Marc Fisher, WaPo radio writer, turns his blog on his own with a lengthy post mortem answering the question why Washington Post Radio died. For those out of listening range (like a good deal of the D.C. metro area), WaPo and Bonneville got together to create a radio station that would feature in-depth news programming created by and featuring print reporters. I know: Sounds like a good idea, but it turns out that no one was listening. So, Bonneville is pulling the plug at the end of September after about a year on the air and turning the transformer over to the classic talk radio shoutfests, cause boy, they need more outlets (right!). Avoiding the marketing and signal strength issues that also hobbled the experimental station, Fisher focuses on the convergence content conundrum. In reading it, I found food for thought for newspapers who want to build online TV studios and broadcasters who are trying to shovel teleprompters into Web sites. Please read, ponder, and discuss.
In an interesting post at his Web 2.Oh. . .really? blog, former WaPo editor Craig Stoltz gives kudos to the interior page treatments at CNN.com that feature bulleted list summaries of key points and facts right on top of the story. I’m with him. It is an excellent news presentation practice that should become standard across the board. Have a chat with your cms implementation team and see if you can bake in summaries. Question to the SEO gurus, what would the optimal tags be to wrap those list items? If you can make something that works to better inform the user and bump up your page finds, that’s real ROI.
Yet another content partnership for MSNBC. Condé Nast magazines and online properties will provide content primarily to MSNBC’s business, entertainment, health, travel and Today Show sections. The deal will include content from Style.com, Men.Style.com, Epicurious.com, and Concierge.com, as well as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appétit. Glamour, GQ, and others. Back in July we learned that MSNBC was partnering with the NY Times for political coverage. Press release…
The News Corp. and NBCU video venture now has a name, Hulu.com. “Why Hulu?” writes CEO Jason Kilar on the site. “Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building.” Hulu is also accepting invites for the site’s private beta, coming in October.
Related: The LA Times has a story on how “dot com names are getting dottier,” like Xobni, Meebo, Squidoo and my personal favorite, Eefoof.
Free article at WSJ.com today on how some newspapers have decided to make money off real estate. Not by classifieds, mind you - but by selling their buildings. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Boston Herald are profiled here, and the trend seems clear - the papers are looking for infusions of cash, and there is value to be had in selling their longtime downtown locations.
Adds Rex in comments: “The article makes a passing mention to the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis, which sold its parking lots to create a new dome. There are rumors floating around that the rest of the Star-Tribune’s assets will be sold as scrap material at a value greater than what was recently paid by Avista Capital Partners for the paper.”
Katie Couric and small CBS team leave today for 12 days in Iraq and Syria, with live reports beginning Sept. 4th (Gen. Petraeus’ report comes out Sept.15th). When she first took the CBS job, Couric was critical of anchor trips to Iraq — she has never been there — unless she can advance the story. But executive producer Rick Kaplan says her presence has helped secure high-level interviews. “She has gotten us access to certain areas and people,” Kaplan said. “It’s good to have Katie on your side.”
MySpace will hold a tour of 30 concerts this fall, featuring acts that have a big following on its social network. The MySpace Music Tour begins October 16 in Seattle and finishes up in Vegas in late November. According to CNet:
The headlining acts for the MySpace Music Tour will be two artists who’ve built up large followings on the social networking site–geeky pop band Hellogoodbye and emo act Say Anything. The tour will also include the Japanese punk band Polysics, who have been signed to the new MySpace Records label, as well as yet-to-be-announced guests.
Of course, sales are going to be through a community page on MySpace, where there will also be pix and band blogs from the tour. Remember when MTV did music?
Broadband service in Japan is eight to 30 times faster than in the U.S., according to a report in today’s WaPo. It’s also much cheaper.
The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure.
WaPo also has a graphic that shows the median download speeds in megabits per second by country. Japan: 61. S. Korea: 46. Finland: 21. Sweden: 18. Canada: 8. U.S.: 2. This is more than just a matter of having a better hookup to watch YouTube. Higher speeds help the economy and medicine.
Ultra-high-speed applications are being rolled out for low-cost, high-definition teleconferencing, for telemedicine — which allows urban doctors to diagnose diseases from a distance — and for advanced telecommuting to help Japan meet its goal of doubling the number of people who work from home by 2010.
We developed the product. The Japanese are beating the pants off us with it. Sound familiar?
Adds Daniel in comments: “The philosophy of the US internet providers is “Gee bud, at least you have a connection.”
Internet service provider EarthLink says it’s cutting 900 jobs - that’s about half the people who work for them - and closing four offices. It’s also buying back $200 million of its stock. What did Wall Street think? It likes the moves. EarthLink stock jumped 6% yesterday and is up another 4% as of this writing. If the LR hosting meltdown of 2006 is anything to go buy, we are still rating this a “don’t buy, not on your life.” ALSO: CNET - EarthLink’s WiFi dreams may be fading.
Social news site Digg got a fresh coat of paint, and some new features under the hood. Here’s Wired’s write up. Top new features include a revamped top navigation, and the inclusion of still frames when a video item shows up in the rundown. Users can also now bury a story with a single click. The much-promised images section isn’t ready quite yet, according to Digg the blog, but will be soon.
Editor and Publisher asks the question of the day: how on Earth did yesterday’s revelation about Idaho Sen. Larry Craig go undetected for so long? The Craig story is one that has been very much on the radar of every newsroom in the state of Idaho for years - and that focus got even more intense late last year. Today Craig lashed out at the Idaho Statesman newspaper, and put the blame for his actions in the wake of his arrest on pressure stemming from the paper’s eight month investigation. Even the reporter who broke the story was surprised “It is amazing to me that it was able to sit on the shelf so long,” he told Editor & Publisher. “Through the arrest and the guilty plea, and even a couple of weeks after.”
The list of organizations that “missed” the story is long: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, rash of politics-only newspapers (Politico, National Review, etc.), the Washington Post, NY Times, hungry news organizations in Idaho (including the one that employs me, KTVB) and even Minnesota news outlets. Roll Call finally broke the story - but only after a tip last week - months after the incident, and weeks after the plea was signed.
You know that 1994 video that turned up recently of Vice President Cheney saying that invading Iraq would turn into a quagmire? Jon Garfunkel at PBS MediaShift wanted to know how it got onto YouTube. (It turns out it was posted by a New York City artist.) In his hunt, Jon looked into the larger question: why is video search so damn lousy? Here’s one answer:
Of the relevant top 60 search results for “Cheney 1994″ on Google video search, all but one of the clips are hosted on YouTube/Google (the other was from Crooks & Liars). None of the derivative clips that aired on network TV were sourced to its respective website; they were only linked to YouTube.
Video is, of course, tough to index. Text is simple. But much of the problem can be blamed on video providers who don’t properly take advantage of software that could pump out tons of metadata, making video search much easier.
Noted on the web:
- CNN.com and Google Adsense do “exclusive” ad deal
- Heaton: “Viewing Down, Ad Rates Up. Go Figure.”
- NBCU buys international Hallmark channels
- The kid who hacked his iPhone to work on T-Mobile? Trading it for a new car.
- FNC uses picture of NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller in story about televangelist Bill Keller. As Fark would say: hilarity ensues.
Jeff Jarvis points us to video from a panel he was on at the Online Publishers Association conference in London last week that presents yet another case of “vs. thinking.” I’m as tired as Jeff of the “newspapers vs. bloggers” debate, yet the hand-wringing keeps coming up in conference after conference. The newspapers (”We brought down Nixon!”) and the bloggers (”We brought down Dan Rather!”) need to stop seeing this as a vs. argument. Jarvis put it well in response to an audience member’s point that newspapers do the legwork and bloggers only comment: “All I can say is that I look forward to a conference where we don’t have this argument and we talk about the possibilities of what we can do together.”
Talkback: Amy Gahran at Poynter highlights this article and is joining the “Vs. Thinking Watch.” Let’s make this open source. Amy and I invite everyone to send us examples of Vs. Thinking or highlight them on your own blog. Vs. Thinking is lazy and counterproductive. It’s too easy for conference planners. Let’s come up with “Together Thinking” instead.
This video is a bit on the wonky side - but the potential of this new technique is incredible. The process - called “seam carving,” allows images to be expanded and contracted in a way I’ve never seen before. The ethical questions it may raise for journalists (especially of the online flavor) could spark interesting debate.
Forbes breaks down the latest 10-K filing for News Corp., and comes up with a raft of fun nuggets.
- News would have to pay a $165 million termination fee if the DJ deal falls apart
- Google’s MySpace deal is worth an astounding $900 million to News Corp. through 2010
- Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi makes about $100,000 per year on the company’s MySpace China joint venture.
- NBCU and News Corp. split off a 10% piece of the “NewCo” joint venture for Providence Equity Partners. The price? A $100 million investment in the upcoming video site. I’ll let you do the math…
Earlier today Cory apologized for a Google AdSense display ad appearing here on LR. These two items on Romensko today should make all of us in Lost Remote Nation feel better (since someone other than a machine has control of the following ad placements)
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put an ad for Showtime’s “Weeds” and “Californication” next to the “News for Kids” section last week
- Charlotte’s News & Observer has readers fired up over the placement of a cigarette ad next to a “back to school” section
The online news operations for CBS News and the Washington Post will begin an online partnership to cover the 2008 presidential race, according to the AP. There is a big difference between this deal, and the one between NBC and the NY Times that we told you about back in July. This deal is online only, no traditional media. The partnership will include the sharing of stories and videos, and interactive chats with reporters.
In an interesting post at his 
