In the works

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've been busy on a project. I can't disclose the details yet, but here are some of the issues:

Participation. It's been clear all along that the Internet is a network, not a broadcast channel or a hierarchy, that everyone can participate, and that eventually everyone will participate. Some things that didn't work 10 years ago are now possible because we have the critical mass online to make them work. Hyperlocal community networking would be just one of those things.

Simplicity. I was looking at some old news site pages on archive.org Wayback Machine the other day. I was struck by how simple, straightforward and focused they were -- sort of like many of the so-called Web 2.0 startups. Most of our newspaper homepages now resemble a NASCAR racer. If we're going to do anything that steps outside the boundaries of our existing brands -- which means anything participative -- we're going to have to use dynamite and start over.

Search. There are only two ways to use the Web, and one of them is horribly broken on newspaper sites.