Shane Croucher wrote an excellent critique on how (local) newspapers can easily fix their business and adapt to the changing media landscape. Here’s a quick review:
For more details on each step, see ‘Five things newspapers should be doing‘.
“What journalism and the public most need right now is serious, continuing coverage of matters of public importance: city halls, school systems, statehouses. Journalism schools are not fully equipped to provide that now, but the logistical and financial difficulty of equipping them to do so would be far less than the difficulty of creating and sustaining new news organizations built from scratch. Like teaching hospitals, journalism schools can provide essential services to their communities while they are educating their students.“
The Chronicle of Higher Education | Nicholas Lemann – Journalism Schools Can Push Coverage Beyond Breaking News
Pretty comprehensive reviews from Harry McCracken (PC World), David Pogue (NYT) and Walt Mossberg (WSJ).
All three are mainly Mac users, like myself. Bottom line: once you go Mac, you never go back (no pun intended).
Apple introduced on Tuesday new 21.5″ and 27″ iMacs (pictured below), a new multitouch mouse — the Magic Mouse, new Mac Minis, new Apple Remote, and a unibody MacBook (white). They all look pretty crave- worthy.
News is covered virtually everywhere, so you won’t miss out on any details.
Considering the Amazon Kindle goes on sale in the UK today, Plastic Logic teased with the Que.
Also see – An idea to save UK newspapers
Facebook Buys FriendFeed: What Does It Mean? | PC World
JR Raphael digs on what FriendFeed’s acquisition by Facebook could mean for the social network. I’d like to see FriendFeed’s live feeds incorporated into Facebook’s news feeds and the pause feature would come handy for the hardcore users as well. While you are at it, you could check out JR’s new geek humour gig called eSarcasm.
Apple working on software fix for MacBook Pro hard drives | CNet
Good news for unibody MacBook Pro users coming from Jim Dalrymple’s way: Apple is working on a software fix for the clicks made by the new 500GB 7200RPM HDDs. I got mine replaced, but it still clicks once in a while. Come on Apple! Spare us the pain already…
Major labels preparing new digital album format | Guardian
Sean Michaels brings the news of another upcoming formats war, this time for digital music albums. As Apple is preparing Cocktail to deliver an alternative experience to music CDs, so are the the record labels. Interesting news, especially as iTunes is the king of the digital music marketplace but all the music comes from the record labels.
SlingPlayer 1.1 for iPhone promises 3G streaming | Engadget
Ross Miller has the scoop on Sling’s new player app for iPhone, which could bring 3G streaming to those outside the US. SlingPlayer for iPhone is crippled to WiFi-only streaming at the moment. The update has been submitted to Apple but that doesn’t guarantee it will get approved.
Caffeine: Google’s New Search Index | Search Engine Land
Google unveiled its next architecture for search, code-named Caffeine, and includes crawling, indexing, and ranking changes. Vanessa Fox has the low-down on what implications this has and how it compares to Microsoft’s recently-launched Bing.
Toshiba Planning Blu-ray Disc Players, Laptops | PC World
After losing the high-definition discs format war to Sony, Martyn Williams reports on Toshiba’s plans to launch players and laptops with support for Blu-ray discs later this year. Will we see some cheaper players? I hope so.
Url Shortener Tr.im Shuts Down – What happens to your links now? | Inquisitr
Just in case you will miss tr.im, TinyURL, Bit.ly, and is.gd are still up and running. Meanwhile, I would love to see more media outlets using their own domain for short URLs on Twitter. Hear that CNN and Guardian?
Apple Tablet Could Shake Up Netbook Market, Analysts Say | eWeek
Nicholas Kolakowski brings the latest on the rumors that Apple could roll out a tablet PC in early 2010. As you might have heard before, the Apple Tablet should be more like an oversized iPod Touch and prices somewhere between $500 and $700. If it ever comes out, I want one.
Google Voice Can Sneak onto iPhone | PC World
Paul Suarez reports on Google’s plans to put Google Voice on the iPhone in the shape of an web app, after Apple rejected their official app. Meanwhile, the FCC is looking into the whole drama of the Google Voice app rejection and is questioning Apple, AT&T and Google.
Adobe kills low-end Photoshop, urges users online | CNet
As Adobe discontinues Photoshop Album Starter Edition, Stephen Shankland reveals the company’s alternative online photo editing suite. I’m not really sure about it, but so far Piknic in Flickr does the job just fine for me (just in case Photoshop CS4 decides to take a nap on my laptop).
Starting today I will try and post a few interesting articles I read throughout the day whenever time allows me. As I do a lot of reading from technology pieces, expect this category to concentrate mainly on this topic.
As eBook Readers Heat Up, Standardization Will Be Critical | PC World
Tony Bradley talks about introducing a standard format for e-books, as competition heats up between the Amazon Kindle and Sony’s new Readers.
Rupert Murdoch plans charge for all news websites by next summer | Guardian
Andrew Clark reports on Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for online content of The Sun, The Times and News Of The World by next summer, as his media empire is hemorrhaging money.
Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users | Wall Street Journal
Interesting story from Erica Alini on how New York coffee shops are are now banning laptop use during peak hours because of the economic slump.
Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.8 | PC World
Dan Moren gives the lowdown on what’s new in the latest Mac OSX update, probably the last one before the launch of Snow Leopard in September.
The Challenge Of User-Generated Porn | Forbes
When red-hot sites are making more views than the New York Times or Apple, Oliver Chiang explains how these YouTube imitators (with a twist) are struggling to make enough money.