January 2010

• A tale of two newsrooms : Local News :: Las Vegas CityLife
  Kevin: A detailed look at failures at the Las Vegas Sun. The economic melt down in Las Vegas had a role in dooming the project, but also, this article is a good look at some of the cultural issues that played a part in driving a wedge between the digital and print sides of the operation. It's a story of divergent strategies and divisive personalities. It's well worth reading for journalism managers struggling to execute integration strategies. I think it also makes the case that hyperlocal strategies need to be flexible and adapted for different communities. There is no silver bullet, one size fits all strategy.
  (tags: newspapers lasvegassun robcurley culture media web internet video television hyperlocal)
• Google Exec Says Newspapers Need to Re-Think Their Models – Advertising Age – Digital
  Kevin: More interesting stats from Google chief economist, Hal Varian: "Typically, 53% of newspaper spending goes to traditional printing for distribution — costs eliminated through digital distribution — compared with 35% on what the Google exec called the "core" functions of news gathering, editorial and administration."
  (tags: google journalism newspaper economics apple ipad)
• The Annotated State of the Union | Speeches | Online NewsHour | PBS
  Kevin: An interesting annotation system for the US State of the Union address. The system was developed by Chris Amico for US television public broadcaster, PBS. It uses Django and some other libraries to achieve the effect, and Chris describes the process on his blog. The video is very slow to load for me, but that might be down to being outside of the US and PBS not having a global CDN.
  (tags: politics multimedia obama 2010)
• Footnotes on the State of the Union | Eyes East: Chris Amico's blog
  Kevin: Chris Amico writes about an annotation system that he built for US television public broadcaster PBS and its NewsHour programme. It's a technical overview with some ideas on how to improve it. The system is written in Django with some other elements which he explains. It's a good, detailed, how to post. Well done Chris.
  (tags: django journalism pbs)
• Print media hail iPad's potential – CNN.com
  Kevin: Publishing hopes for the iPad. "It's become clear over the life of the iPhone that people love consuming information like this on their phone — the people who buy Kindles buy more books than before they had a Kindle" Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital said. "Machines like this make you want to consume more media, which is good for us."
  (tags: apple iPad publishing businessmodels)

{ 0 comments }