Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Looks like the New York Times is dropping TimesSelect, the service which has put some of its content, and its archives, behind a pay wall. This is according to a story in the New York Post. The Times hasn't made an official announcement. I wonder if this means that everything in the NYT will be available online, for free, forever?
This is a big event in the media's paid vs. free web content debate.
I was on a Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility media panel a few months ago with WCAX anchor Marselis Parsons, who was complaining to our audience about how people today want to get information "right now" and "for free." As if that were a bad thing.
When he was done talking, I said something along the lines of, "Well, yeah, I do want my information right now, and for free. And I'll get it, too, because that's how we're all going to have to evolve." Can't remember if I added the obvious, "our job is to figure out how to pay for all this, not to complain about it, because this is just how it is. So suck it up and stop bellyaching."
I'm sure I didn't say that last part.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Our office manager just dropped a copy of Business People Vermont on my desk. Bill Simmon interviewed me for an article in the August 2007 issue called Media 2.0. Too bad I didn't have anything more eloquent to say...
The story references a few Vermont blogs and bloggers, including Ann Zuccardy of Vermont Shortbread Company, Champlain College prof Elaine Young and Joe's Coffee Blog from the Blue Star Cafe.
Ooooh, and I notice that the article has embedded links! I haven't seen many other Vermont media outlets doing this. Cool.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Remember in 2003/2004, when everyone made such a big deal of how Howard Dean was using the internet? Not surprisingly, things have changed since then. Now every presidential candidate is using online tools, some more effectively than others.
Champlain College Online Marketing professor Elaine Young is doing a series of blog posts analyzing how 2008 presidential candidates are using social media (i.e. MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, etc.). Because it's not just about blogs anymore.
Her first post spotlights Democrat Joe Biden. She comments on all his various efforts, and offers a summary judgement:
So the Biden team has a lot of thedifferent social sites covered, but what I don't see is a lot of actionoverall. I subscribed to the email newsletter and didn't get anythingin my email for several days. Haven't seen anything from him on MeetUp, and without creating a full group on Facebook, there's no way tomessage the members easily. The Facebook site could be juiced up quitea bit and really the goal is to have people recommend to their friends.Overall some good things going on, but not enough to really takeadvantage of the social media.
I'll never forget how difficult it was to convince my editors that blogs were worth covering back in 2004. We laugh about it now.