Joyful Alternative

Google, Microsoft and News Corp. Fight While Consumers Stay Anchored to Free Content

What we need are hyperlocal blogs that post police blotters, the mayor's announcements, school honor rolls, fire station activity, zoning commission minutes, etc., all free content, plus whatever the blogger wants to add. They could be readily supported by low-cost hyperlocal ads for pizzerias, dry cleaners, shipping services, barbers, and the like.

That's the building block of news, which AP does very little of now.

Europe: Microsoft Woos Newspapers by Funding Their Stick to Beat Google

Murdoch and Microsoft seem to be assuming that the main purpose of a search engine is finding newspaper stories. I rarely, if ever, use Google for that.

How big a piece of Google's action is newspapers?

Publishers Wake Up: Online Readers Are Paying You - In Attention

McClatchy still does good investigative work and thus usually turns out to be contrarian to the rest of mass media. Their opinion is clearly labeled.

I wish I had a McClatchy newspaper in my town.

Barnes & Noble Finds New Revenue Streams

Barnes & Nobel reprinted out-of-print (and out of copyright) books 20 years ago. This is just a new name for its line, or maybe an additional imprint.

Shift in Boomer Habits Bodes Poorly for Traditional TV Service Providers

I haven't watched any TV since January, and when my current cable contract runs out, I'm hoping to switch to fios (newly available here) + phone. I'm in that generation, and that survey data pretty much holds true for me. High-speed Internet is what I need most.

One correction: It's MySpace that's thought to be popular with teenagers, and I don't know any friends who are on it. FaceBook started out as social networking for college students, and I know a lot of people on it. I don't go there much because it's just a lot of online goofing off. I do check LinkedIn daily, and I'd pay for an upgrade if I were looking for a new job or otherwise needed it.

Beating Up on Old Media

The physical part of media---buying newsprint, running a printing press, dispatching door-to-door delivery; imprinting CDs, packaging them in jewel cases, wholesaling them, retailing them in bricks-and-mortar stores; etc.---is very expensive, more so than actually creating content. The content creators ought to be able to make a profit in a digital world with such lower costs.

Jeff Jarvis today has good ideas on how newspapers can get paid for their original content online. It has to do with getting links for the original source, not for the most recent homogenized rewrite.

Newspapers still have income areas where they rule. Craig's List has job ads, but half of them are fakes, there to harvest email addresses for male enhancement spam or there to sell get-rich-quick schemes; newspapers' job ads are reliable. Obituaries are popular with subscribers, and the deceased person's estate has to pay a goodly sum to have them published; under what category would Craig's List put funeral parlor ads?

Which brings up another point: Physical media is still important to the most lucrative segment of the market, late adopters. Seniors still like their hard-copy newspapers, not the fine print in the confusing online world, and the middle-aged still cherish their CD players. They make the media exit from the tangible a delicate process.

Wanted: Financially Viable Social Networks

Chistletoe, you had a good thing going until the end. I like my virtual friends from Greenview, Illinois, and Denmark, South Carolina, much better than the face-to-face people on my block. But we're mostly on Yahoo and Google lists and on blogs rather than "social networking" sites.

I like LinkedIn for its interesting discussions and appropriate ads (which I sometimes even click! they're relevant!). If only I could delink a certain individual who's self-promotion is appalling.

Facebook is just a mess.

Welcome to the Google Economy

jonbob, I got a mortgage earlier this year, and 3 months later, the same bank solicited me for a HELOC! There's been way too much credit floating around.

Welcome to the Google Economy

For a Googy car company based on utility, try Philly CarShare. Parking lots all over the city and suburbs, with various sorts of cars for members to rent by the hour; no need to own or store your own car, and a nice well-maintained car always available nearby for grocery shopping or a trip to Grandmas.

And then there's the whole category of social/professional networking. I like LinkedIn, but there are many, depending on what you're looking for.

Microsoft's Ballmer: Few Sites Can Live on Ads Alone

Roger, Everybody hates PayPal, which is a bank but with none of the consumer/business safeguards of an FDIC real bank. Google's payment system will surpass it before long, and now Amazon has launched a competitor, too.

Google’s Nuclear Option to Monetize YouTube

But user-generated crap is why I go to YouTube!

The Bright Side of Google’s News

I just came across the beta for Google Financial. (See, e.g., finance.google.com/fin....) I like it!

And Google's doing lots of nice things to lure online merchants, starting with an alternative to PayPal. Disgruntled eBayers are begging Google to initiate an auction format.

Hmm. Maybe I should buy some Google while it's out of favor on Wall Street.