The Wall Street Journal published an article today about the increasingly rapid decline of newspaper circulation around the US. Citing a report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the WSJ is now the largest paper in terms of circulation, and actually saw a slight rise in their numbers. Everyone else on the list dropped, and in some cases it was precipitous.
As many have pointed out, this is primarily due to the rise of Internet use for news, articles, etc. The big question, of course, is what happens to the newspapers? Do they simply move online and exist without the print infrastructure, or do they get torn apart completely by the niche content providers (i.e. blogs, etc.). If this were to happen, how do we replace the tried-and-true processes of a professionally run news organization with a loose federation of blogs and websites? Obviously I’m a huge fan of tech, the web, blogs, etc. but it’s painfully obvious that the vast majority of blogs simply don’t have the editorial capabilities of a newspaper.
It will be interesting to watch from the sidelines, but I suspect more bad news is in store for the papers before we turn the corner
Looks like Verizon’s going to be releasing a new Google Android phone in the near future. Check out the “Droid Does” viral marketing site they’ve set up; they take some pretty funny potshots at the iPhone: “iDon’t have a real keyboard… iDon’t allow open development…”
PC World has a blog post up about the new phone but it sounds like there aren’t any real details just yet. You can sign up for an email to get news from Verizon as the launch gets closer. Let’s hope that this second wave of Android phones brings some new awesomeness to the smartphone market. I, for one, would love to get one if the execution lives up to the hype.
Please check out a friend’s new venture: www.photogenec.com They help their clients produce amazing screencasts and presentations
We just published a new white paper at The Acuff Group called “A Manager’s Guide to SharePoint” and covers a broad range of the non-technical aspects of deploying SharePoint in a large organization. Check it out and let us know what you think!
The Guardian has a chilling (no pun intended) climate-change article posted about some recently released photographs from the US intelligence community. The photos show the incredible impact of climate change on the arctic ice. Reuters also has a story posted about the release of the images. Very disturbing…
Shure has announced its entry into the full-sized closed headphone market. They are launching a new series of headphones that should be out early this summer, and early reviews are very positive. See the Shure product page for the SRH840 here.
This weekend we took the kids to the Renaissance Faire in Irwindale, CA. The folks who put on the festival did a wonderful job and it was a lot of fun. The faire is on for the next six weeks, so if you live in the area you should check it out. I posted some pictures to Flickr as well, and a video should be up shortly.
Many thanks to Alex Lindsay for turning me on to the Beachtek mic adaptor. This little, ingenious gadget allows you to connect professional XLR microphones to a standard camcorder, as long as it has an 1/8″ mic input available. I recently purchased a Canon HF 100 high def camcorder to shoot some interviews and video podcasts and I added the Beachtek into the mix. If you’ve ever shot video you’ll know that audio is one of the most important factors in making a quality video, which means you really need a much better microphone than what’s available on handheld camcordes. For less than $200 you can add a Beachtek and start using your favorite mics with an inexpensive consumer camcorder. Thanks Alex!
