Archive for July, 2007
The Survival of Newspapers
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007Web portals profiting from the news business help the news industry. The survival of newspapers rests in the hands of those willing to adapt to changing reader demands.
On NPR’s Marketplace today, Neil Henry argued that Google should subsidize news reporters and editors because its free Google News service is responsible for declining newspaper readership.
Readership is declining because newspapers have not leveraged their online presence and this is why they are suffering financially.
Google News groups links to similar news stories. The service does not steal content from other sites.
When Google News links to a story, it’s featured for 15-minutes on one of the most popular websites online. This equates to millions of views of a particular headline and hundreds of thousands of clicks to read the full story on the newspaper’s website.
Newspapers have a bigger problem than Google News if they cannot monetize the influx of visitors to its website that it otherwise would not have had.
Online audiences are potentially larger than print audiences, but online audiences demand premium content. Premium content requires quality reporters and editors, but also an advertising strategy that works. Google found one and newspapers can too.
Update: Marketplace used my comment.
Three Month Anniversary
Monday, July 16th, 2007
Transcript
It’s July 16th.
It’s been three months since Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people before committing suicide on the Virginia Tech campus.
April 16th was a gray and overcast, much like today, which is rare in Los Angeles.
I heard about the shootings on NPR as I drove into work. My stomach cringed when I heard an RA had been killed and the mention of an engineering building. I texted my best friend from high school, an RA and an engineering student at Virginia Tech.
A media blitz surrounded that campus for weeks after the shootings. Even though I usually feel a world away from my home state, I felt like I was there with each news report. I had planned on attending Virginia Tech my senior year of high school. And I hate the thought, because it’s so cliche and filled with self-pity, but I knew that I could have been killed that day had I not gone to Emerson.
A few weeks earlier, I spoke with another friend from high school. He doesn’t keep in touch with many people from the class of 2002, but he sent me an email and we talked for over an hour when he called. My stomach cringed when he told me was being deployed for a third time to Iraq, but I was happy he chose me to call before he was shipped out.
In the three months since the massacre at Virginia Tech, there have been ten-times as many American military deaths in Iraq. Most of those people are my age as well, but there hasn’t been a media blitz about their loss.
There have been few protests, candle light vigils, and people asking “Why did this happen?” for the dead in Iraq. The nation hasn’t mourned the loss of the troops like they did for the victims at Virginia Tech because we never get the chance to ponder, “It could have been me.”
I cringe everytime I hear a troop from Virginia was killed in Iraq. Unlike Virginia Tech, this nation doesn’t have to suffer another loss in Iraq. I guess the controlled senselessness of the tragedies in Iraq make it less tragic to the news media, but three months later, I’m not sure why.
Quote: Wine
Sunday, July 8th, 2007You got a $10 off coupon for you next bottle of wine purchase. Every time you spend $200 on wine with your Ralph’s card, you get a reality check.
–cashier at Ralph’s
Celebrate Independence
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007Do something Al-Qaeda wouldn’t let you do. like shave.
Universal-ly Not Cool
Monday, July 2nd, 2007I haven’t purchased a new CD in over four years. I spend about $20 monthly in the iTunes Store. Universal Music Group doesn’t like this.
Sources close to Universal told Billboard Magazine that the oligopoly member would only continue to offer its music catalog in the iTunes Store on a month-to-month basis.
This means that one-third of the iTunes Store music section could disappear and reappear depending on how Universal Music Group feels at any given time. You wouldn’t lose songs that already purchased, but the lack of consistency (in availability or price) would drive me back to illegally downloading music, not to Borders to buy a CD.
iTunes is the third largest music retailer in the world, accounting for 70% of online music purchases. This command allowed Steve Jobs to help EMI became the first major record label to release (most of) its catalog without DRM restrictions. Jobs predicted that half of the music in the iTunes Store would be available without DRM shackles by the end of the year. Universal has not liked being bullied about selling its songs DRM free or under an egalitarian pricing model. A month-to-month contract allows Universal to bully iTunes back.
Should Universal force me back into the evils of piracy, I might use this Google search to find any song I want for free:
-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” + description +size + mp3 “song name here”
(Side note: I have little faith in full albums being good. I like the convenience of being able to immediately buy a song I heard on a commercial or TV show. I like not having a bunch of broken, empty jewel cases collecting in my closet. I like fighting The Man as part of my youthful angst and the RIAA is The Man.)
