Weekend fun: Make yourself as a ‘Simpsons’ character

As part of its promo site for “The Simpsons Movie,” 20th Century Fox has a section that lets you make your own Simpsons avatar. The choices are many, (although not quite as many as I’d like, so my avatar is more generous with my hair at the back of my head), and LR Spouse, LR Daughter and the LR Boys had considerable fun with it.

Me, as a Simpsons character. (Well, I got the five o’clock shadow right.)

61 comments July 6th, 2007

Even Einstein feared change

(This essay originally appeared in the Thursday, July 5, edition of the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel newsletter.) I’m reading “Einstein,” the new biography by Walter Isaacson, and there is a passage that struck me as relevant to local media companies. We all think of Einstein as the ultimate revolutionary. He stood up to very old notions of nothing less than time and space. (Try explaining to people that time is relative and you’ll still get puzzled looks, 100 years after Einstein figured it out.) Many of his contemporaries hated him. He looked at old science and paid it no deference at all, and along the way redefined physics. But it turns out that, as soon as he turned 40, he became an old grump.

Read the full post 7 comments July 6th, 2007

Is there money in hyperlocal news?

AJR has a great story on the failed Backfence experiment and what it means for all the other hyperlocal news efforts that are springing up all over the country. With 13 sites and $3 million in funding, Backfence is closing down due to two key problems 1) building a loyal user base without breaking the bank and 2) generating significant revenue among small-time advertisers. Their founder still believes that the keys to success are keeping costs extremely low and bundling multiple sites around common regions. But few if any sites have really succeeded to date: a study by the J-Lab found that only a handful of the estimated 500 hyperlocal news sites are making money. One of the success stories is Baristanet.com which covers the snazzy New York City suburbs of Montclair and Bloomfield in New Jersey. While the site is getting a ton of buzz, it only generated $60K last year — not enough for the two authors to quit their real jobs.

Here in Seattle, our gleaming example of hyperlocal news success was the BainbridgeBuzz, which focused on an island community outside the city. Despite building a significant loyal audience and plenty of local media attention, the site’s founders couldn’t convince advertisers to drop the local paper and spend the same kind of money on their site. The result? They closed the site after two years.

The Washington Post is working hard on its hyperlocal news play — 10 staffers have been working on it since October of last year. The sites will feature such things as real-time coverage of high school games, podcasts of local church sermons and a highly-detailed restaurant guide. LoudounExtra.com will be the first site to launch.

6 comments July 6th, 2007

Report: Murdoch, Dow Jones a done deal

London’s The Business magazine reports that the Dow Jones board and Rupert Murdoch have completed talks and they’re expected to announce a deal next week. But the agreement still has yet to be approved by the Bancroft family.

1 comment July 6th, 2007