks in charge would rather NOT have live coverage of the hearings)

But this year there will be folks sitting in the back with iPhones and Twitter pages, clicking away. Initially, these will be savvy folks on one or both sides of the legislation being discussed. And, yes, they’ll be putting their own spin on what’s being said.

With-it news organizations will be using Twitter to cover state legislatures. I did a real quick search and came up with @matt_stiles, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle bureau in Austin, TX. The political parties are all over Twitter: @colosengop is the Twitter page for the Colorado Republican Caucus and @iahousedemocrat promises “short updates on what’s going on inside the caucus and with action on the floor.” @nebraskagov is the “official Twitter feed” for the state of Nebraska.

If you’re aware of others, hit the comment link because I’d like to see what others are doing with Twitter in this space.

UPDATE: In January and February of 2010 we began experimenting with streaming video from committee hearings.

Bruce Sterling: State of the World, 2009

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Every year on The Well, Bruce Sterling does an “overview of Things in General, the State of the World, Where We Have Been and Where We are Tending.” I’ve cherry-picked a few thoughts from the latest installment:

“I always knew the “War on Terror” bubble would go.  It’s gone. Nobody misses it.  It got no burial.  I knew it was gonna be replaced by another development that seemed much more burningly urgent than terror Terror TERROR, but I had a hard time figuring out what vast, abject fright that might be. Now I know.  Welcome to 2009!”

“You know what’s truly weird about any financial crisis? WE MADE IT UP.  Currency, money, finance, they’re all social inventions.  When the sun comes up in the morning it’s shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place.”

“The sheer galling come-down of watching the Bottom Line, the Almighty Dollar, revealed as a papier-mache pinata.  It’s like somebody burned their church.”

“I keep remembering the half-stunned, half-irritated looks on the faces of those car execs when they were chided for flying their company jets to Washington to beg.  I felt sorrow for them.  Truly.  These guys are the captains of American industry at the top of the food chain.  Of course they fly corporate jets.  Corporate jets were *invented* for guys like the board of General Motors.  And now they’re getting skewered for that by a bunch of punk-ass Congressmen they can usually buy and sell?”

“Practically everything we do in our civilization is directly predicated on setting fire to dead stuff.”

“People don’t have to solve every problem in the world in order to be happy.  People will always have problems. People ARE problems.  People become happy when they have something coherent to be enthusiastic about.  People need to LOOK AND FEEL they’re solving some of mankind’s many problems.  People can’t stumble around in public like blacked-out alcoholics, then have some jerk like Phil Gramm tell them to buck up.”

“When you can’t imagine how things are going to change, that doesn’t mean that nothing will change.  It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.”

 

Dot Com. Smays Dot Com.

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The inauguration of President Barack Obama is just a couple of weeks away and it’s looking more and more like Barb and I will be in D.C. for the historic event. We’re told we have tickets. A friend of Barb’s has graciously provided a place to stay. And we have two insanely expensive airline tickets.

Given that our tickets are two of 250,000, we have no illusions about this adventure and are approaching it like Woodstock: cold, muddy and a lot of fun. No, I wasn’t there.

But now there’s some talk of tickets to one of the many Inaugural Balls. In for a penny, in for a pound. In the event we do get tickets to a ball, yesterday I got fitted for my first tuxedo since my high school prom.

There was some discussion of showing up in a powder blue number but the Sean Connery model (From Russia with Love) won out. All Barb would say about her new dress was, “It’s sparkly.”

Stay tuned as this story unfolds.

Gmail users can view PDF files w/o downloading

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I hate clicking a link and discover it’s to a PDF file and Acrobat Reader begins its torturous load. Or a PDF comes as an attachment to an email and I just want to quickly peek at the document. That hasn’t been a problem since moving to Mac.

And now Gmail users can view a PDF file without downloading it, thanks to a new “View” link. Clicking “View” quickly opens the PDF inside your browser, complete with the graphics and formatting you expect to see in a PDF.

When I’m asked, “Why do you like Gmail better than Outlook?” I struggle to give them a useful answer. It’s really a hundred little things like the feature above.

Stand By Me (Playing for Change)

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From the award-winning documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, comes the first of many songs around the world being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe. This and other songs such as One Love will be released as digital downloads soon; followed by the film soundtrack and DVD early next year.