I understand the problems facing the newspaper industry, but I wonder how the executive teams think they are going to increase sales when they keep reducing their staff, the size of the paper, and the quality of the reporting. Providing less product for the same cost is not likely to win new subscribers.

• Posted by: Greg Linden
• January 9, 2008 9:36 AM

Does I Want Media not have an RSS feed? Strange.

• Posted by: Chase Granberry
• January 9, 2008 9:45 AM

Um, John, that's FIVE headlines. You need to get more sleep.

• Posted by: Terry Heaton
• January 9, 2008 10:05 AM

Hi,

I saw this in my marketing newspaper last night (1/7/08 news), which coincides with what you've seen....

Prediction: Radio Faces Eighth Year of Slow- to No-Growth

• Posted by: Helene
• January 9, 2008 12:31 PM

Google prediction comes true, welcome to knol, high quality knol contents published in google times!
saran

• Posted by: saran
• January 9, 2008 3:14 PM

Maybe j-schools need to start looking into offering intense blogging classes, featuring HufPo writers at SPJ mixers and emulating/focusing on SoJo a la Kevin Sites on Yahoo. It seems as though there's no clear direction on how to manage, let alone train the next generation of reporters... only on how to chase ad dollars.

• Posted by: mike
• January 9, 2008 8:42 PM

You can read it on yout mobile phone with http://www.bywifi.com. When given a request URL for any web site, bywifi.com does some sorts of on-the-fly edits of the page to make it usable on the small screen of a mobile phone. bywifi.com cleverly collapses bulky navigation elements to give users quicker access to a site's main content and auto-wraps the large paragraphs based on each device's limits.

• Posted by: rose
• January 10, 2008 8:32 AM

John, as per your interview with Robert Scoble regarding the resurgence of news makers.... Just to keep the ball rolling, if newspapers disappear, who are going to be the primary source of information - in the wider world?

The Business Model of Google or most search engines is geared towards searching existing information, not making it. Google Answers was one deliberate attempt by Google to create content.. It ended up as a resounding failure.

Also I was wondering whether the post just above ^^^^ is not a targeted "Spamment"? Just wondering.....

• Posted by: F.D. Athow
• January 10, 2008 8:40 AM

Yes, that's probably targeted spam, I get a lot of it, and it's a pain to deal with.

To your point, I think publishing is VERY robust. Look at FM, for example. It ain't about the medium, it's about the execution in that medium.

• Posted by: John Battelle
• January 10, 2008 8:47 AM

John, there should probably be a social plugin that allows readers like me to point out potential "spamment" with some degree of automation in there.. If comment is marked as spam more than 5 times, get it deleted..

Anyway, back to what you said. I'd like to see more genuine content - with more analysis and indepth work being done. Instead, many blogs have fallen in a comfort zone with a number of them just linking out to other blogs or just copying and posting paragraphs with a few words.

I am not saying that there are no blogs doing this kind of thing, just that there are not enough of them out there. Not many blogs are actually going out in the real world and it is much easier to stay indoors and let others do the hard job.... and this can have dire consequences (see the second link)

PS : I can't post URLs it seems

• Posted by: F.D. Athow
• January 10, 2008 9:15 AM