tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22570575614356421722011-11-27T16:24:04.552-08:00Lots of opinions for those who want to dispense knowledge digitally ...Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.comBlogger771100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-19869684017425167282011-06-27T06:56:00.000-07:002011-08-04T07:20:31.137-07:00

I'm guilty, and maybe many of us are, of taking search engines for granted. We expect that when we put in a search phrase -- we will get back what we want. And we can definitely identify bad search: The notorious sites that never yield anything close to what is being looked for, or those which vomit back way too much to be useful. To be certain, having strong semantic metadata including a rich

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-72953539863908431942011-06-14T15:31:00.000-07:002011-06-14T15:44:16.439-07:00

Wow. I just did a "Bing" on "XML" and found 88,300,000 results. The third facet on the results page (with faceted search being the reason I prefer Bing) was "XML Definition." Nineteen million pages fell under the "related searches" facet of XML definition. I zapped off a few other searches of popular tech terms and three-letter acronyms (RSS, IP address, namespace, API, RDF -- and none of them

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-42466598205270796872011-05-17T08:12:00.000-07:002011-05-17T10:30:22.285-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words -- but did you know it could also represent one thousand pieces of content? Two years ago I wrote about Financial Time's (shortlived) Newssift, a business site that strove to create a business model around a new type of search -- with metadata exposed. With a naive go-to-market plan and too many months (and dollars spent) in R&D, the patience of the parent

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-73038835710699023142011-03-28T15:34:00.000-07:002011-03-28T15:34:58.661-07:00

Pew Internet, a division of Pew Research, asked 1300 smartphone owners across the country whether or not they had purchased any of 16 different types of digital content. Here is the breakdown of what they paid for, with 75 percent saying they have bought multiple items: 33% internet access 33% software 21% apps for cellphones 19% digital games 18% newspapers, mags or journals 16% videos, moveis

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-44905077419220294982011-03-28T10:01:00.000-07:002011-03-28T10:01:03.237-07:00

Skip Prichard, CEO of Ingram's Content Group and a long-time executive in the publishing industry gave the keynote at eContent's Buying and Selling conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Being an alum of Lexis-Nexis, Elsevier, Ingram Books and Proquest, his career has been an homage to digital convergence. He recalled being asked by a reporter to speak to the future of publishing, Prichard offered

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-81729063132247225162011-03-24T12:47:00.000-07:002011-03-27T12:38:04.793-07:00

"A retained member is not necessarily a happy member," says Melissa Jones, marketing manager for Aetna's New England regions, in addressing a Custom Content Council audience on why customer engagement is more important than merely measuring customer retention. To better engage Aetna's Medicare audience -- all over the age of 65 with an average age of 75, Aetna entered the world of content

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-58311809395953327612011-03-24T10:58:00.000-07:002011-03-24T11:08:07.308-07:00

Before he was the Pariah of Hollywood, Mel Gipson starred as a chauvinistic ad executive who, after a lightening strike, could suddenly "hear"the secret thoughts of women. Of course he used this for his own personal gain. Advertisers too have been trying to tap into the secret thoughts of users, either by watching behaviors online or by analyzing user comments. In turn they are taking this

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-5943294710861995922011-03-21T11:33:00.000-07:002011-03-21T11:36:12.235-07:00

To pay wall or not to pay wall, that has been the question. Well the NYT did it -- they instituted the pay wall. (Paywall?? -- AP finally dropped the hyphen in email and the spaces in cellphone, smartphone and handheld -- although the hyphen remains in e-book and e-reader. Pay wall still has a space - perhaps because it is still a chasm for most newspapers). But I digress. Only 3 months behind

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-4266650018588533002011-03-09T10:04:00.000-08:002011-03-09T10:07:17.427-08:00

A zillion years ago I worked for CBS Software -- a publisher of interactive games. CBS, which owned stations, programming, magazines (the poor Ziff books) and textbooks -- saw nothing unusual about being in software publishing -- it was merely one more form of packaging information and entertainment. Okay, so it didn't do a very good job with this group; the division was gone before the end of

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-10868537053749010932010-12-17T09:00:00.000-08:002010-12-17T11:33:05.739-08:00

Apps, apps, apps. I need a good appetizer recipe for a holiday party, so I will be turning to Epicurious, AllRecipies -- and maybe even download the new Mario Batali Cooks! to find something yummy. Why am I telling you this? Because if we want to join into the app craze -- we have to think a bit differently - like at the end, first. Or more specifically, what we want the end product to be. I

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-42497099447526291242010-12-01T06:05:00.000-08:002010-12-10T17:29:44.853-08:00

Man, newspapers really should be kicking themselves. Just hours after I wrote about the Deal of the Day mavens, Google announces an astronomical bid of $5.3 billion for the upstart Groupon and another $700k in incentives. According to analysts cited in a New York Times article,  the Chicago-based neophyte, is pulling in $500 million in revenue -- and achieving profitability. That is a staggering

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-37686720701590122182010-11-29T18:27:00.000-08:002010-11-29T18:27:44.475-08:00

Newspapers and city magazines ought to be kicking themselves (yet again). Several start-ups have emerged in the last 12 months rolling out dazzling deals of the day for savvy bargainistas. GroupOn and LivingSocial have been the front runners, with TownHog nipping at their heals. All three are out canvassing merchants around various cities for compelling wares and services to dangle before

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-73865364600123162442010-11-22T11:01:00.000-08:002010-11-22T11:01:03.783-08:00

From how to mobilize to how to monetize, mobile is the topic célèbre for this season's tradeshow circuit. While many of the first generation offerings are ho-hum, there is promise that more and better is on the horizon. The first-gen initiatives are, not surprisingly, a redux of what is in print and online. This replication consists of taking what is in a print and making the PDFs available in

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-64474304767092911062010-09-29T05:57:00.000-07:002010-09-29T05:57:27.495-07:00

Wonderful homage to editors by Greg Hadfield at TheMediaBrief.com -- with a bit of a tweak at the end. Hadfield praises the editors of past for being the "Manager of the football club," (if he were American, no doubt he would have likened them to the quarterback.) In any event -- the editors of lore inherently "got it" -- they knew the news that the audience wanted -- and getting the story and

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-13821581074128285232010-09-28T09:49:00.000-07:002010-10-01T15:04:54.999-07:00

Robert “Bob” Abel is largely an unknown name in the world of interactivity. Which is unfortunate because he easily could be known as the Father of the Interactive Experience – and the originator of the Mashup. For me, Abel was the inspiration for my career -- which was to connect reporting -- with storytelling. An Emmy and Golden-Globe winning film producer, a 33-time Clio-award winning

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-69429146496954377402010-09-22T12:24:00.000-07:002010-09-22T12:24:03.154-07:00

I’ve been involved in the technology world for over 15 years. And one thing I can say with certainty is there is no such thing as a technical person who “gets it all.” Technology, like any discipline, has many facets and segments. Folks that understand networking will know nothing at all about web services. People that are experts on search won’t have a clue about how encryption works. Database

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-53092434831570237692010-09-06T12:47:00.000-07:002010-09-06T12:47:07.521-07:00

The decade-long introspection of “the future of publishing” has twisted pubishing executives into Gordian knots. “Information wants to be free,” “Content can not be free.” “The Wall Street Journal charges,” “The WSJ has unique urgent business news – paid for with corporate expense accounts, not consumer ones,” so sayeth the pundits. Pay-wall or no paywall, from mono-channel to multi, publishing

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-9893864159017932932010-08-29T06:09:00.000-07:002010-08-29T06:12:14.115-07:00

I haven't had a chance to read Guy Deutscher's book “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages,” being published this month by Metropolitan Books, but I read a fascinating excerpt in today's The New York Timess' Sunday Magazine. Deutscher, an honorary research fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester, looks at

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-56662479972758308722010-08-22T18:52:00.001-07:002010-09-11T08:51:58.489-07:00

Unstructured data. As a writer I hate that term. I remember the first time I heard reference to it: sitting in a meeting and technical people were talking about all the unstructured content that publishers produce. How could they be speaking about articles as unstructured? If anyone has made it through kindergarten they have learned that they must follow a linguistic pattern or structure in order

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-81502495122288036002010-08-11T05:38:00.000-07:002010-08-11T07:51:23.573-07:00

Wanna watch conservative and libertarian eyes twitch: tell 'em we need more government oversight. No doubt they would point to the all-but-impotent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as yet another example of how government mucks things up. And they would be right, with only themselves (and Congress) to blame. Set up in 1934 to "ensure that the American people have available -- at

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-14464419268866928152010-08-09T10:06:00.000-07:002010-08-09T10:07:56.539-07:00

Interesting news tidbit: The Australian, the Aussie national paper owned by News Limited, part of the Rupert Murdoch news dynasty, launched its iPad app this week. And while the paper pales in circulation to the two metro papers of Sydney and Melbourne, with only 135,000 for its Monday-Friday edition and double that for Saturday, it sold 8,500 apps in its inaugural month. According to Nick

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-46455636279684212502010-08-02T14:13:00.000-07:002010-08-03T13:18:21.347-07:00

After much deliberation, I have changed jobs, moving from Nstein (now OpenText) to MarkLogic, a provider of “purpose-built databases for unstructured content,” which means we handle all that data that doesn’t fit nicely into rows and columns – you know content like documents, articles, books, graphics -- which is often (and best) represented in XML. Over the years I have written about the

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-23924623743849334462010-07-16T06:47:00.000-07:002010-07-16T08:02:06.655-07:00

On Sunday, my 81-year old dad became one of the 3 million+ iPad users out there. My 12-year old described grandpa's zeal and excitement as "'like a child at Christmas." Indeed, Dad has brought his new tablet everywhere, stopping people to show them his new gizmo. And while he professes that "the iPad is for people under 18 or geniuses -- and I am neither," he protests too much. He wasn't in the

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-36081791846777837302010-06-15T06:18:00.000-07:002010-06-15T06:18:49.877-07:00

Quite the week to rail against the machine and highlight the perils of being über plugged in. The New York Times introduced us to the Campbells, Brian and Brenda, with he so consumed by data that an offer to buy his company sat unopened in his email inbox for a good 12 days, while she, like the football widows of lore, looks for ways to peel him from his gadgets to get him to partake with the

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-84121777653942271822010-05-21T17:03:00.000-07:002010-05-21T17:03:16.822-07:00

So just what is the value of old content? Back in the day, we called content that had an immediate shelf-life perishable, while content that could endure was called evergreen. It's hard to get anyone to agree on the value of content archives, and indeed ROI models essentially don't work because the value is in the eye of both the holder -- and the audience. Are the Wall Street Journal's

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-92223552864068803172010-05-06T10:51:00.000-07:002010-05-06T10:51:24.814-07:00

I can't sum up my feelings when I heard Jon Meacham tell Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, that Newsweek needs to "fully embrace the Internet." However I can describe my reactions: rolled my eyes, shook my head, and muttered, "about (effing) time." Really, I don't have anything against Jon Meacham, (and he is really smart) but I do have an issue with really smart people having had their head in the

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-57037767669880991712010-04-28T05:13:00.000-07:002010-04-28T05:17:00.876-07:00

Fresh from a holiday to Barcelona and Italy, I have been busy attacking my "to read" pile, when I came across this story, which illustrates the perversity of PowerPoint. And while it has nothing to do with digital publishing per se -- it has everything to do with effective communication. This image was shown to General Stanley A. McChrystal, leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, to

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-77678842927128030442010-04-12T14:40:00.000-07:002010-04-12T14:40:43.709-07:00

"Semantics is hot," declares Seth Grimes, "but only in a geeky sort of way." And then Grimes offers 11 different ways semantics is impacting -- search. In fact Semantic Search takes two geeky subjects and, when conjoined, attempts to become a precision tool for finding what the user really wants. But what does the user really want? And here is the crux of the problem. The machine needs to

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-22133599554965526452010-04-08T16:33:00.000-07:002010-04-08T16:37:01.792-07:00

Last week, I hosted a webinar on Semantic Metadata for the company previously known as Nstein (now Open Text) -- along with two of my colleagues, Sheila Woo and Matt Mullen. Despite putting it together in just under 10 days we still had over 250 registrants, which proves my point that interest in Semantic Metadata has created a "hockey stick" graph; slight incline for 10 years -- and soaring

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-79035916999523768862010-03-24T08:18:00.000-07:002010-03-24T08:18:26.936-07:00

The Internet is the biggest library in the world -- with all the books on the floor. -- unknownI'm sure most of us have never spent even a minute or so pondering about the classification system that keeps libraries sane. But they weren't always pristine. According to editors at TheStraightDope.com, when Melville Dewey spent his junior year (1872-73) working in Amherst College's library, he was

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-81224775267771997822010-03-22T12:12:00.000-07:002010-03-22T12:40:47.133-07:00

My first foray into Web content management (WCM) was back in early 1995 when we built a system to manage the content of two daily newspapers – including more than $100 million in Classified advertizing. We cobbled together a series of flat files with a nasty grey background that tiled. It wasn’t pretty but it served our needs at the time. My second round at Web content management was in 1996 –

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-72194971195949839372010-03-02T05:22:00.000-08:002010-03-02T05:22:24.803-08:00

Interesting report issued by Ad Media Partners, analyzing a survey of senior executives within leading media (traditional media and digital media) and marketing services (advertising, marketing services and digital marketing) businesses on prospects for industry mergers and acquisitions for 2010. (Note: Blogger seems to have a problem with ampersands, which I don't recall encountering before,

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-88044919827137147702010-02-15T06:14:00.000-08:002010-02-15T06:18:21.163-08:00

A woman's hand rose in the audience. "But what if you can't get your colleagues to share their content. How do you make them do it?" It wasn't the first time I had heard the question -- God knows I said it to myself often enough when I was running the interactive division of a media group in trying to get a feed from one of our two daily papers -- in a format we could use. With all the

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-50090585985107174352010-01-11T06:13:00.000-08:002010-01-11T06:14:11.047-08:00

My kids' Apple laptop died over the weekend. It had been a trusty little MacBook -- mine for three years before I passed it onto the kids two years ago. When one had a paper due and the other had to jump onto Castle Learning to do, what would be, roughly two hours of quadratic equations, they both immediately vied for their parents' computers -- which were both in use doing bills and an

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-20289514309154780002010-01-09T19:45:00.000-08:002010-01-09T19:45:10.927-08:00

Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi is a key believer in using great content to foment and cement relationships. He published what should be a marketer's credo with his 30 Content Marketing Truths. They boil down to the brand being a relationship -- not a tag line; and, that the customer relationship doesn't end with the payment. Those two "truths" (#8 and #2, respectively) are the crux to what I

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-69535154477648514062010-01-05T07:15:00.000-08:002010-01-05T07:17:51.629-08:00

I received an iTouch for Christmas. I haven't taken it out of the packaging yet. Not because I don't love the Touch -- but because I can't imagine schlepping both my Blackberry and my Touch everywhere -- when God knows, all I would want to use is my Touch. So why is it still sitting on my kitchen counter staring at me out of its sleek, plexicase, the ends still hermetically sealed? 'Cause I

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-4896321636901843482010-01-03T06:56:00.000-08:002010-01-03T06:56:52.243-08:00

Saw an interesting Op-Ed piece written by Adam Raff, founder of Foundem, a vertical search firm in the UK that provides comparative pricing on electronics, airline tickets, home & garden items, etc. The crux of Raff's opinion piece is that online search provided by behemoths like Bing, Yahoo -- but in this case, in particular Google -- need to have oversight. He is so passionate about this need

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-15275521447189559592010-01-01T10:25:00.000-08:002010-01-01T10:51:12.358-08:00

When I started this blog about a year ago, I wanted to provide advice to all the businesses who found themselves in the odd position of being a news source. I say odd position, because most businesses aside from the media, don't consider themselves as such. They are retailers, consultants, researchers, financiers, professionals, teachers, etc. But more and more, all of these groups are finding

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-42658502185560879982009-12-31T07:53:00.000-08:002009-12-31T08:44:39.046-08:00

This Holiday Season, as we all dish on whether we will be forced to go commando on flights in order to prevent any more undie bombers, or whether we will inflict terror on poor TSA agents by parading starkers through body scans, I can't help but wonder why our spy agencies aren't enlisting the same tools marketers have at their disposal. For instance, folks at Nielsen's Buzz Metrics and Evolve

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-51868446168853667912009-12-21T07:42:00.000-08:002009-12-21T07:42:27.042-08:00

So sayeth E.W. Scripps' CEO Rich Boehne in address at the annual UBS Conference. Boehne described current news offerings as suffering from "a plague of sameness," (McNews, anyone?) and asserts that better quality can broaden the audience. Scripps, which owns 10 stations, is hoping it will be the beneficiary from "a great consolidation opportunity" as weaker competing news stations drop out. 'Tis

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-60118209771134846972009-12-16T10:45:00.000-08:002009-12-16T10:51:07.316-08:00

It's no secret that news sites are having a difficult time figuring out the monetization of its news online. Goes back to what I have always contended -- people pay for service -- not content. We pay for the service of our news being delivered, we pay our Internet provider a monthly fee and we pay our cell-phone carrier for the service. (We even pay for water that comes in a bottle -- but watch

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-24204351294853211242009-12-09T07:06:00.000-08:002009-12-09T07:06:09.379-08:00

This week, Proctor & Gamble announced its long-running serial, "As the World Turns" air its last episode in September 2010. The announcement marks the end of 73 years of creating content - to sell product. Specifically, soap. Which is how P&G coined the name "soap opera." P&G realized that if they produced addicting content, they would build a loyal following who would also hear their product

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-87175510790956836032009-07-14T09:12:00.000-07:002009-07-14T14:58:39.786-07:00

McGraw Hill is shopping Business Week and the talk on the streets is that the 80 years of content will be available for a stunning $1. That's not a typo. That is one dollar (I am assuming US). So what gives? Isn't the archives of 80 years worth a heckuva lot more than $1 -- as well as the subscriber list of nearly a million names?I spoke with Reed Phillips, Managing Partner, Philips DeSilva who

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-32117481388433690702009-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:002009-08-08T15:06:21.740-07:00

Riddle me this: What do high-end furniture manufacturers and newspapers have in common? They both are terrified that the Web is ruining their businesses, so their response has been (to want) to build a big moat around their intellectual property. Yikes! are those water moccasins and alligators in those moats?Seriously, both groups hate the Internet for what it stands for: business interruption,

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-82347640127116731912009-06-26T04:38:00.000-07:002009-06-26T08:51:54.593-07:00

Dear Mr. Hippeau:Kudos on the new role as CEO of Huffington Post!Have been a huge fan of Huff-Po for almost two years now, although in the last 12 months, the site has gone from a once-in-a-while nosh to a 10-times-a-day fix. (I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Mark Sanford, really. It reminded me of the time the Atlantic City mayor went AWOL -- turned out that was just because the feds

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-23618630401215340582009-06-23T16:02:00.000-07:002009-06-24T09:44:52.962-07:00

The future of newspapers -- is not really something I lose sleep over. The better concern should be: The future of a free and open media. The media that is supposed to be the checks and balances to the government (instead of shills). With media jettisoning news creators -- read that: bonafide journalists, the question is: who will do the work? Better still: who will pay them to do the work?The

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-91559732749207951482009-06-22T05:25:00.000-07:002009-06-26T13:56:33.342-07:00

Interesting column by Burst Media's CEO and President Jarvis Coffin on the impact of ads when placed with relevant content. Burst Media is an online ad network that serves the "Long Tail-type" publishers -- the smaller, niched sites that tend to attract more passionate followers. Full disclosure, my site, Pure Contemporary has been part of the Burst network for several years. Coffin was citing a

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-73873476829923230562009-06-12T05:32:00.000-07:002009-06-12T07:13:20.094-07:00

Is Twitter the new 911? My twittering debut was in December 2007 after reading a post by a Poynter Institute columnist suggested that twittering was a great tool for journalists. My opening salvo was neither memorable nor liberating, and my tweets were fleeting. I was merely going through the motions to research this new communication device akin to an ethnographer wishing to fit in with her

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-552312678640200412009-06-11T11:20:00.000-07:002009-06-11T17:15:44.506-07:00

I sat in numerous conferences at the Gilbane conference in San Francisco last week listening to and, preparing to speak on, search. Personally I want to see this word retired, as it conjures up phrases like “…in vain,” “desperately seeking,” and images of poor Diogenes schlepping around Athens with his lamp and cynicism. Or, closer to home, the time I had to find 40 pairs of white tube socks,

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-32836517983433367542009-06-03T13:36:00.000-07:002009-06-03T13:51:24.366-07:00

What to call your followers? Software had users, newspaper readers, television viewers, radio listeners, then came convergence and the 'Net and we couldn't figure out what the entity that traipsed from site to site should be called. "Readers," affirmed newspapers, "Visitors" chimed broadcasters -- a term more universally adopted with the advent of Online Ads and the Unique Visitor metric. And CMS

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-20151499549031052162009-05-30T15:30:00.000-07:002009-05-30T16:48:43.703-07:00

Newspaper executives met in Chicago this past week to bemoan their collective debts, declining revenues and inability to figure out how to make money on the Web. The event was organized by the remaining staffers of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and according to an agenda obtained by the Associated Press, was called "Models to Lawfully Monetize Content." Purportedly, a anti-trust

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-80786611209481680362009-05-19T13:54:00.000-07:002009-08-08T15:14:21.002-07:00

"The Media should charge for content," so sayeth pundits about news sites.Should is such an interesting verb that stretches from mandate to polite suggestion. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers (in order): to express condition, obligation, futurity, what is probable or expected, and finally, to "express a request in a polite manner." The pundits no doubt are more than suggesting, and are

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-461538425442042702009-04-30T06:58:00.000-07:002009-04-30T07:32:11.521-07:00

My 80-year old father started up a contemporary furniture boutique in 1959, and has weathered the cyclical and catastrophic ups and downs of his local Buffalo, NY, economy -- particularly the 1970s when Buffalo dropped from a top 20 metro market to a top 50. That slide represented population -- and dollars lost. Never large enough to expend huge dollars in advertising, he reached out to

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-76916724655198650992009-04-29T09:10:00.000-07:002009-04-29T15:09:26.134-07:00

There is so much to celebrate with the Financial Time Group's debut of Newssift. Like a debutante at her coming out ball, Newssift turned heads and received appreciative glances. The question is will the market step up and marry itself to the new business search engine (a flirty glance is one thing, parting with actual dollars is a real commitment). The site, which is currently in beta is free --

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-66210157650792944322009-04-24T05:35:00.000-07:002009-04-24T06:16:18.585-07:00

In baseball, lots of singles and doubles are more prevalent than a grand slam. More games are won with what former Yankee's Manager Joe Torre called "A-B-C baseball," a reference to doing all the little things right in the game.On a hunch, while at the min day Summit in New York, I bumped into Hanley Wood President Peter Goldstone, and asked him what percentage of ad sales came from grand slams (

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-11308542983170429302009-04-21T07:16:00.000-07:002009-04-21T07:33:32.150-07:00

Was on vacation last week, so just opened Mine, Time's new effort to give me news I will peruse.The slim magazine features a silky matt cover and a compilation of stories decided by choices I made of whether I prefer sushi or pizza (both) or dinner with Socrates or Da Vinci (I can't remember my choice). Whatever I opted for provided me with an article from Travel& Leisure, Real Simple, Food &

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-84413531611165743842009-04-21T06:54:00.000-07:002009-04-21T07:16:35.779-07:00

Bad news follows good for the New York Times, as it reports losses of $75m. Guess that is $15m per Pulitzer.

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-68602166315657676042009-04-07T11:45:00.000-07:002009-04-24T07:25:11.072-07:00

I was stuck at home with the flu so couldn't get out to the Newspaper Association of America's conference in San Diego. Bad one to miss. Most of recent years' events would have tested an insomniac's affliction, but this year, Eric Schmidt was brought in as a headliner to kick some -- er, motivate publishers to seek new ways to reach out to readers and focus on, wait for it, advertising.Now,

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-48692345163256590152009-04-04T08:46:00.000-07:002009-04-06T17:28:07.234-07:00

In the biz we call it "make goods:" when an error or omission with an ad calls for the publisher (or broadcaster) to make an adjustment. An example would be running a car ad next to editorial about a car recall. In fact, in print, there are proof readers who are responsible to catch just those types of errors.The online world is a bit more dicey, as ads (or even editorial) are usually served

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-74140562385827006352009-03-05T05:25:00.000-08:002009-03-20T09:43:45.163-07:00

Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi joined me on a webcast I hosted for Nstein in early month on a burgeoning marketing sector: content marketing aka custom publishing. The webcast was part of the monthly Double-Down on Digital series Nstein is offering this Spring on how publishers can tap into new revenue streams -- providing they have an agile digital content supply chain.Content marketing is

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-49663841485207442912009-03-02T05:16:00.000-08:002009-03-05T14:16:15.274-08:00

The decision by the E.W. Scripps company to close the Rocky Mountain News on February 26 -- a month shy of its 150th birthday was more evidence of a vastly troubled industry. The mourning in Denver for the favorite voices that were silenced, was the exact way I felt in 1982 when Cowles Media stopped the presses on the Buffalo Courier-Express. (That paper resulted from the union of the Buffalo

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-69322948500338778222009-02-19T15:05:00.001-08:002009-03-06T18:17:22.063-08:00

The role of the newspaper.It's the Topic of the decade. As print flutters between being obsolete or merely deeply wounded, it struggles for relevancy in a world gone hyper-electronic. The days of delivering the news to a waking world at 6:30 am or to greet weary workers as they arrive home are long gone. The web and mobile phones changed all that a decade ago, but an obdurate industry and no less

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-391638245452271512009-02-09T11:44:00.000-08:002009-02-09T18:00:40.594-08:00

Double Down on Digital. It's a mantra we are playing out at Nstein with our four-part webinar series that advises media companies on how to play the odds with digital -- for lucrative payouts. And whether it be coincidence, alliteration or we've done a helluva job getting the message out there -- everyone seems to be working "double down" into conversations. NYT technology writer Chris Lohr

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-57712771081952737762009-01-21T06:57:00.000-08:002009-02-10T05:48:26.179-08:00

I've been building and buying CMS' since 1995 -- and have seen the good, the bad, and the truly hideous. The number one reason people won't work with technology is because it is too difficult to use. They have their day jobs -- and interpreting the screens and workflow that are foreign to them ... well, people just won't do it. And they don't. And the technology is a big fat expensive failure.The

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-42193477059622262302009-01-16T05:29:00.000-08:002009-02-09T18:03:01.475-08:00

I'm taking a break from writing on the fate of print for a while, because frankly, I've run out of words to describe "dismal, bleak, futile." Best give poor Thesaurus -- and publishers -- a break. (Mein Gott! With what their futures hold we best just pass out razor blades to the poor blokes and let them be done. Ooh, very bad joke: What's black and white and red all over ...)In any event, let's

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-45807797781179815162009-01-09T09:23:00.000-08:002009-01-09T11:25:49.182-08:00

Opened up a missive in InfoCommerce's newsletter this morning. Russell Perkins has been warning publishers for some time that they have acted like lemmings in embracing business models that shift the burden of risk from advertisers to publishers. First advertisers insisted they would only pay if people clicked through to the ad site (never mind how hideous or uncompelling the ad creative might be

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-80140015483317802532008-12-31T09:58:00.001-08:002009-01-13T08:40:00.107-08:00

What a year we are closing out! With 2009 just hours young in some parts of the world, I am going to go out on a limb to say all of us digital publishers out there are on the precipice of prosperity.No, I haven't started the festivities early. I am serious. Undoubtedly there are a few hurdles to overcome, but if you are still in business when dawn breaks in the morning, then you have a very good

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-50816086354123962482008-12-19T05:10:00.000-08:002009-01-13T13:37:00.787-08:00

I admit it. I have been a slow adopter to Twitter. I created my account about a year ago after reading a great post on Poynter, and filled out my profile to havealerts emailed to me when I was being followed or receiving a direct message, but I don't update from my phone. Yet. Am thinking about that. My friend Oleg just introduced me to TweetDeck and he has promised me more. Until he gets his

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-17156172111863058392008-12-17T09:33:00.000-08:002008-12-17T11:30:21.212-08:00

What a mind-boggling development according to The New York Observer. Perfect-bound mags who finally got around to building their web teams - are now laying them off to bolster their struggling print gorillas. It's a head-shaking turn of events, I know. But not totally unexpected. The magazines referenced, Condé Nast's Portfolio and Time Inc.'s Fortune, were facing steep cutbacks -- and the web

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-5505575031992659082008-12-16T04:58:00.001-08:002008-12-17T19:22:44.137-08:00

Former MSNBC GM Dan Abrams addresses grumbles to his new public affairs venture Abrams Research by stating It sounds like once you touch journalism, you can't work in any other industry. You know why? Because then you're a sellout.There's truth to that -- which is why the ginormous firewall between the newsroom and sales. Any hint of money or benefit for influence peddling has been a no-no. To

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-87261345461317745092008-12-10T05:14:00.000-08:002008-12-16T04:57:17.823-08:00

The hand-wringing in the publishing industry continues as Chicago Tribune files for bankruptcy, The NY Times mortgages its building, and the rest of the dailies mortgage their souls by dumping hoards of journalists out on the street.What seems like a lifetime ago during my tenure as head of interactive for New Jersey Press, my then boss, Bob McAllan (no relationship to the Scotch -- although he

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-21308116055464192722008-12-09T12:30:00.000-08:002008-12-10T05:14:36.315-08:00

People don't place a lot of faith in blogs, so says a Forrester report, particularly the corporate kind. It's not really so surprising. In this era of devaluation, corporate America has eroded credibility & integrity. A blog that is a mere infomercial can be seen for what it is. It's a fine line and an art to create a corporate blog that offers valuable (enough) information so that people want to

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-11886869473979167612008-12-09T08:10:00.000-08:002008-12-09T08:30:46.521-08:00

Am very interested in how people search and have created a new talk that explores how individuals "wayfind" in the physical world versus the digital one. Believe it or not, the same way we might navigate a very large commercial complex with mixed-use (retail, offices, restaurants etc.) is similar to how we would navigate a website. We are all looking for something, although admittedly some of us

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-56230761536483110362008-12-08T08:30:00.000-08:002008-12-17T19:25:33.454-08:00

I hate when I am hijacked into reading a story because of a Bad Headline. Nothing screams amateur hour more than a sensational hed that baits you but then delivers nada.Read this beauty from Huffington Post: "Biden to be Barred from Democratic Caucus Meetings".Barred? Does the writer/producer know the meaning of barred? Willingly returning to the rules prior to VP Cheney is not being barred from

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-70640660725808402192008-12-08T08:06:00.000-08:002008-12-08T08:28:52.592-08:00

Ha! Talk about ethics, integrity and honesty. Disgraced governor, Eliot Spitzer, is now a columnist for Slate, an online magazine owned by the Washington Post Company (you know the company that used to employ journalists!) Is it too soon? well if train-wreck watchers turn to him en masse, it will be a boon for Slate -- and yet another outlet for disgraced pols, celebs & who-ha's.

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-45387357517556549342008-12-08T05:17:00.000-08:002008-12-08T05:25:12.016-08:00

Great article by The New York Times guest opinionator Timothy Evans who implores manglers of the English language like Joe the Plumber and former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin to stop the madness and tear up those publishing contracts. Now the chances of them doing that are as likely as Palin not uttering a sentence like the following:I had great faith that, you know, perhaps when that

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2257057561435642172.post-78115242129269328772008-12-06T13:42:00.000-08:002008-12-06T14:17:03.561-08:00

A friend of mine has this very bright and ambitious young man working for him, who creates a pseudonym for social networking sites to go "undercover" for his company -- engaging in conversations with people without them knowing his identity -- or phishing for information. My friend is mortified and asked me to provide some guidelines that he could post.The principal guideline is simple: be honest

Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13324439974647442849noreply@blogger.com0