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Kevin: "Jeff Israely, a Time magazine foreign correspondent in Europe, is in the planning stages of a news startup — a "new global news website." He lists lessons that he's learning. "Plan 'A' will not work". I've spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs, and one thing that is clear is that plans evolve. He suggests holding on to your day job, if for no other reason to stay on top of news (assuming your startup is news focused). Some good points.
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Kevin: Gawker is reporting a conflict between the print circulation folks and the digital folks at The New York Times over the pricing of the upcoming iPad subscription. The print circulation folks want to charge $20-$30 a month, fearing that people will cancel their print subs. The digital side is pushing for something more like $10.
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Kevin: Very interesting. The Federal Communications Commission in the US is going to offer a new broadband plan to the Congress. The plan aims to provide 100Mbps to 100m households by 2020. One thing that the FCC should be commended on is admitting currently the US doesn't have the spectrum to provide high-speed mobile broadband. There are some very good recommendations in the plan.
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Kevin: "Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND) wants its hyperlocal network of websites to reach 50 per cent of online households in its catchment areas by July." To increase their reach, they will look at both online and offline promotion.
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Kevin: The US Department of Homeland Security releases some information about the public sources of information that it is monitoring on the internet. Fascinating. They monitor the Danger Room and Threat Level blogs on Wired. "Other sites monitored by DHS include Wikileaks, Cryptome, Homeland Security Watch, and “Borderfire Report, an anti-immigration blog which includes postings related to internal frictions inside the Tea Party movement."
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Kevin: Adam Tinworth looks at the potentital for the iPad. He calls on the publishing industry to think of the device independent of what came before rather than trying to replicate a magazine experience on a digital device. However, with the track record of the publishing industry, he expects it to look more like the CD-ROMs of the early 1990s.
I expect he is right. We're still thinking in analogies, adapting what we do now to digital platforms rather than looking at the unique opportunities offered by these devices. -
Kevin: This is deeply geeky but very, very interesting. "RadioDNS is a collaborative project to enable the convergence of radio broadcasting and IP-delivered services." This is pulling together over-the-air radio with internet delivered services.
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Kevin: Harsh words from entrepreneur Patricia Handschiegel but words that the media should take notice of. "Media, media. You never get it. Value to yourself is eyeballs, value to your readers is something different. This is why your failure is so spectacular and constant."
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Kevin: Anthony Painter has posted a fascinating presentation about the 2008 Obama campaign and how the Tea Party movement in the US and compares it to the politics in the UK. I agree with him. In the UK, the internet and social media has changed the way that people who do politics do politics, but it's not changed the way that politics is organised to the extent that it has in the US.
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Kevin: Recently, Chris Condron, the head of digital strategy at the Press Association in the UK, said that there isn't one public on Twitter. It's a important thing to remember. Alan Wolk at AdAge looks at one of these publics, these subgroups on Twitter. "The main thing to note here is that, unlike many of the Silicon Valley and Alley Twitterati, who take themselves and their tweets oh-so-seriously, this crew is having fun. The tweets are meant to be funny, and the funniest and most outrageous of them will wind up getting retweeted."
One of the things about Twitter is that allows these different groups to carve out spaces for themselves with hashtags. The replies and direct messages allow for privacy gradients to be easily formed. The simplicity but extensibility of Twitter has been its strength. -
Kevin: Google has released its 'Living Stories' news topic pages technology as open-source. In the release, they say: "Since we launched this proof-of-concept test on Google Labs in December, 75% of people who sent us feedback said they preferred the Living Stories format to the traditional online news article."
links for 2010-02-18
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