Posts from ‘Internet News’
An American Carol
Last week, while in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Kevin Farley and Myrna Sokoloff of the upcoming film An American Carol.
After having a wonderful lunch with Farley, the main character in the movie, and Sokoloff, the story writer, I became convinced that the folks behind An American Carol are top notch, free-market minded, and extremely deserving of the help of center-right activists and online professionals throughout social media realms.
It was made clear that An American Carol Continue Reading
The News & Observer is taking major hits in its news room due to declining sales and budget cut backs.
There’s no getting around it: The job cuts and other changes announced by The News & Observer last week mean that readers will be getting less. Specifically:
* Less local news
* Fewer late sports scores and less late-breaking news
* One less page of op-ed opinion each week.
* Less business news.
* All told, 14 fewer pages per week.Those and some other less noticeable effects are the consequence of the ongoing financial meltdown in the newspaper business that finally caused McClatchy Newspapers, The N&O’s parent company, to announce job reductions of 10 percent across its 30 newspapers. McClatchy previously avoided the layoffs that had reduced staffing at most other newspaper companies.
Mary Newsom, an Associate Editor of the Observer, posted on her blog a blurb explaining how she doesn’t at all feel it’s a loss of MSM integrity. She instead blames Craigslist type classified sites for a drop in revenue.
While this is probably true to an extent, I believe new media has alos played a significant role in the papers tanking level of influence and success. I mean, just look at what I quoted above for example. When was the last time you went to your local newspaper’s website to get the late-breaking baseball scores? Or late-breaking news for that matter? I use feeds or mobile versions of late-breaking news sites for that, not my hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune.
The News & Observer will be covering less local news as well. The fact is, bloggers are now doing a hell of a job covering local news. In fact, many bloggers are doing a far better job than newspapers EVER did. Business news? Who reads the local newspapers for business news? We have something called the internet for that!
Mark my words… more and more newspapers will begin to take these actions. The demise of print media is well under way.
George Carlin is, without question, one of my all time favorite comedians. Sadly, he passed away yesterday in Las Angeles.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (2 a.m. British time) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.
A final tribute clip. (warning: lot’s of f-bombs)
I’ve been meaning to write another freedom movement blog plug post, but because I’ve been traveling for a week I haven’t had time to get around to it. I do, however, have a few minutes while sitting here at the airport in Las Vegas and I figured I would plug Liberty Live, the official blog of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.
Liberty Live has a very clean, very lively look and feel, and represents what a freedom movement blog should run like. The blog covers local issues revolving around labor, education, election reform, economic policy, public records and constitutional law.
I highly recommend you keep an eye on the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. They’re doing a great job online and I for one applaud their efforts.
Allen Fuller of Flat Creek is a good friend and all around great guy who understands where we are online and where we need to go. Not only does his web company do a superb job of promoting the freedom movement in the digital realm, but he also has solid campaign and e-activism experience.
And now he’s on the hunt for an Account Executive.
* Serving as a liaison between clients and vendors
* Managing vendors to ensure deadlines and budgets are met and high quality work is delivered.
* Ensuring creative design and code are delivered according to strategy.
* Managing project timelines and budgets.Desired skills:
* BA/BS degree in marketing, communications, computer science, or similar discipline.
* 1-3 years related e-marketing and/or political experience.
* Experience with paid search marketing (i.e. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and second-tier engines), search engine optimization and online media.
* Demonstrated ability to be highly organized and excellent at multi-tasking.
* Excellent Microsoft Office skills.
* Must be HTML proficient and have significant exposure to web development and editing work (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks or other web development software).Location: Murfreesboro, TN
Hours: Full-Time
This job is salaried.
If you’re on the hunt for work with a good free market minded company and think this might be something of interest, let Allen know.
We all know the internet has been huge in the revolution of news distribution. Some of the statistics over the past few years have been nothing short of staggering. But did you know that apparently more than half of Americans now believe the internet is the best source of news and information?
Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.
While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.
Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.
More than half of those who grew up with the Internet, those 18 to 29, get most of their news and information online, compared to 35 percent of people 65 and older. Older adults are the only group that favors a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38 percent selecting television.
Without question, the internet is the new battlefield in the information warfare.
Yesterday I found myself chatting with a former Microsoft programmer while here in Nashville and it was quite an eye opening discussion. I won’t drop a name because, well, because he only recently departed Microsoft. For obvious reasons this particular individual is not in position to be publicly speaking out against the company structure or internal business issues.
Our discussion was two fold… 1) I wanted to know his thoughts on the possible Microsoft purchase of Yahoo. 2) I wanted an insider opinion on Microsoft and its constant shortcomings.
1)It’s being reported in the Wall Street Journal that Yahoo has replied to the Microsoft offer saying it “substantially undervalues” the company. This is interesting to me because I don’t see a lot of companies lining up to make offers for Yahoo. And if Yahoo does end up selling at the current offer price, doesn’t that say to investors that Yahoo is indeed undervalued?
When I asked the former Microsft employee what he first thought when he heard of the offer, he said “I’m still kicking myself for not immediately buying Yahoo stock.” According to him, Microsoft is very serious about the deal and in his opinion Microsoft will eventually cut a deal for the company.
2)I brought up the success of open source, specifically Linux, Open Office, Firefox, Gimp, and other software that I use, and asked how Microsoft planned to address it. “Will Microsoft continue marketing overpriced products that already exist in the open source realm?”
I found his answer somewhat astounding. According to him, Microsoft has no interest in competing with open source for the individual consumer. Apparently, Microsoft is planning on shifting a LOT of its focus towards small business.
This to me is absurd. If Google and Open Office are both offering office suite products for free, why on earth would a small business pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be locked in to the Microsoft vortex? It makes no sense to me.
Then the discussion of innovation came up. Specifically, “why is Microsoft stuff in ‘me too” mode?” For example, every time Firefox comes out with a new feature… IE tries to follow along. When Apple cranks out a state of the art, innovative media device, guess who tries to follow along? I mean, am I the only one who remembers the Zune?
So, in the end I’m glad Yahoo has replied to Microsoft they they have. And I hope with everything in me they stick to their guns. While I believe Google needs strong competition and no one is currently providing it, a company like Microsoft would absolutely ruin Yahoo.
This is all my opinion of course…
