Dan Gillmor has reproduced a wonderful speech by Tom Stites, delivered last weekend at the Media Giraffe Project conference in Amherst, Mass. His dissection of the Boston Globe is particularly on point. If readership is declining, maybe it's not the Internet's fault.
Tim Porter takes a look at the remains of Knight-Ridder Digital and fires an early torpedo toward a rumored Bay Area megasite:
"Whatever happens eventually, the first inklings of what's to come from the MediaNews-Hearst partnership look disastrous: An idea to create a website built on the combined products of the Chronicle, the Mercury News and Singleton's other local papers like the Oakland Tribune. ...
This afternoon at Morris DigitalWorks, where I do my day job, we're launching a Web 2.0 social filter metasite about pro and collegiate sports. I alluded to this project last week.
FanaticZone.com is a remix of some current cutting-edge ideas combined with a niche topical focus. You'll recognize some of the ideas from Newsvine, Digg, Beta.netscape.com, and from various RSS readers and aggregators.
Mindy McAdams has a fascinating conversation going over at her blog about how HD video is good enough to use for print stills. A lot of us have thought for a long time that the day would come when "selection of the moment" moved from the field to the (virtual) darkroom. I have a sense from the comments that we're not quite there, but getting close. Thanks to Seth Gitner for citing this thread on the NAA's Feds-Newmedia email list. I've added Mindy's blog to my RSS aggregator.
Tim Berners-Lee has this to say about net neutrality and why it's important:
"When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA. ...
I'm a firm believer that little things mean a lot in building community. Small talk, for instance, is a big deal -- it's how we establish the ground rules for interpersonal communications, and it opens the door to bigger and deeper conversations.
There's a great list of 150 things you can do to build social capital at BetterTogether.org. I passed it around to participants at the API's small-market online strategy seminar last week.
At Morris DigitalWorks, where I do have a day job, we have another project in the hopper that we'll unveil next week.
Publishers create websites. But there's another approach, one that grasps the basic truth that the Web is already full of great content. That approach leads to metasites, and there are some great examples: Slashdot, Newsvine, About.com, Topix.net, Digg, and Beta.netscape.com.
