Information overload

Jonathon Delacour writes a good piece about information overload and how we waste our time with unnecessary information. It’s the dilemma of urgent versus important information. Much of the day’s news is urgent, but little of it is important.

Highlight: “Self-employment, a constant Internet connection, a weblog, and a mildly addictive personality turn out to be a killer combination?even for someone who no longer feels compelled to post regularly, let alone every day”.

Enough of those snow stories

With the noreaster from last weekend, several journalists wrote about what should change with winter storm coverage. Tim Porter writes that it’s time to end the oh-so-predictable stories and use new methods, such as blogs, to bring personal stories of the storm’s impact.

Warming up for 2004

I just finished Ed Cone‘s article in Baseline The Marketing of a President. Good reading about the impact of online, offline and your neighbor.

Highlight: “But the lesson of Dean’s campaign is that the Web is not for micromanagers. With the Internet, an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you. Properly done, you won’t be able ? or want ? to control it.”

High-speed price wars

Lots of talk about cheaper high-speed acess. The Bell operating companies and others cut prices to compete against the cable companies, who are winning high-speed contest. One worry from a consumer view: the prices may be too low to cover the cost, says an analyst with The Yankee Group.

Another form of people watching

I regularly check Yahoo! News’ Most Viewed page to see what people are viewing both in the U.S. and in other countries. There’s also Yahoo’s Buzz Index and Google Zeitgeist to see what’s on people’s mind. Now Amazon has Amazon Purchasing Circles where you can see what people are buying from your area.

I checked the books circle for Charlotte and wasn’t surprised to see Civil War books showing up, but where are the NASCAR books?