I share with you at the end of today’s show the interview I had on Friday with GoDaddy’s CEO after they reversed their SOPA stance. The info is a bit different than what is being portrayed on other site. Our CES coverage will be ramping up now and I hope that you will contribute to our support staff fund.. Your help is needed.

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Show Links:
GoDaddy Interview on SOPA.
Snow Tire Hacks for your Bike.
Storing those decorations.
Facebook Saves Woman and her Son.
What everyone got for Christmas.
New AR Drone controllers.
iPad Killer in Six Months?
Your New Mac Tips.
Japan Panel report on Nuclear Leak.
Charles Babbage.
Warner Brothers sued!
1095 Best Buy HDMI Cable.
Customer reviews 1095 HDMI Cable.
Custom Bookcase.
LG Pay to Play @ CES?
Shave ok – iPad Not?
Cyber Insurance.
Online Gambling now Ok?
Need Slipper?
ISS Videos explained.
No Christmas Spirit.
Health Apps.
Roku Gift Guide.
LG Announced Ice Cream Sandwich.
Boxee 1.5 Due.
Apple 12 days of Christmas after Christmas.
Amazon UK 12 Days of Christmas.
Windows Phone 7 Superior.
Apps are media?

Credits:
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The Google New mobile app received an update today, that was announced at the Google I/O Conference.  If you are a news hound then Google News is probably something you visit frequently.  And now, it just got better on your phone or tablet.  According to Google:

“Location-based news first became available in Google News in 2008, and today there’s a local section for just about any city, state or country in the world with coverage from thousands of sources. We do local news a bit differently, analyzing every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.”

If your phone tracks your location, and most do, then you can easily build a local new feed on your phone.  To get started you will have to visit Google News from your Android or iOS device.  A pop-up will ask you to share your location.  Just say “yes” and the local news will auto-populate.  You will then receive a “news near you” link at the bottom of you home page.  You can turn off the feature at any time hiding the section in your personalization settings or by adjusting your mobile browser settings.

This update adds a nifty “local” aspect to Google News that has been lacking since launch.  It’s a great way to keep up-to-date with what is going on around you.  Google News has continued to improve since launch, despite threats from high-powered news orginaztions such as Ruppert Murdoch’s empire.  Now they are muscling in on the territory of local papers and networks to go one step beyond.

Win a Prize, watch “The Gadget Professor” sign up for the newsletter and send Don some feedback on this new show. You can win a Dymo Label Printer. Lots of parts in Motion. We demo CueToo.com our new media on demand site. New ads campaigns starting next week as well. Next show will be from the Geek on the road.

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Show Notes:
Firefox Release Schedule!
AT&T and Verizon told to Share!
iPad O’Scope.
BitTorrent grows up.
Microsoft and Toyota.
Robot gets Shot?
F35 Ejection Seat Test.
Computer Screen Chapstick.
UK Seizing Domains!
China says no more Time Travel?
Tethering stealing?
Fed Gov’t Shutdown?
Want Bonus get Social.
Chrome to add Malware detection.
Google Travel only if Feds can Monitor?
Samsung 1 Million to Schools.
64 Bug Fixes on Patch Tuesday!
Signal Phone Boosters to get Regulated.
Hacker says he was working with Feds.
Windows Phone 7 Update Cautions.
81 Billion Light Year Explosion.
Space Shuttle Images.
ISS Gateway to Mars.
Jailbreak it?
Vulkano TV Streamer.
Websites for iPad.
MPAA loves to Sue and little else.
Seizing Domains to Continue.
Verizon keeping iPhone users connected.
2 Million iPad 2′s.
Facebook Open Source Servers.
Sushi Blocks.
Topener!
Mini Coffee Machine.
New Fire Extinguisher.
Dish + Blockbuster = Store Fronts.
March Madness digital results!
YouTube Organizing!
ESPN Goes Live!
Vortexbox!
Vending Box
HitPad customized news.
Gmail Updates.
GoFlex Sim Review.
100 Atari Games for Ios
Homeland Security Updated via Facebook?
Time Warner off to Court.
WHS 2011 Available.
Pandora spying on you?
LinkedIn and Android.
Skype Linux Update.
Bing iPad App.
Nook Apps?
Verizon 2yr contracts only!

Tech discussions with guests Michael Dell of Geek of the North and Henrik de Gyor of AnotherdamPodcast. We cover the latest trends and topics in tech this past week. Have a topic you would like my guest and I to cover next weekend email me at geeknews@gmail.com

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Streamed at Ustream.TV

Like millions of others, I’ve been glued to news sources to get as much current information as I can about the ongoing disasters in Japan following the massive earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear plant disasters. This has to be the biggest natural disaster that has occurred in my lifetime.

In pre-Internet days, we had to rely on newspapers and television for news. Those forms of information have their problems. This is the Internet age. I want current information directly from the source NOW, not later. I want current information of my choice, not what news agencies that aren’t directly on the scene think is or is not important for me to know. If I want 24/7 disaster coverage, in the Internet age that becomes possible, allowing me to completely bypass limited conventional coverage.

It took a while for me to find, but there’s an iPhone/iPod/iPad/iOS app from Japan’s NHK called NHK World TV Live. The app is free. Once the app is installed, it operates very simply. You simply open the app and the live video directly from Japan’s NHK World news service immediately begins streaming. Search iTunes for NHK World TV Live.

The service has an English translator that talks over the lowered volume of the original Japanese broadcasts. The English translators aren’t slick and you can hear them become a bit confused from time to time.

There’s also an app from the Al jazeera TV English news network that operates live out of Doha, Qatar. Al jazeera TV English is highly produced from a beautiful state-of-the-art studio. The on-air newsreaders seem to be British nationals. Though Al jazeera gives more news from the Arab world than the typical American is used to, they do a pretty good job of covering international news, including the situation in Japan. Search iTunes for Al jazeera English Live.

Savvy TV news agencies in today’s world have to make themselves available if they want to continue to be relevant. News agencies such as the BBC, CBC, CNN, Fox, etc. seem to be dragging their feet regarding available-to-anyone-anywhere 24/7 Internet TV broadcasting. I believe they are already losing world market share.

Guest Adrian Bacon from Quicksurf.com joins me in what turned out to be not such and early show, after we got hammered with technical difficulties. Thanks to Adrian for being a great sport and coming in a bit later to do the show. We go through some hot topics of the week.

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Todd Cochrane interviewed Jeanniey Mullen from Zinio which is the oldest digital publishing company. It has over 3500 digital magazines available through its catalog. Zinio has been around for over 10 years now. it first started out on the PC. It has seen an explosive growth in interest with the introduction of the iPhone and especially the iPad. Zinio allows you to read on or off-line. A person can buy a single issue or a subscription. It is up to the publisher whether you can buy digital only or if it comes bundled with the paper version.

As Jeanniey showed the big difference between digital and paper magazines is the ability to add video and audio to them and make them interactive. Also connecting a magazine to other things such as catalogs, or an online music store. Allowing the consumer to see something in a magazine and buy it right then and there. Digital magazines are still in their infancy it will be interesting to see where they go over the next couple of years.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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There’s a story over at The Register covering an article in a Belgian newspaper, De Tijd, which suggests that Apple is determined to get its money from the media companies, one way or another. Basically, those media companies that offer a free app to subscribers of their print editions are going to be forced to discontinue the practice and that all subscriptions must go through Apple’s iTunes, where Apple can collect its 30%.

The story quotes two people, William De Nolf, Director of New Media at Roularta and Gert Ysebaert, of publishing house Corelio, who complain about Apple’s tactics.

De Nolf says, “We are working on the launch of the iPad selling subscriptions through our own web service, but Apple is now demanding that the sale is through iTunes…Today, paper subscribers get free access to the iPad version, but Apple has put a stop to it.”

Ysebaert complains, “[Going through iTunes], the newspaper loses the direct relationship with its customers. We should know who buys our publications, not Apple…Apple is changing the rules while the game is in progress. ”

As far as The Register can tell, this only seems to be affecting Belgian media but there’s the obvious implication that it will eventually reach other countries such as the UK and US. It may already have but no-one has yet spoken out.

The Register also thinks that it might have something to do with Apple’s link-up to Murdoch’s News Corporation and the launch of The Daily, a subscription-based news service but clearly that’s speculation.

Regardless of the latter, Apple seems hell-bent on controlling every aspect of application and media delivery to its devices and ensuring that it gets its money from the content creators as well as the application developers.

Translations courtesy of Google Translate and some paraphrasing by me.

I announce the 2010 24hr Podcast Charity, “The Coalition to Salute Americas Heroes” (CSAH). The geek here is fighting something nasty, so a little shorter show than normal, but it is still jammed packed with info. I have a huge number of announcements tonight that surround everything going on.. Thanks for your support and all the great emails coming in. Feel free to comment on the show via email or the hotline at 1-619-342-7365

Please check out our new Sponsor Luxor, they are one of the official sponsor for CES 2011. Really excited to have them on-board and will be sharing a lot about their property over the next couple of weeks.

The following Sponsors support GNC your support of them is appreciated!
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Sun Sparks be Flying.
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SpaceX Critical Launch Delayed?
Another Jupiter Sized Planet?
NASA Sail.
Sleeping Qtrs on ISS.
Nexus S Back Story.
Google needs their own News Channel.
Mac App Store to Launch on 13th.
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AT&T gets beat up again!
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US Copyright Corp gets Slammed.
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Wi-Fi in all Federal Buildings.
100 Billion in bad $100 Bills.
Don’t speed get entered in Lottery.
Tumblr Crash and Burns.
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Founder Control.
Feds arrest Idiot Business Owner.
Barbie Video Warning.
Nissan Leaf.
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Newsday drops Paywall?
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Send in your stories to geeknews@gmail.com and be sure to provide a link to your websites!

A lot of people are saying RSS Readers are dead – or on life-support, but I certainly don’t think so.  In fact I use one more now than I ever did.  Sure, breaking news may be easier to find on Twitter, but that does not cover most of what we are all interested in.  You won’t find, at least not easily, basic news headlines there.  Twitter is great, but it’s more for the sensational as opposed to the non-headliners.  But, it’s those non-headliner stories that we so often care about – the one about Adobe issuing a security update for Flash, or that your team pulled out a last minute win, or even the latest spectacular photo from Hubble.

Some of you who read this site probably also listen to the associated podcast (and those who don’t should).  If you are among those who do, then you probably are aware that Todd uses Google Reader to bring you the latest news stories from the tech world in each episode.  There’s a reason he’s using this technology and that’s because it still works better that anything else to bring you the news you want in a timely fashion.

But what you may not know is that Google Reader is not just a program for tech headlines.  Everyone can use it and for all kinds of news.  If you want tech news or sports or science or headline, it doesn’t matter.  You can add any site that has an RSS feed.  Then you can divide them into categories, move them around by drag-and-drop and organize however you want.

This is how I get my news everyday.  I rarely visit sites for this information.  When I find a site that has something of interest to me then I add it to Reader.  If I want to expand on an article I can click on it and it will open in a new tab.  Generally, I will go through all of my feeds and click on the articles that interest me, which opens them in a new tab, that I can click later to read the details.

I can edit the feeds as well.  This means that they can me added into groups (folders) that I create (such as Science), moved around, or removed altogether.

Google Reader is included in Google Mobile Apps, which can be loaded on almost any smartphone – Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android, etc.

Feedreaders are nothing new, and Google Reader, itself, has been around a while.  But, if those I know are any indication, many PC users are not using them.  And, I think the main reason for that is a simple lack of knowing about them and understanding how much convenience and efficiency they can add.

Following on from some of early articles this week on news and newspapers, Shaun at PDA-247 has written a blog post Digital Newspapers: Stuck at Page One? which covers his experience of The Times Online on the iPad.

In the post, he thinks that he’s getting value for money for his £2 a week as the content and presentation are good.  Although some people are still reluctant to pay for news content, he’s done the maths and even with the (assumed) 90% reduction in subscribers, the website will still pull in £1 million every year.  Not huge money, but it’s early days.

Shaun says that people are used to getting something physical for their money.  People like the physicality of books and DVDs though I think it’s as much about having the item to show off your good taste rather than the item itself.   Anyway, the physical nature of books and DVDs hardly counts when it comes to newspapers as most people throw them away once the paper is read.

He closes by suggesting that newspaper reading is dwindling because of competing pressure on our free time.  This is the era of satellite TV, the internet, the social network and the poor old newspaper has fallen by the wayside.

All good points and worth giving the orginal article a quick read.

Andrew Marr, formerly the BBC’s Political Editor, has written a series of articles on the changing face of news and journalism in an era of technological change.

In the first, End of the News Romantics, he comments how he always thought he’d be a true newspaper and newscast kind of guy but in fact he’s embracing the new technology of tablets and phones.  He says, “A few years ago, I was shaking my head and saying I thought I’d had the best of times for journalism, and wouldn’t want my children to join the trade. No longer. I’d like to be 20 and starting out again right now.”

In the second, A New Journalism on the Horizon, he talks in a little bit more detail about the media revolution, where he discusses the future of journalism in the age of new media.  He starts out from the recent revelations that (a) the estimated readership of the The Times Online has dropped by 90% since the introduction of the paywall and (b) e-books are outstripping hardbacks on Amazon, and how these facts seem to be contra-indications.

He puts forwards two points, the first being that the notion of not paying for news seems to be somewhat strange.  People pay for DVDs, magazines, TV channels, mobile apps, e-books, so why not news?  Although he’d be happy to pay, he wants to be able to pick and choose – politics but not fashion, business but not crime – so he feels the proposition will need to be refined.

The second point is that there will undoubtedly be consolidation in the market for general news or the news of the day.  But he believes that underneath this will be specialist news organisations that deal in particular sectors of the market, such as automotive, enviromental, foreign countries.  This will be where the real knowledge and understanding will be.

As ever, it’s hard to gaze into the crystal ball and predict the future.  From my previous posts, you’ll know that I think we have to start paying for news if we want quality journalism to continue.  As to the second point, of  specialised news organisations, I think he’s right.  Imagine CNN or the BBC no longer having a technology correspondent and outsourcing that to Engadget or Gizmodo.  Or business news provided by the Economist. It’s not a hard stretch of the imagination to see that coming.

What do you think?  Will the news organisations of today simply become aggregators?

How social media points the way forward for journalism. It’s a real example of how traditional media are becoming social media-aware and are using Facebook, Twitter and their ilk to get the news stories out faster and with more information.

However, what really registered with me is at the very end of the article.

There is a word of caution that goes with trusting what we read on this great “word of mouth” network.  Recent rumour mill stories on Facebook on the private lives of footballers ended up in the press and were proven to be totally wrong. So while this new technology can speed up the newsgathering process, journalists will need to make sure they do what they have always done – double check the facts.

I have real concerns about the loss of the old news media.  Obviously there’s no single cause but the rise of new media, the Internet “no cost” expectation and the “now” culture are all taking the toll.    But what will be the cost to our society when we no longer have professional journalists?

What will happen to investigative journalism?  What will happen when hysterical but unfounded rumours sweep across the social networks?  How will politicians be held to account when there is no-one to report on their mistakes?  How much more easy will it be to cover stuff up?

I can’t think of a single other instance where it’s become acceptable for amateurs to take over the role of professionals.  Would you want an amateur doctor to treat you?  An amateur engineer to design a bridge?  An amateur firefighter to attend an emergency?  No, I want these people to study for years to become competent at what they do.  Why should journalism be any different?  Just because you can string a sentence together, doesn’t make you a journalist.

Now, you may think that it’s a bit rich coming from a blogger for a major new media site but to tie this back to the original news story, I think it genuinely points the way ahead.  We have to get away from old media v. new media, it has to be co-opetition not competition, symbiotic not parasitic, and we have to find a way to reward news organisations and professional journalists to keep doing what they’re doing.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know is that it will be social disaster if we lose professional journalists because we were too cheap to buy a newspaper.

I was pretty early in signing up for Twitter.  I don’t remember exactly when, but early.  I followed a few people, mostly ones in the tech world such as Leo Laporte, etc.  I didn’t check my account all that often and, when I did, there were too many posts to read back through.

After a while, I discovered Twitter desktop apps and things improved.  I think it was twhirl, but I couldn’t swear to it.  My use of Twitter went up with this new advance.  Now I could keep the app open on my desktop, in the background.  I started to follow a little more, post a little more, and was better able to keep up with the posts of those I was following.

Then I got an app for my phone.  After a while I changed to another and then yet another.  Currently I use TouchTwit.  This, the phone app, was the biggest revelation for me.  Now Twitter is always with me no matter where I am.  Now I no longer miss any posts from any of the people I follow.  And I post much more than ever.

This phone revelation, which began for me a couple of years ago, prompted more changes than those I just mentioned though.  It prompted me to really think about who I followed.  I made changes.  I added and I removed.  I discovered there were two distinctively different types of people (or in some cases entities) I was following.  There were those I followed for fun – some are my friends, some are pro athletes, some are tech journalists.  And then there were those I followed for news and information – for instance a local news radio station and local newspaper keep me up-to-date on local news, Breaking News keeps me informed of national and world news, ProCyclingLive keeps me up to the minute about what is going on during a bike race, AmazonMP3 and AmazonVideo give me deals on purchases and rentals (complete with the occasional coupon code for a discount), and this list goes on.

There is humor to be found – take a tweet I remember from a year or so ago from Lance Armstrong (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Dear ATT, it’s been two weeks since you said you’d fix my home phone.  Maybe tomorrow?”  Followed a few hours later by another tweet along the lines of “just returned from a training ride and there’s an ATT truck in front of my house.”  Not only was it amusing, but it also demonstrated the power that having a LOT of followers can have, even over a major corporation.

There’s the real human impact that came home to us last year when we all sat spellbound as the only news that we, or even the major outlets like CNN, could get about the Iranian Election protests came to us via the citizens of Iran as they posted to Twitter what was happening, complete with pictures and videos, in their country.  Their internet shut off by a dictatorial regime, they got word out to the world using Twitter apps and cellular connections.  They nearly brought down a tyrannical government using modern technology that these old-style regimes weren’t prepared to deal with.

I sat dumbfounded over my breakfast one morning as tweet after tweet rolled past revealing the horror of the Chilean earthquake and subsequent tsunami warnings.  The information leapfrogged the best news outlets we have because it came, first-person, from those who were there on the ground, in the middle of the devastation.

And, I will close with a gem (for me at least).  Recently my daughter celebrated a birthday.  She is also a huge football fan of, thankfully, the same team that I am a fan of.  I took a chance and tweeted to one of her favorite players that she was a fan and it was her birthday.  Within 20 minutes I received a reply from him wishing her, by name, a happy birthday.  She now has a printout of that tweet hanging on her wall.  I certainly can’t say that all such people in his position would have done this.  But it’s great that we have this way of communicating with even the famous and, if they want, they can communicate back with their fans.  (Note: I am not naming him because I wouldn’t want him to be swamped with requests.)

In a short time Twitter has gone from posts about what you had for breakfast to changing the world.  They may have fewer users than Facebook, but there’s a very real reason why many say Facebook has Twitter-envy.  They may have the power and the technology to change the world in very palpable ways, especially in places where governments have a vested interest in the suppression of information.

There was a recent article at Arstechnica.Com describing how The Times in the U.K. ended up cutting its web traffic in half by simply requiring registration so that viewers could read their articles. Prior to this, the articles on the site were freely available. The registration requirement is in anticipation of their future paywall plans.

I have to admit that I’m one of the people who left their site more than once when I clicked on a link and was presented with the registration requirement. I’ve done the same thing on other newspaper sites as well. Will people pay for online news?

At its essence, news is often glorified gossip.

There are plenty of successful paywall sites. Here are three sites that incorporate paywalls that I personally find worthwhile enough subscribe to: Netflix.Com,  Rushlimbaugh.Com and FHU.Com.

Netflix began life as a DVD rental service and most recently added a very popular streaming service as value-added subscriber benefit behind a paywall. The Netflix streaming service helped convince me to sign up and become a customer, as well as the availability of Blu-Ray discs. If Netflix had DVD’s only, I wouldn’t be a subscriber. Streaming and Blu-Ray make me willing to open my wallet.

Rushlimbaugh.Com puts the site’s massive and growing archive behind a paywall that includes access to the Rush Limbaugh podcast version of his radio show where they perform the courtesy of cutting out all of the network ads. Being able to receive the ad-free podcast of the daily Rush Limbaugh radio program is why I subscribe. I rarely sign into the site and go behind the paywall. I want the ad-free daily podcast, so I pay, even though I could get the program for free by listening on the radio.

FHU.Com also puts a massive and growing archive of radio programs, books and video behind a paywall. I want access to this material, and since it’s a charitable organization, I am willing to donate to gain access behind the paywall and support them.

I don’t envision myself ever paying for access to a newspaper website. I have never subscribed to a printed newspaper. I used to subscribe to a number of printed computer, stereo and photography magazines, but somehow that lost its appeal a number of years ago and I let the subscriptions run out.

For a paywall site to be successful, it must have something behind that wall that people want access to. They must offer something of value that revolves around the essence of what they do best.

The 33rd America’s Cup yacht race gets under way in a week’s time from Valencia in Spain, pitting two of the most hi-tech yachts against in each other in a series of races.  The defender is Switzerland’s Alinghi catamaran and the challenger is the US’s BMW Oracle Racing, a stunning trimaran with the world’s largest single wing at over 68m – a 747′s wing is 31m.

There are some great videos on both websites and the cost, complexity and technology on these boats is simply stunning.  The winged keels, the composite hulls, everything is being pushed to the limit….and when they go past it, it’s going to be spectacular.

There’s been a fair bit of legal wrangling going on about the race but I’m glad it’s finally going to be settled on the water rather than in the courtroom.

Keep an eye on the action via Twitter and may the best team win.

Basically it has got everything you need to follow local news.  The only complaint I have is I wish it would update more often.  If you live in the Charleston-Huntington area I would recommend downloading the application.  If you live some other area then go to the Iphone app store and put in your local news station call sign. If an application is available download it, you may learn things you didn’t know about your area.

Are you willing to pay for the news. That is what Rupert Murdoch maybe betting on. Rupert Murdoch is the owner of a media empire which includes the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. Lately he has been talking about removing his news empire from Google Search and putting them behind a pay wall

Clearly for this to work it would depend on if people are willing to pay for their news. I found an article on Technologizer that said that 45% of people surveyed were willing to pay for news. When I saw this article red flags immediately went up in my head, based on what I had previously heard and read. I wanted to find out more about this survey. The original article came from the New York Times, upon reading the Times’ article I found that the survey was done by the Boston Consulting Group.

I went to their Web site, where there was a fuller explanation of the survey. People are willing to pay for the news, but only under narrow and specific circumstances. This is the key paragraph that the New York Times and Tech chose to ignore.

“• Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents)

• Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents)

• Conveniently accessible on a device of choice.”

Consumer, however are not willing to pay for news that is freely available all over the Internet. The consumers that are most willing to pay for their news are those that are already paying for newspaper. I suspect that this is an older and increasingly smaller audience. Even if consumer are willing to pay for their subscription, they are not willing to pay enough to make up for the lost of advertisement that newspapers have been dealing with. A pay wall might slow the decline but it will not stop it. The only way that newspapers can survive is to adapt to the new world, the old model is no longer viable and to try to save it is doom to fail

Watching the news has always been a necessary evil.  It seems filled with tragic and depressing stories.  On occasion I have doubted the wisdom in showing what is shown.  In an unofficial and unresearched opinion, it seems to me that the more murder suicide stories they show about a man and his family, the more that occur.  Sick people are not helped and deterred by seeing the stories.  Healthy people are no safer.  I’ve had the unfortunate task of going with the police to give news of a murder suicide to a family.  Should I Twitter, Facebook, or blog about it?
Paul Carr over at Tech Crunch has written a second time about the subject of unwise and foolish micro-bloggers.  My summary:  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.  We have had storm chasers, now we have Twitter and blogging chasers?  It frightens me.  Many times I’ve heard Todd Cochrane, the host of GNC, say “I’m not ready to comment on this until I’ve thought it through.”  How can we pass on some of Todd’s common sense to the rest of the world?
Censorship and regulation frightens us.  Anarchy and absence of accountability  scares me much more.  I have friends who are citizens of countries other than the United States.  They know what it is like to live in a dictatorship or close to it.  As a matter of fact I am currently touring countries with much less freedom.  I am not speaking without a foreign awareness.  The same freedom of the press and freedom of speech that we hold dear, we could be using as a weapon of destruction upon ourselves.  We must act responsibly.  Hold our tongue.  Getting the news out is secondary to immediate concern for the people involved.
This week in Florida a missing baby was found alive.  Further news revealed that the mother was part of the disappearance.  That baby will forever be etched in the inter-webs and sought after for interviews when she is a teen.  “How does it feel to have had your mother fake your kidnapping when you were a child?”  Maybe it should be a live Twitter interview.
Well enough of the rant.  Next article I’ll give some of my opinions on responsible blogging and micro-blogging.  Thanks for reading and taking a few minutes to think through it all before you react.

Many people are still very simple in their use of the internet.  They check email and a handful of websites on a regular basis.  They are not users who follow large numbers of RSS feeds or use an RSS reader.  For those people let me give you an option that I have used on occasion.

I follow maybe six or eight tech sites on a regular basis.  My brother recommended Tabbloid.com.  Tabbloid delivers you a daily electronic magazine composed of the RSS stories from your chosen favorite sites.  You put in the website addresses you desire and Tabbloid does the rest.  An easy to read PDF document, Tabbloid, is delivered to your inbox at the chosen time. For me that is in the morning.  With a quick easy glance I can read through the headlines and stories from my favorite sites.  Maybe you have a certain type of web content you don’t check every day, Tabbloid is like the newspaper and magazine that waits for you.  No more looking way down the list of titles or sifting through the archives of sites.  Just open and read.

This is not for the power RSS user, but for the basic user it may be perfect.  Registration is quick and easy using the email address you want it delivered to.  Everything is so easy and slick you may be astounded that its free.  The site does one thing and does it well.  It is website content delivered to the common man.

Check out this screenshot. Tell me why it’s an Oxymoron:

If you said “This is an Associated Press article – I CANNOT share it on Mixx, Buzz, Digg, Reddit, Facebook or Newswire”, then you are correct!

If you go to the A.P.s site, you do not see any sharing widgets. However, if you go to the sites that pay for the content, they could have these little add-ons to try and promote their brand. But with these widgets, they could be in breech of their contract.

The Associated Press has said it doesn’t want to squelch new media, but it will go after sites that post it’s content and make money on it. Isn’t that like EVERY site on the Internet?

Back in June, the AP told their reporters to police social media like Facebook and Twitter. The idea would be to identify and irradicate any posts that violate their usage policies. So you could get a take down notice if you post  or “Re Tweet” those A.P. articles.

If you have a website and you have A.P. content on it, you might want to think about those little blurbs to suggest sharing the articles. You may be inadvertently breaching your contract.

I wonder if someone should start a list of Websites that use A.P. so we all know not to share the data from it. Of course, I am not going to rock that boat. However, if you know of a website that is an Associated Press site, you might want to comment on it below…

The origins of the Onion newspaper come from my hometown. In fact, I worked with a few of the staffers at other local University newspapers. I did do a couple “Satire” articles for the Onion, but nothing was published.

Apparently, the Onion has a great reach – even to those who don’t understand. Another article was re-published as actual news. This time it was a Bangladesh newspaper – The Daily Manab Zamin – which then was picked up by the New Nation.

The articles talked about a (supposed) news story that Neil Armstrong was quoted “the Moon landings were fake…” The two news agencies soon after learning the Onion is a satirical paper, apologized for the misinformation.You can read the Onion article here

This is not the first time the Onion has influenced another writer. in 2004, the Beijing News first didn’t site the Onion until pressured. The news article was about how Congress won’t resume until a new “Modern” capitol was built. So not only did they use misinformation, they plagiarized it.

It’s interesting how the web can spread a hoax. There was another, also in 2004, where a man beheaded himself on a video. It was posted to see how fast the video could be made into news. An Arab station picked it up and the wheels were set in motion.

As for the Onion, please understand it is not a real news source. It is satire. If I remember correctly, there was only one issue that actually reported real news. But that was years ago and no one remembers it.

The truths:

1. News is moving online.  People want instant access to news without waiting until the next morning or afternoon.
2. The recession has caused a terrifying drop in printed advertising causing a quick but low profit move online.

The conclusions:

1. Local news companies must move to quick unabbreviated news online that incorporates local business advertising.
2. Local businesses must move online with a web presence that brings both foot traffic to the brick and mortar store as well as an online business.

An example:

The Fargo Forum moved to a CMS and used their site extremely well during the recent flood.  The site is not necessarily as polished and easy to navigate as Foxnews.com, but a good start in the online news business.  However, the prime advertising real estate on the site is for Forum operated sites.  Sites that local businesses can join and participate/advertise in.  Really they are ads for the Forum classifieds (i.e. Homes, Apartments, Cars, etc.)  There are really very few ads for individual businesses.  And once you visit the the business you may or may not be greeted by a discount or sales offer.  This must change if local news and businesses are going to make the transition.  The Forum is definitely in the game and making progress but it has room to grow.

The online move of news could force more and more local businesses to develop a true online presence.  It may not mean an online store, but it will mean an online version of what they would have had printed in the paper.  Additionally, they can have the equivalent of an entire sales flier for the price of an online click-through ad.  Could this mean a resurgence for web developers as local businesses must build dynamic CMS sites?  I believe that the local news agencies and businesses that catch on to this partnership and market will rediscover the advertising gold mine.  The early bird will get the worm.

I love an ironic post title!

Twitter is not something that has made any impact on my day-to-day tech life.  It just does not provide me with any appreciable value.  The signal to noise ratio is just too high for me, and what it does offer for me I can do through other means.  It seems that I am not alone in this regard with Nielsen today re-affirming their estimate that the drop-off rate for Twitter is around 60%.  This recount factored in the use of Twitter based applications and websites that might have been clouding the results.

So Twitter seems to be gaining a lot of new people to it, unsurprising given the buzz it receives, but is not providing enough value to keep them.  Despite this the pundtry seem to have a facination with the world changing ability of the platform.  I do not mean to be derisive of the technology, I am more interested in the disconnect.

The opinion I have come to is that the Twitter model offers specific value to the celebrity-fan relationship.  I am using ‘celebrity’ a bit broadly here to represent anybody who has extensive one to many communications with a regular audience.  In these relationships the fan has a greater interest in the individual activities of the celebrity, whereas the celebrity is more interested in the aggregate activities of their fans.  While new media might go some way to correcting this imbalance, is is not practical for most celebs to have that personal relationship with their fans.

Twitter becomes a method for a celebrity to approximate a more personal relationship with their fans.  They can offer more of themselves easily and get a relatively concise subset of what their fans wish to tell them at any period of time.  The fan gets a chance that the celebrity might actually reply to them and the 140 character limit prevents the whole thing from getting out of hand.

The information communicated in this medium is by no means only of a superficial or personal nature.  Having the stream of communication open also allows the celebrity to get information to the fans they might not get through other means.  Whether this is a spontaneous appearance, rallying them to an action/cause, directing their attention or correcting a false rumour/report.  This is why the appeal stretches to more types of people than would typically be covered by the term celebrity.

So if you are a Todd Cochrane, a Leo Laporte, a PUSA or an Oprah, there is a much greater value to Twitter than if you are a generic user of the product.  This value also exists, although to a much lesser extent, if you are a fan or interested observer of one of these people.  Which does suggest that to get money for their value, Twitter should charge for accounts that have high numbers of followers.

The people who get the most value out of Twitter are then precisely the same set of people that are most visible reporters of technology trends.  If they see much more value than the average user does it stands to reason that the focus they give the product will be higher than their audience would expect.

Do you think I am on, the money, on the right track, or way off base with this?

I am starting to see some very interesting uses for Twitter.  I won’t link to it as it is not child safe, but the No Agenda stream uses Twitter as a control mechanism.  News stories, requests and listener comments come in via Twitter and are automatically inserted into the stream.  I do feel though that Twitters value to most users is when it is coupled to some other communication method.  If messages can be direct, personal, narrow cast, or broadcast, Twitter is an option for broadcast.  Whether it has the strength to thrive with such a narrow focus remains to be seen.

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