Questions for Brian Farnham

1) Do you think that more localized news outlets are a big part of the future of journalism? Or are they just a small piece of what news will look like in the future?

2) What specific changes made you leave the print-magazine world? Do you see it as a dying form of journalism?

3) What drew you into the internet journalism world? Were you at all worried that making money would be difficult? What did you do specifically to make sure that didnt happen? Or was there always the big risk of failing completely?

Questions for Michael Rosenblum

1) I agree with the fact that embracing business is a key for journalism in the 21st century, but how do you propose the industry goes about doing this? Are there any new types of business models that you see succeeding?

2) In Gillmor’s post he spoke of the government’s role in the future of journalism. What do you think that role will be if there is any?

3) Are you at all worried that a focus on business plans and entrepreneurship for the individual journalist will cause a neglect of basic journalistic principles? How can you find that balance between making a lot of money and producing quality journalism?

John McCain vs. Net Neutrality

On Thursday, Sen. John McCain introduced legislation for his new bill titled “The Internet Freedom Act”. One could say the name itself is a little misleading. These columns from the Huffington Post and PC World examine how Sen. McCain wants to kill the open internet by opposing net neutrality. They also state how the senator has received more financial contributions from large internet service providers than any other senator. Many of these internet providers are for broadband providers controlling internet speed and access. Is McCain trying to pass this bill just to keep his contributors happy?

The Rachel Maddow video is left-leaning but it does a good job explaining what Net Neutrality is and what McCain’s proposed bill aims to do. I would have liked to see an opinion from McCain’s people or at least a conservative voice. But that’s the problem with these pundit shows. Whether you agree or disagree with what McCain is trying to do it certainly has a big impact on the future of the internet.

Traditional Ways of Television Viewing Coming to an End

In this article from reuters.com, Sue Zeidler examines how the television industry needs to find a way to continue to profit in a rapidly changing TV world. Consumers are finding different ways to watch the programs they like. People can often watch their shows anytime and anywhere.

The times of watching programs at designated times is coming to an end. Tivos, DVRs and the internet give people the ability to watch Television at their convenience. The bigger networks are feeling the hurt as they face declining advertising revenue, dwindling viewership and rising production costs.

How can networks deal with this dilema? Can they just start charge people to watch TV on the internet. Marc Graboff, chairman of NBC entertainment, recomends charging viewers to stream episodes shortly after airing, affectively narrowing viewing “windows”.

That seems like a fine idea but I think they might have already screwed themselves. The situation is similar to that of the news industry. By offering news for free online, news organizations hurt the sales of their print editions and are now struggling to make profits on the internet. By letting consumers view episodes for free online, through websites like hulu.com, can television networks simply just start charging people to watch? They’ve put themselves in quite a pickle? If someone is already getting something for free, why would they want to start paying for it unless they absolutely had to. The solution is not that simple.

MySpace Becoming Worthless

In this Huffington Post story, Henry Blodget examines the future of the social networking site MySpace.

A few years back, MySpace was the king of the social networking world. Everyone in high school had one and if you were in a band, you needed it to survive. The words Twitter and Facebook were part of a different language. Then something happened. We graduated high school and Facebook became the college myspace. Along with any other trend MySpace started to flame out. Other than MySpace music, it didn’t have any staying power. Facebook now dominates the social networking world and now people of all ages flock to it.

There are many reasons why Facebook and Twitter won the war, but one of the reasons is that they managed to stay relevant in the news world. A huge majority of news outlets today have both Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages. No one is afraid to use these social networking sites as professional tools. More and more people are using these sites to get their news and to give it. Individual journalists often use them to communicate with readers and to market themselves and their work. Check for yourself, the New York Times does not have a MySpace page.

Blodget describes how Rupert Murdoch was seen as a genius for purchasing MySpace for only $580 million. He had supposed huge plans for the site but was really looking to dump it before its value completely collapsed. He might be too late. A source suggests that MySpace did only $500-$600 million of revenue last year and actually lost money in the process. There’s a small chance it can be saved but that window is closing. Blodget compares it to former internet juggernauts, Lycos, Infoseek and Excite. I can’t even remember these names or what they did. Like Myspace and Murdoch, they were purchased at their peak of internet existence.

Infoseek went to Disney for $1+ billion

Excite went to @Home for $8 billion

Lycos went to Terra for, gulp, $13 billion!

Luckily for Murdoch he didn’t spend as much as these companies did. I believe Myspace will soon be a distant memory, if it isn’t already.

Big Brother Is Watching You..Through Your Phone!

Columnist Troy Wolverton of The Mercury News had an interesting opinion column on location-based phone features and how all new cell phones can track a person’s geographic location. This topic was brought up in class today and it makes you think about whether or not this is necessary.

Tracking is now required by government regulators as a safety measure to help authorities find people in case of an emergency. So I guess if you get lost in the woods, are mauled by a bear and are unable to make a call, help can still find you. Now I can sleep easy at night. Having GPS capabilities on your phone is certainly handy, but at what expense? Sure its cool to track where you went on your latest bike ride but you shouldn’t have to worry about other people knowing you went to McDonalds for the 4th time this week.

Wolverton starts to worry that these services are ripe for abuse. Today, there are very few rules as to what marketers can do with the location data they collect. A system will have to be put in place where consumers will have to agree on a much more specific terms of agreement. One that details exactly what the marketers do with this information.

Personally, this doesn’t bother me too much. As long as this information doesn’t fall into the hands of the wrong people, I’m ok with it. I don’t care that a few people know I went to Wal-Mart last night. I trust something will be done before this spirals out of control. But there are a lot of privacy freaks out there and this is definitely something to think about.

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