Geeks gone violent

Here's a really interesting video on several levels. First, the style of videography is different for a news production. Second, it's a unique and interesting story. And finally, ESPN has been opening up the spigots on its content to the web. There's a reason they are called the "world wide leader in sports."

So, what's the next big idea?

The title of this LifeHacker post "Where You Find the Time" is one way to look at this video, but if you really watch it and are an open-minded media person some very interesting perspectives become very apparent. The trouble that television, newspapers and other MSM face is that they lost not only the monopoly of where info comes from but that consumers want to have more control to contribute, consume and share. So, what's the next big idea?

The power of a "renowned" photog

So it seems that Annie Leibowitz has become such a power in producing photographs of celebrity that even the celebrities feel they must do as she says. I've posted about Leibowitz's growing self-righteousness before. Here's just another chapter in the book. So much for the subject being the most important aspect of the photo. In the upper-echelon of magazine photogs it IS about the photog.

Getting out of that black hole of negativity

One of the hardest things to do in the business is to stay positive about the craft. I'm the first to admit that I can easily fall into the pull of the negative energy in the office. So here's a post to reinforce a new effort to get more positive about as many things as possible. There's lots of new opportunities out there....but print is nearly as dead as the trees used to make it. Couldn't help it.

Dead Man Walking?

This chart is as frightening as the title of the article – The Newspaper Death Watch

It's the first in a series by Advertising Age magazine. Fantastic, can't wait for the others with cheery titles like that. There are serious problems for newspapers, what most would call a perfect storm. The broken business model includes but not limited to: fracturing advertising clientèle, readers jumping online, skyrocketing production costs, increased competition and lots of missed opportunities. There are still some golden opportunities for newspapers, the only catch is that they won't look much like a newspaper when they do finally change.

I think I'll go find some kittens or something to cheer me up now....

Your paper is in the mail

So let me get this straight, the newspaper -which already has information that is hours old and been updated several times on the web- is going to be delivered via snail mail? I could see this working for a weekly paper, but doubtful it will help any other papers. The Time Herald is a five-day-a-week paper by the way. One more win for the bean counters' shortsightedness.