LemurZone News

Monday, May 19, 2003

what's hot what's not

What started out as a simple opinion by Doc Searls with links to his source material to bolster his opinion about the openness of the web, and ways to leverage that, has got some folks bent out of shape.

That the Internet is open, expandable, and popular as a method of communication has traditional media companies stroking out. You can't make money in the traditional sense by having advertisers pay for it, links and referral logs are beyond comprehension to most folks running news companies, and the casual way most folks will comment on a story with a simple email, is frightening to these folks. It knocks you down a peg or two when somebody from frostbite falls, living in a trailer, can crank up their modem and reach out and touch you.

The internet has the potential to expand readership far beyond any boundaries that would make economic sense in terms of shipping dead trees. News companies suffer from the brown ring syndrome, and do not understand how to capitilize on their stock and trade, the news.

As a public service and to put editors and fellow travelers out of their misery and lead them into the promised land of gushing coffers of cash, (hopefully to hire enough folks to do the scut work like fact checking and seconding sourcing stuff they want to print). I will outline a simple program to make these folks lives simple.

We will pick on the New York Times, as they are the largest brand in the news space.

First a small lesson. NEWS. Stuff that is N E W.
The traditional method of selling news is to get it out there, before it begins to stink or folks lose interest, as they may get it somewhere else. I mention Mitch Ratcliffe's piece on this subject as it makes sense, and should be examined. He, Doc and I agree on the fact that the archives need to be open. Mitch believes that linking to archives expands the opportunity for showing ads. It can, but before you start effusing about that, consider the RealCities mess, and the decline in readership as a result of taking the paper paridigm too far and packing every nook and cranny with ads, sandwiching any content into the space which remains. One other thing to look at is the fact that you can go after Internationl ad campaigns , and not spending all your time hustling classifieds, or not being able to take ads because you think your readers might be confused.

Out of the big kids in the news business that are making it online, stands the Wall Street Journal. They understand the point of selling news is selling news. So if you want the WSJ News online, pony up . Doc is right in proposing that news organizations open their archives not only because he thinks it's a good idea, but it is a good idea.

Nope it's not a car! It is Zeldman and the Rogue Librarian getting married.

Congratulations!!

Hiding Content [Posted] 12/11/02

One of the re-occurring themes that appear on design lists is 'hiding content', or making one's code invisible. Most of the solutions just don't work. The internet is not about hiding stuff. But in the interest of fairness I can offer a proven method of hiding content.

Mitch Ratcliffe is definitely an other. The 21st century holds the promise of rich multimedia across the web. Mitch was blazing this trail in the 20th century. From code to finance.

p i x e l v i e w - behind the screen with Mitch Ratcliffe
read here - go there