The debate about the future of journalism reached the height of silliness last year when journalist-turned-banker Steven Rattner suggested that The New York Times be subsidized by the government like the BBC. But the economics of journalism has always driven the format, aside from journalistic labors of love ranging from penny savers in colonial times [...]
Category Archives: Commentary
First Days with My Garmin Nuvi 760
June 26, 2009 – 1:07 am
After years of resisting the urge to buy a GPS – I generally know where I am going — GPS prices have come down so much that I broke down and paid $190 on Amazon for a Garmin Nuvi 760 that cost $399 last year.
I know it’s a short term piece of equipment. Next [...]
The NYT Covers Hyperlocal: It Isn’t Always About Journalism
April 13, 2009 – 5:21 pm
The New York Times weighs in today on whether hyperlocal sites will fill the local coverage gap left by shrunken or collapsed newspapers – never mind that newspapers themselves have only recently rediscovered neighborhood-level news themselves. Almost of their attention has been on broader, metro-wide coverage.
We’re delighted to be included in The Times’ piece. Our [...]
NAA 2009: Paying Attention to Newspapers (Still)
April 3, 2009 – 10:16 pm
Next week is the Newspaper Association of America’s Annual Conference in San Diego. I’ll cover Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote on Tuesday, in which he’ll express his support of the newspaper industry despite Google’s very public axing in January of its PrintAds newspaper partnership (the talk is being streamed live at 10am PDT).
Newspapers, of [...]
Doug Weaver: Solutions to the ‘Failed State’ of Advertising
March 26, 2009 – 9:37 pm
AdAge’s Bob Garfield famously sketched out a “chaos scenario” in which the media/advertising infrastructure collapses, venerable media brands fold bad poker hands and feral cats carry off small children.
This week, Garfield says it is all actually happening because of fragmentation, a shift to consumer control and hard economics. “Media and advertising today amount to a [...]
Feeling The Local Community’s Layoffs
January 8, 2009 – 12:09 am
A few weeks ago, in a stimulating interview in The Wall Street Journal, Clayton Christensen said the bad times will bring out more innovation. “If you give people a lot of money, it gives them the privilege of pursuing the wrong strategy for a very long time,” he said.
“In an environment where [...]
AOL: Happy 25th Anniversary
AOL today celebrates its 25th anniversary, and the thought of it leaves me a little nostalgic, but also really proud of the great role it has played in the development of interactive – and local – media and services.
AOL’s support for local, of course, has ebbed and flowed based on budgets and leadership vision. [...]