NewsTechZilla » Internet

The Zilla Of NewsTechZilla

Trace Sharp — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:39:26 +0000

This has nothing to do with News or Tech. It may be more online with Zilla.

Anyway, it’s President’s Day, so enjoy:

Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something

His title, not mine, I might add.

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Why Is The Internet Bad For Newspapers?

Trace Sharp — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Nathan Baker has a question.

Why is the Internet bad for Journalism?

If you totally disagree, I get it. I did too, till I started thinking about it. If you are lost, here is what I’m looking for:

BAD ANSWER “Newspapers are dying.”

False. The Internet is “changing” newspapers.

GOOD ANSWER “The lack of investigatory budgets in traditional media hurts society.”

You could argue blogs have filled in the gap, but we don’t fully fill the gap. People are fighting against this.

What else should we be fighting against as producers and consumers of journalism affected by the Internet?

I think you need to go and tell him what you think as he raises several interesting points.
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Rabbit Ears

Trace Sharp — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:32:09 +0000

Wait! This happened to me as well as countless others.

Millions of cubicle dwellers across the country helped set records for Internet traffic on Tuesday as they watched online video of the inauguration ceremonies — or at least tried to. The overwhelming demand meant that some Web sites and data networks had trouble keeping up, forcing many people to turn to less cutting-edge forms of media.

“It was really frustrating to have this great technology and still not be able to watch the speech,” said Dan Robinson, who runs the box office at the Julliard School in New York. “I had to use this TV from the early ’80s and some rabbit ears to watch it.”

The product has to be stable and in my neck of the woods, it wasn’t.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one.Similar Posts:

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Advertising Works On Perez Hilton.com?

Trace Sharp — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:27:58 +0000

That’s the argument that Mediabistro’s Agency Spy is making.

We’re about to rant a little more about why TV advertising has a lot of work to do if it wants to compete with the interwebs. As an example, we look at PerezHilton.com, and that site’s extreme over-whoring of its white space. Since we tend to generalize about things of this nature, bear with us as we explain why we think Perez is a better buy (when the shoe fits) than your typical prime-time 30-second spot.

What are your thoughts? Love him or hate him, Perez Hilton is an internet icon and gets a lot of attention.

And he’s figured out how to make a good living on the innertubes.Similar Posts:

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News Appetites Have Changed

Trace Sharp — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:19:46 +0000

The Lovable Liberal breaks down the future of newspapers, advertising and a pros/cons of what has happened in the newspaper business. As LL is my cyber buddy, I have to tell you, it’s a whopper of an opus.

But it’s a must read opus.

One future we all know: Paper’s over. No point discussing it.

As soon as advertisers figure out that they can get into just as many eyeball-deploying wallets on line as they get from dead trees, the whole expensive process of distributing inky gray newsprint to every suburb will immediately become too uneconomical to continue. I’ve read a daily newspaper for more than 40 years, but I dropped my Boston Globe subscription last fall. I feel like a sponger sometimes, but I was tired of recycling unopened papers.

Newspaper advertisers have been overpaying for years, anyway, and that wasn’t going to go on forever. When I do get a paper, the first thing I do is to recycle the circulars. Sooner or later, the sponsors are going to figure that out. A little time watching a conveyor at a newsprint recycling plant should be enough.

LL has seen a lot of changes and notes that after reading a newspaper for more than 40 years, that news appetites have changed.

The balance of trying to determine what works historically in news gathering as well as readers’ tastes needs to be studied. What doesn’t needs to evolve into what’s best for the consumer. I’m going to put on my “managing editor” hat for a moment and also say that we need professional journalists. But journalists still need that 99 cents for the dollar menu because they have to eat.

So what is the solution?

I believe that journalists can lead the way and need to aggressively hold hands with citizen journalists. If you haven’t read Enclave, you should. Out of Nashville, S-Town Mike is a very good example of A.) Holding mainstream media’s feet to the fire, B.) culling online sites for information that he continually gives to his readers and C.) covering his “beat” in Nashville assertively.

There is a place for everyone, however, we are just going to have to figure out where the puzzle pieces fit together.

Incidentally, in this poll we set up yesterday on where people get their news, The Internet is winning over other news sources on where folks are getting their news. It’s something to think about.Similar Posts:

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Your Journalism Career Is Dependent On You

Trace Sharp — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:50:25 +0000

More good advice:

Journalism is NOT dependent on the fate of your employer, newspapers or mass media. Rather, YOU can help decide journalism’s future.

You can impact communication! If you’re interested in this, read on. If not, please leave a flame comment at the end of this post.

Over the past couple years, I’ve buried myself in learning business, marketing and journalism. Here’s some of the lessons I’ve stumbled on and some resources for putting them to use:

Remaining relevant depends on a journalists commitment to adapt. And journalists have to realize that things are changing.

Read the whole post. There is some really insightful information here.Similar Posts:

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Newspapers Made Significant Changes in 2008

Trace Sharp — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:38:45 +0000

There are some intriguing new numbers being reported at Newspaper Death Watch on the correalation between newspapers and what they are currently doing in regard to establishing a greater web presence.

Here are some of the numbers:

Fifth-eight percent of newspaper websites post user-generated photos, 18% accept video and 15% publish user-generated articles. That’s way up from the 24% that accepted such material in 2007.
Seventy five percent now accept article comments in some form, compared to 33% in 2007.
Facebook-like social networking tools are beginning to gain traction, with 10% of newspapers now using them, or double last year’s figure.
Three-quarters list some kind of most-popular ranking, such as most e-mailed or most commented. Just 33% had that feature in 2006.
You can now submit articles to social bookmarking sites like Digg and del.icio.us at 92% of newspaper sites, compared to only 7% in 2006.
Only 11% of websites now require registration to view full articles, compared to 29% last year.
Other stats: 57% have PDF editions, 20% have chat, and 40% offer SMS alerts.

Newspapers are evolving by creating a relationship with their readers. In a recent post, there was some discussion about younger readers relying heavily on the web as their news source. Also take into consideration that if newspapers are aggressive in creating a relationship between its deadwood product and it’s web presence, long-term it will only be a win-win situation.Similar Posts:

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