April 30, 2003
Newspapers need more 'buzz'
Associated Press via Yahoo!: Newspapers should "innovate in big, revolutionary ways" if they want to capture younger and light readers, says John Lavine of Northwestern University.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Mark Aveyard said:
"big, revolutionary ways?" What the hell does that mean?
Is "light reader" the new euphanism for "stupid"? I need to brush up on the latest newspeak.
Vin Crosbie said:
"Big, revolutionary ways" is what Louis XIV suggested as a remedy for France's ills shortly before the proletariat put something like that into motion and stormed his fancy royal gates.
JD said:
That didn't exactly turn out well for old Louis, did it?
Gates outlines vision of the future of news
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates gave the keynote at the Newspaper Association of America's annual publishers conference yesterday in Seattle. You can find excerpts of his speech on CyberJournalist.net. Industry veteran Vin Crosbie summed up the presentation:
Gates didn't say much that was new. Mirroring the general 'post-bubble' consensus among experts, he sees the publishing industry as now between the Web wave and the Wireless wave and anticipates a fusion of print and online formats. He also, not surprisingly, touted Tablet PCs as the latest electronic delivery platform for periodicals.
A cash haul for some news sites
In his latest E&P column, Steve Outing writes: Nearly a decade into the online-news boom, media companies can be proud of their growth and reaching a certain level of maturity. For those news organizations that take the Internet seriously (and that's definitely not everyone, yet), news sites are a real business, bringing in substantial revenues.
First sci-fi in Biz2
Cory wrote a short science fiction story for Business 2.0, the first ever published by the publication.
Music labels warn 1 million users
San Jose Merc: Music labels launch anti-piracy salvo. Lead:
The music industry started sending the first of a million instant messages Tuesday to computer users it suspects of trading pirated music.The automated messages warn individuals that what they're doing is illegal and could get them sued.
The Recording Industry Association of America joined three other groups representing songwriters, music publishers and artists in what it described as an educational campaign directed at millions of Kazaa and Grokster users. The first 200,000 messages went out Tuesday. It expects to send a million in the first week.
Here's an excerpt from the industry's warning:
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WARNINGIt appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. Distributing or downloading copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is ILLEGAL. It hurts songwriters who create and musicians who perform the music you love, and all the other people who bring you music.
When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC, either by offering it to others to copy or downloading it on a "file-sharing'' system like this.
When you offer music on these systems, you are not anonymous and you can easily be identified. You also may have unlocked and exposed your computer and your private files to anyone on the Internet. Don't take these chances. Disable the share feature or uninstall your "file-sharing'' software. For more information on how, go to http://www.musicunited.net/5_takeoff.html
Here's Amy Harmon's story in the NY Times on the same subject.
Some spam is made a felony
NY Times: In the toughest move to date against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Virginia enacted a law imposing harsh new felony penalties, including prison time.
Now we're talking.
