Author (#1)November 2003 Archives
Detroit Press tech columnist Mike Wendland's Nov. 28 column is about area churches setting up low-priced Wi-Fi networks to serve low-income families. With a combination of donated and recycled equipment and up to $20,000 in grants, the churches can set up networks for up to 200 families at an annual cost of $100. The families will also be able to purchase a computer with Wi-Fi card for $150. This could be the start of a national system of low-cost Wi-Fi networks. The link is to his blog.
The organizing group is Detroit Connected.
Last week's Editor and Publisher reported on readership editors and other efforts to get all departments of the newspaper to think about readers. Editorial departments at many newspapers don't think as much about readers as they claim. If they did, they probably would not trim the high school sports sections.
Steve Yelvington's current post on his site says the only way newspapers can reverse 30 years of readership decline is boldly rethink the entire product line
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When the audience becomes fragmented, the right thing to do is to find targeted ways to connect with those fragments. You can't draw together an audience that you don't reach, and you can't fix the circulation problems of newspapers by trying harder to sell the newspapers that fewer and fewer people want to read.
The E&P piece mentions resistance to change by various departments at newspapers and difficulty in getting resources to building readership as hurdles in reader-awareness efforts.
A bit of success will focus their attention. If the new tabloids publishing now in Chicago, Dallas (A.M. Journal Express and Quick), New York or elsewhere take off, more newspaper owners will take notice. Hypergene MediaBlog doesn't expect these tabloids to be successful long term because they are trying to create a newspaper reading habit for 18-34 year-olds, who already have online news-reading habits.
An RSS reader is a great way to keep up with favorite news sites or blogs that have RSS or xml feeds. My favorite is Bloglines, a free, web-based program I can access from any computer, which works best for me. If I were choosing a computer-specific application for Windows users, it would be FeedDemon.
Career Journal reported last week that the job market for editors and reporters has begun to loosen and that there may even be job shortages in 2004. Article says hirings at magazines may recover faster than at newspapers and editorial Web sites. It still depends on the continuing recovery in advertising.
It was good to see Bloom County back in the Sunday comics today. It was one of my favorites. With Far Side reruns in the paper, I'm beginning to wonder what decade I'm in.
Christmas trees can already be seen through the windows of Charlotte houses. It seems early to me. I suppose their trees will be down Dec. 26 Boxing Day. The tree at our house comes down sometime after New Year's Day.
What is Boxing Day? According to this Web-Holidays.com, it's an old Christmas tradition where employers gave servants boxes with gifts and the day off to visit with family. Now the tradition has evolved to the giving of gifts or money to those who provide service. Besides England, the holiday is celebrated in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
JFK's assassination is a dividing line for me. I'm on the side that doesn't remember where I was when everyone else heard the news. I'm in the baby-boom generation, born between 1946-1964, but I don't feel too much like a boomer. The assassination is one reason why.
Another is that boomer stories are usually a decade out of synch of my life. When the news media wrote of how boomers were handling turning 50, I was still approaching 40. Now the stories are about boomers approaching retirement. That's still 20 years away for me.
JFK's assassination is a pivotal time in people's lives if they can recall their feelings on that day. The moon walk was pivotal to me. I remember where I was, the anticipation of the event, and sitting in front of the TV late into the night at a motel in Mississippi where our family was vacationing. I was still young enough 10 p.m. was late.
When I mentioned the moon walk to an economics class I taught in the '80s more than three-fourths of the class did not personally recall the event. The significance to them was absorbed from hearing the recollections from those who saw it and from seeing it replayed later on TV. That's the way JFK's assassination is significant to me.
UPDATE: Later in the day I saw this piece by Terry Teachout. He's on my side of the dividing line and adds another dividing line between older and younger boomers: facing the Vietnam draft.
Online Journalism Review reports how more newspaper newsrooms are now more integrated between print and online. The online folks can now come up from the basement.
The December issue of Consumer Reports has a story about a bank's maintenance fee of $2.50 a month on gift cards quickly erode the value in the cards. It's surprising how much it costs to keep up with money.
Another radio station, this one in Birmingham, Ala., has switched to all Christmas music through the season. Clear Channel Station WLYT 102.9 in the Charlotte area began Christmas music Nov. 1. It's not as surprising that there is an Internet radio stations playing all Christmas music.
Wal-Mart keeps its prices low by keeping pressure on its suppliers, according to this article in the December Fast Company. Productivity gains at Wal-Mart alone account for 12% of the overall economy's productivity gains in the late 1990s. "Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined."
Rail guns were one weapon considered during the Reagan-era's "Star Wars" defense. PowerLabs Electro Magnetic Weapons keeps up with the developments.
Daniel Bazac offers Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies.
Microsoft is beta testing its newsbot to compete against Google. Dan Gillmor enters the debate about whether the NY Times was correct on Microsoft wanting to buy Google. Gillmor goes for Gates' denial over NY Times unnamed sources.
A group blog from those attending the Online News Association meeting this weekend in Chicago. Jeff Jarvis also has notes about the conference here.
Here are other blogs of the conference: Mary Hodder with bIPblogl and Staci Kramer guest blogging for paidcontent.org.
The speech Jack Fuller of the Chicago Tribune is getting the most attention because of statements that the Tribune has spent more than $600 million on its online efforts and the biggest mistake was not charging for content from the beginning. Here are other blogs: New York University's Read Me, Online Journalism and Poynter in Convergence Chaser .
Pittsburgh Business Journal has a story about a company setting the premiums you pay for employee health insurance based on what you pay. Sacramento Business Journal reports The University of California will begin a similar premium plan next year.
Half of the 62 million dog owners in the United States take their pets with them when they travel, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. Hotels are targeting this market, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle story by Jan R. Costello.
Using wind to generate electricity sounds like a good idea until you have to deal with realities such as rules prohibiting putting the wind turbines on the tops of mountains and bird fatalities. In California, 1,400 wind turbine permits were renewed but an environmental group plans to appeal the decision, according the Contra Costa Times.
Highlight: "Mike Boyd of Californians for Renewable Energy said he fears the sea of turbines along Interstate 580 will give wind power "a black eye nationwide" unless bird fatalities can be reduced."
Fletch's Smoky Mountain Journal is always good for a few minutes of diversion with his beautiful photographs. I always think of an old Barefoot Jerry song "Smokies" when I'm on that site. I see a few members of Barefoot Jerry and Area Code 615 are still making music.
An Adobe site that will slowly convert PDFs into html. I'm not a fan of PDFs, but this link may be helpful some time.
Now what was the popular vote count in the 2000 Presidential Election? Oh yeah, Gore received more votes.
MovableType 2.64 has been successfully installed. Thanks to Jace Herring at bloghosts.
Jeff Jarvis on 10 ways blogs improve journalism.
The web site of this journalism conference was lost from my bookmarks, but now it's found again thanks to JD Lassica.
Tricks used by spammers as reported by The Spammers' Compendium.
It never hurts to go over them again: 30 good writing tips from Poynter Online by Ron Peter Clark.
I'd never head of this until now: "Ole Green Eyes" at Chicamauga Battlefied near Chattanooga, Tenn.
How to avoid The Tyranny of Email by Ole Eichhorn of Critical Section.
The National Park Service runs this Civil War site that lets you search for soldier's names. You can find out which side your family was on or maybe they were on both.
A DoS attack on Hosting Matters is now being viewed as a political action because of an anti-war blogger. Here's a later story about the reaction at Hosting Matters from the Jacksonville Business Journal.