Paint: Behind the Scenes

Too funny.

Google mobile

I noticed today that links to New York Times stories from Google's personalized mobile homepage go straight to the Times' mobile Web site rather than Google's "mobilized" version (where Google intercepts and reformats the regular site for mobile phone users).

I like this. As handy as Google's reformatting is for many sites, I'd rather see the true mobile version for sites that have one.

I know (semi)-famous people!

Andrea's first multimedia project appeared online today (she did all the 3-D stuff and helped with some of the other things).

And a friend's Web site, CostHelper.com, got mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

Kudos all around.

Live Search for Mobile

Microsoft has updated Live Search Mobile, a search and mapping application for Windows Mobile- and Java-equipped phones. The new version offers movie showtimes, better GPS support and the ability to cache previously viewed maps for faster performance.

It's a lot like Google Maps Mobile, though if forced to choose, I'd have to give a slight edge to Microsoft on this one. Though I prefer Google Maps on my PC -- it's the snappiest online mapping service by far -- I've always liked the way Microsoft/MSN/Live maps look. It's the closest thing I've seen to "real" paper maps. Now, I can get the maps I like in a service that's just as fast as Google's alternative.

Anyway, both are handy little applications to have on your phone.

Separately, Microsoft also updated its Live Search Web service for mobile phones. Among other things, the new version lists search results across multiple categories, much like Google's standard PC Web search. It's pretty handy -- I'm not sure why Google doesn't do the same thing its mobile searches.

Still, Google's mobile search gave me much better results in two quick tests.

On Google, a phone search for "7-11" listed nearby stores -- Microsoft gave me what looked like completely random results.

A Google search on "Harry Potter," meanwhile, gave me local showtimes for the movie, a couple of recent news stories, J.K. Rowling's official site, the official Harry Potter site, the Wikipedia entry and more. Microsoft gave me the Wikipedia entry, some photos (a nice touch, actually). It had a space for news stories and local results (showtimes, etc.) but they were empty -- despite knowing my home address. So Google was far more useful in both situations.

It seems Microsoft has a little more work to do.

The Future of Journalism, part 534

"Recovering Journalist"  Mark Potts notes the Wall Street Journal's precipitous revenue plunge, but worries more about the industry's lackluster and unimaginative response so far.

His ideas, paraphrased:

• Accept that the Web and mobile devices are your primary publishing platform, not the printing press. Even better, stop printing the newspaper altogether and move entirely to the Web.
• Get local. Very local.
• Embrace user-generated content and bring readers into the conversation.
• Give readers' social networking tools to help that them interact and flourish under your banner.
• Find ways to make your company essential to your advertisers' businesses by providing them with non-advertising services.

I don't quite agree with that last point, especially when he gets into some of the specifics he has in mind. But the rest of it is spot on.

 Meanwhile, Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 notes what he calls the "10% problem" newspapers face going online. 

What you find, with some modest rounding, is that print circulation is about 10% of total audience reach, while online advertising revenue is 10% of total ad revenue — the economics are nearly the perfect inverse of what they should be.

In other words, it's not newspapers that are lagging in this technology transition -- it's advertisers.

Maybe the industry is trained to think that, for display ads, bigger is better. Many are resistant to newspapers publishing in a tabloid-sized format for the same reason -- they don't want to pay the same amount of money for smaller ads.

Maybe newspapers are fetching less for online ads just because that's all they're worth. With online ads, advertisers know exactly what they're getting for their money.

Maybe they're realizing that they've been overpaying for decades.

In any case, I hope my industry, to paraphrase of Jeff Jarvis, can survive long enough to solve this dilemma.

Two brands I love come together

I use both Answers.com and Dictionary.com (along with its sibling, Thesaurus.com) several times a day, so I take a keen interest in Answers.com's purchase of the company that publishes Dictionary.com.

The services overlap, but I've found Answers.com, with its handy 1-Click Answers tool, a fast way to look up stock symbols and company addresses. And Thesaurus.com is my synonym finder of choice, calling up more synonyms and related words than any online reference tool I've ever used.

I'm not sure what, if anything, the merger will change, but I'm happy to hear that both services will remain operational. I'd be especially happy if the company were to create a right-click popup thesaurus like the one it created for Answers.com.

Source: Download Squad

Journalism as a service

In a post about the fight at the L.A. Times about whether to run front-page ads, Jeff Jarvis makes an interesting point about journalism as a service vs. journalism as a product.

But what is the LA Times as a local brand and service — note: service vs. product — going to look like in five years and how is it going to get there? How can it get far more local than it is today? How can it build broader networks of people and content and advertising? How can it pay for all that development and experimentation? And how can it survive long enough to get there?

While the distinction may seem semantic, I think the industry's mistaken impression of itself underlies its fear and loathing of readers' migration online.

As a product, newspapers are doomed -- and their demise is coming a lot faster than many of us realize. But as a service, journalism and the journalism business have unprecedented opportunity. The sooner journalists start thinking of their business as a service, the better equipped they'll be for the changes ahead.

Source: BuzzMachine

Windows Media Center: not ready for prime time

When my ReplayTV 4040 finally gave up the ghost last fall, I thought very carefully about its replacement. I had three main options: 1) Buy a TiVo. 2) Pay someone on eBay for a new hard drive formatted and loaded with ReplayTV's proprietary software. 3) Get a Media Center PC (or upgrade my existing PC to handle TV recording).

I didn't like the TiVo option, because that would have meant shelling out for a monthly subscription fee, and feeling left at the mercy of TiVo, which can change its terms and features at will.

Getting a new hard drive for the old ReplayTV would have been a cheap option, especially since I had gotten the lifetime subscription option when I bought it in 2001. But I wasn't sure how much longer ReplayTV would stay in business. For all I knew, the only reason the device was still getting programming guide info was because someone forget to turn off a server somewhere.

So the Media Center PC option was looking more attractive. I liked the idea of being able to easily add on more capacity by adding standard hard drives and new features with software upgrades. And the programming guide info was free.

Still I had no intention in paying $2,000 or more for a decent-looking PC for the living room (my new wife was clear that she wouldn't tolerate an ugly PC tower next to the TV). Fortunately, I knew I could use the Xbox 360 I had received as a wedding present -- which was already connected to the TV and stereo system -- as an extender. In other words, the ugly tower PC would remain in the computer area, where it belonged, but record all my shows and play them through the TV.

Since I already had the Xbox 360 and could find cheap tuner cards for my Vista-ready PC (the Media Center software is now standard with Vista Home Premium and Ultimate), the economics looked good too.

I encountered a few hiccups along the way. Vista ran poorly on my old machine, so I had to upgrade the memory. But this is something I would have had to do anyway. And my first choice of tuner -- an external USB tuner with no hardware video encoder -- was, ahem, a learning experience.

But after some trial and error, I got everything working.

Six months later, I find the setup more and more frustrating. I don't know whether its a hardware issue, still-poor driver support from ATI (tuner) and Nvidia (graphics card) or Vista, but the setup is getting less reliable by the day.

Sometimes the PC crashes when the Xbox tries to connect. At other times, tuner failures mean a show never gets recorded at all. And then there's the all-in-one ehrecvr.exe hangs, which mean shows don't get recorded and already-recorded shows can't be played.

I understand that new operating systems need time to work the kinks out. But Vista has been publicly available for 18 months or so already, and my patience is wearing thin.

When it works, the Media Center setup is excellent. But it's just not reliable enough to recommend. And if a geek like me can't get it working reliably, I'd hate to see the average consumer try to use it.

Ah yeah!

It looks like Gears of War is getting a sequel of some kind and/or a PC version. Interesting.

If the PC rumor is true, it might be just what Microsoft needs to boost its "Games for Windows" initiative.

Advisory: Video contains violence and a swear word.

What the...?!

You may have noticed that things have changed a bit. For one, I've changed the name of my blog to "Kenny Dirt Jeans." I liked the old name, but it referred to something -- a TV cartoon -- that I don't own. I wanted something I could truly call my own. As to what it means, well, that's a long story.

I've also moved off of Tripod onto Blogspot. I had planned to do this before the Europe trip, but it proved to be a bit more complicated that I had anticipated.

Why fix what ain't broke? For an HTML newbie, Blogspot is a lot easier to use while offering most of the flexibility of my old do-it-yourself approach. Also, the ad-free version of Tripod costs $5 month and doesn't let you host your own ads; Blogspot is free and does.

I tried to keep the visible changes to a minimum, but I also used the move as an opportunity to tweak the look and feel a bit. I still have a bit of work to do in that department, but it should be easier now.

Anyway, welcome to the new site.

Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

Apparently, Mountain View, Calif., does. This 7-11 has been converted to the fictional Simpsons convenience store as part of a promotion for the upcoming movie.

Update: More Kwik-E-Mart photos (not mine) here.

Update 2: Even more.

The inevitable iPhone post

Actually, this post is about the ultimate reporter's tool, which I'm not quite convinced is the iPhone.

I've been thinking about this topic since last year, when I got the Hewlett-Packard iPaq 6915 smart phone. I do all kinds of journalism-related tasks with it, including getting directions (Via the built-in GPS), sending and receiving e-mail, surfing the Web (painfully) and recording interviews when I don't have access to my OneNote-equipped laptop. In a pinch, I could even write and file a short story with it. I've actually gotten pretty proficient on the tiny keyboard. (I'm writing this post with it from a park.)

Still, it's far from perfect. The camera isn't good enough for newspaper-ready photos (or Web site-ready, for that matter), and the mobile version of OneNote isn't nearly as useful as the full version. I've tried taking notes with it, and it wasn't pretty.

From what I've seen, the iPhone is even more flawed as a reporter's tool. But it got me thinking again about how close this ultimate device might be to reality and what it might mean for my industry. What will the newsroom of the future look like? And will everyone be a potential journalist?

I love upgrades

One of the things I love the most is when something I already use and like gets better. And that's what has happened with Google Maps and Plaxo.

Google Maps, which long ago passed by beloved Yahoo in the online mapping arena, added a new feature that lets users change the routes generated when asking for driving directions. This can be useful if you want to, say, avoid a particular area on your route or take a scenic detour.

It's a feature would often use in Microsoft Streets & Trips (can you tell I'm a map nut?), but now it's free. This is on top of the very cool "street view" feature the company recently launched.

Here's a demonstration from the Google folks:

Plaxo, meanwhile, just launched version 3.0 of the service that focuses much more on online calendars.

This is exactly the right move, I think. The 6-year-old company is best known for its address book synchronizer, an Outlook plug-in that automatically updates contact info changes of Plaxo subscribers in your address book. But most users didn't know that the plug-in was also a pretty easy way to synch your Outlook calendar, notes and tasks between different machines. Everything happened in the background -- no fuss, no muss.

The new version (which incorporates Plaxo's acquisition of HipCal last year) takes that several steps further. First, Plaxo beefed up its online calendar offerings, making it easier to access one's own schedule online and letting users publish free and busy times so other users can see it. Even cooler, Plaxo now lets users sync Outlook with Yahoo and Google's online calendars. Very Web 2.0 of them.

The new version is still in beta -- and it shows. In my tests, it took the service several hours to update Google Calendar after I made changes in Outlook and vice-versa. But if the company can getting working as advertised, it'll attract a lot of attention.

Heck, Google might even buy it.

Newspapers Should Embrace Online Aggregators

Amen. 

The problem that newspapers and other traditional media brands have is that they still see branding as a function of controlling the distribution channel, rather than branding each unit of content that must now live and survive on its own in a disaggregated online media ecosystem.

But the real missed opportunity for newspapers is in optimizing their content to convert user who find their way to newspaper content via search and other aggregators into subscribers and direct users of the brand. The New York Times, having learned from search master About.com, is using this approach with its Times Topics pages, which rank high in Google for generic terms and draw users in to the universe of NYT content.

Source: Publishing 2.0

Europe, consolidated

I merged the London and Paris photos into a single slideshow. If you'd rather browse individual photos or see larger versions, just click on any picture.

Courier-Journal reporter ejected from U of L game

For once, resistance to change isn't coming from a newspaper:

A Courier-Journal sports reporter had his media credential revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during the NCAA baseball super-regional yesterday because of what the NCAA alleged was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events.

10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head

There is hope. Ryan Sholin, a  graduate journalism student at San Jose State University, spells out a few realities that somehow seem to elude most veteran news people. Here's a summary of his well-argued diatribe.

1. It’s not Google’s fault.
2. It’s not Craig’s fault.
3. Your major metro newspaper could probably use some staff cuts.
4. It’s time to stop handwringing and start training.
5. You don’t get to charge people for archives and you certainly don’t want to charge people for daily news content.
6. Reporters need to do more than write. The new world calls for a new skillset, and you and Mr. Notebook need to make some new friends, like Mr. Microphone and Mr. Point & Shoot.
7. Bloggers aren’t an uneducated lynch mob unconcerned by facts. They’re your readers and your neighbors and if you play your cards right, your sources and your community moderators. If you really play it right, bloggers are the leaders of your networked reporting projects. Get over the whole bloggers vs. journalists thing, which has been pretty much settled since long before you stopped calling it a “Web blog” in your stories.
8. You ignore new delivery systems at your own peril. RSS, SMS, iPhone, e-paper, Blackberry, widgets, podcasts, vlogs, Facebook, Twitter — these aren’t the competition, these are your new carriers.
9. J-schools can either play a critical role in training the next generation of journalists, or they can fade into irrelevancy. Teach multimedia, interactivity and data, or watch your students become frustrated and puzzled as they try to get jobs with five clips and a smile.
10. Okay, here comes the big one: THE GLASS IS HALF FULL.

I wish this were written by a major news executive instead, but at least some journalists seem to get it.

Paris is amazing

We finally got to the Eiffel Tower yesterday. Pictures don't do it justice; it's much bigger and far more imposing in person -- a stunning blend of engineering and art. Everyone should see this once in their life.

We've seen most of the other things you're "supposed" to see here, sights too numerous to mention. Today we're taking a day trip to Versailles, and tomorrow we'll spend most of the day at the Louvre. Friday, our last full day here, will give us a chance to relax and catch up on the little things we had planned to do duing the week but didn't get aound to.

Now we're in Paris!

We found an open Wi-Fi router to leech from, but we probably won't have time to post many pictures until we get back. And yes, we'll properly label all the pictures. Maybe I'll even put together a little slide show.

Photos!

Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ken_brown/