Monthly Archives: July 2008

For once I can’t think of a pithy headline; think of me with a wry smile – that will have to do.

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2008/07/29/tomorrows-world-futures-digital-revenues-compensate-for-print-ad-decline/?disqus_reply=1050300#dsq-alerts
Made me smile. Can’t think why… Or perhaps me, the Mrs and Neil can…
Of course Jeff “Link To The Rest” Jarvis would love it. Indeed, looking at Future’s deal, the big, fat, obvious question that forms in my mind is: why isn’t Conde Nast, EMAP or IPC doing this already?
Exactly. Why not indeed.

If we start to suspect that the playing field is starting to empty, who fancies being a player?

We’re not going to go round the block again.
We’re just going to try and move the debate on.
Anyway, on the basis of this…
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/07/perilously-funded-papers-hit-wall.html
…and this week’s announcement by TrinityMirror of their first half-year results – and therein, one presumes, their explanation of how, exactly, they are going to continue to service the pension fund that caused [...]

The big question now is whether this many-headed monster of info and apps can ever be tamed into something that’s even vaguely house-trained?

For reasons that won’t be too hard to fathom for both our regular readers, this was all very interesting…
http://www.4ip.org.uk/blog/levellers_fishbones_and_sir_tim_berners_lee/
Not least because these days we can join some of the dots therein… that I was lucky enough to speak at www.2gether08.com which was a kind of warm-up garden party for the full-on launch of the 4iP [...]

It is an intriguing idea – that we could have state intervention in the provincial newspaper industry. Boy, would that kick up a fuss…

First things first; declare our interest – Bob Russell MP is a very valued columnist on our Colchester United site, www.myfootballwriter.com/colchesterunited – and as an ex-local journalist himself, is more than well-placed to put the following early day motion in front of his Parliamentary colleagues…
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36391&SESSION=891
…and calls upon them to: ‘…engage with the local newspaper industry [...]

What’s left that is of any value? Us, the journalists. Our name, our respect, our contacts… Now organise that in a geography-lite fashion.

I like Mark Potts; never met him – just listened from a distance when he took to the stage at Jeff Jarvis’ NewsInnovation gig in New York last autumn.
At which he delivered one of those lines that I have long carried around with me… talking about his experience at BackFence, he said: ‘We knew we [...]

Behind a torrid two days for our old friends at Trinity lies a simple truth… people just don’t like newspaper stocks.

There’s not too much to be gained from going round this block again; particularly if Trinity are getting a bit twitchy on the lawyer front – as the man from The Times appears about to find out…
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/07/trinity_mirror_sues_the_times.html
So, clearly we’re not going anywhere neat the ‘Who said what to whom…’ minutiae of Trinity’s roller-coaster ride on [...]

MyFootballWriter is two-years-old this week… So what, exactly, have we learnt out there where the metal meets the meat?

As ever in our household, anniversaries of any sort are the Mrs’ preserve.

I knew that www.myfootballwriter.com was heading for its second birthday at some point soon; a swift glance at her all-knowing, five-year diary revealed that ‘Rick’s first match report has just gone live; looks really good…’ on July 17. 2006.
So that makes it ‘Happy [...]

WWGD and, ads-wise WTFDGD… Or do we all admit it? We’re all about to become tiny cogs in The Daily Google…

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/07/10/google-as-the-new-pressroom/#comments
Well, someone had to say it… Google bleeding this, Google bleeding that…
Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great post. Big and thought-provoking. And Mr Wyman remains a very switched on guy; even if he does now appear to work for you-know-who…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=72
But if we guess how the conversation went during ‘Breakfast With Jeff’ there is, to [...]

I guess it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas – or King Canute calling for a towel…

Sometimes you do begin to wonder. You really, really do…
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=41621&c=1
And, in particular, the evidence of Professor Steven Barnett of Westminster University and his contrary take on the proposition: “The only future for print media is online”.
“Barnett warned that the history of technological change in media was littered with wildly inaccurate predictions about the future.
“He [...]

A single, fine piece of thread and a gloupy, sugary soup of glorious data. All you do then is allow to cool.

As I mentioned, I was wandering round www.2gether08.com last week – at which Messrs Watson and Loosemore announced the launch of this…
http://www.showusabetterway.com/
…which I can only commend. Nice if they could have found a way to have added another nought onto the end and given 20 great mashes a little pick-me-up, but there we go.
Eyes down [...]

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