About eight months ago, I did a series of blog posts critiquing some of the paid-membership, professional journalism organizations and of the top four, the Online News Association probably saw the harshest criticism. Since then, ONA has made some changes and I wanted to update some of my points.

(For the record, no one from ONA has acknowledged my blog critique except Amy Webb, who is planning the convention  this year and asked for feedback/advice on the curriculum. But it appears that my words or something else has lit a fire under ONA and they’ve made several notable changes regaurding some of the issues I brought up.)

1 – Convention lineup improved
The conference organizers (Amy Webb, Tiffany Shackelford and I think Chrys Wu and probably 9382389 other people are behind the scenes helping too) may have prepared the best lineup ever at ONA. Many of the panels are high-utility and very applicable to actually getting things done and less about the panelist’s ego than in previous years. The topics also much closer to being cutting edge and more technologically focused than ever before — I never would have thought I’d see something about the Semantic Web at ONA! (Yay!)

I am slightly disappointed by the IRE organized pre-workshop on “Dynamic Websites for Newsrooms” not including DJango (instead only speaking to Ruby on Rails development), especially since I believe more news organizations actually use Django than Ruby… but it’s not a huge deal. The fact that Ruby is getting taught at an ONA conference is excellent.

2 – Board diversity encouraged more precisely

On Feb. 15, almost exactly one month after my post, ONA announced, “Starting this fall, with the election for the 2009 board, associate, academic and student members of the Online News Association now will be eligible to vote and run for ONA’s board of directors. … While we remain primarily focused on the needs of working journalists, we also recognize that the board should better reflect the membership as a whole. So we have modified the bylaws to provide for the election of up to three non-professional members to the board.”

They’ve followed through this summer in their board member nomination process by specifically calling out the precise diversity issues I pointed out (that the board is predominately older executives, largely white males at major publications high up on the totem pole). For nominations this year they specifically asked for:

It is the responsibility of the Nominating Committee to present a slate that reflects a diversity of interests in the make-up of the board. These interests include:

-Types of online medium represented on the board.
-Sizes of institutions represented by the individual member.
-Type of experience in digital media.
-Representation that reflects the diverse communities that journalism serves.

This is fantastic. (Yay!) Now hopefully some young, smart, diverse individuals were nominated (and still working after the bloodiest summers in the history of this profession).

3 – Representing the business better on larger issues
In March, two months after my critique, ONA publicly spoke out (and notified its members) about the tighter Major League Baseball restrictions and to the Dallas Mavericks for their new media policy. (Yay!)

This is fantastic and something I’d like to continue to see more of from ONA. Perhaps even an partnership with the Electronic Frontier Foundation? ONA has the power to bring major online and information issues to the forefront. Specifically, I’d really like to see them start speaking out and educating members about Net Neutrality and how if it goes away it could disastrously affect both journalism and online freedoms. There is no other journalism organization more perfectly positioned to spearhead this important issue. (Disclosure: Anyone that reads this blog knows I’m a huge proponent of protecting Net Neutrality. If you didn’t, now you do.)

4 – Releasing the conference audio
I’ve been critical about ONA capturing audio of the conferences then selling it back to members for $149 a CD, while many, MANY other conventions offer this stuff for free — even in video form and to the entire public, not just members! It’s a great form of free marketing for your organization!

Since my post, (on April 2, to be exact) ONA has turned over half a new leaf and is at least sharing this content with paid members — they’ve posted notes and audio files from the 2007 conference in the members area of the site! Free to everyone (especially since it’s now a year old) would have been cool but I’ll take this victory. (Yay!)

5- ONA expands its web presense
On July 28th, ONA announced they hired their first Web Editor, Sherry Skalko. (This wasn’t part of my critique but I believe it should have a positive impact on the organization and should be applauded.) Also this summer, Interactive Narratives 2.0 launched, which ONA helped support. (Triple yay!) I’m also intrigued by the grant they were awarded for ‘expanding member services‘ and what that actually means. We’ll see what happens.

It should also be noted that over the past couple months Acting Executive Director, Tom Regan, has also done an absolutely fantastic job covering for Lori Schwab (the former Executive Director who left ONA this summer).

So they definitely made a great deal of progress since my critique but I think also they took one step back recently:

1- Nickelin’ and dimin’.

This next convention is going to be an expensive one. The host hotel costs $259 a night at the ‘discounted’ rate and that’s going to turn away members who aren’t already into the ONA ‘class.’

I’m afraid this is going to continue a trend I noticed at last year’s convention, where there was quite a dearth of the Seth Gitners and the William Couches of the online news business. You know, the smart worker bees that win the awards, innovate regularly and keep readers coming back looking for more interesting online experiences? The ones who make all the ONA members in sport coats look good? They can’t afford to expense it and most papers aren’t helping them out anymore.

The point is, they shouldn’t have to rob two banks to get the money to attend an industry convention. It’s not just ONA either. UNITY had some crazy ‘discounted’ rates for their hotels. But I’m getting off topic now.

Other nicklin’ and dimin’ from ONA:
+ Charging for a job fair at the worst time in the history of journalism
They’re holding a job fair in conjunction with the convention. (Yay!) But charging outsiders (people not registered for the convention) $50 to enter the room, $25 for students. (Boo!) Change people, fine, but keep it under $25 unless you can gaurentee more than 25 employers that will be there and actually hiring. And charging the students? Thumbs down. It should be noted again that if you’ve paid for the convention you get in free — but you still have to register for the job fair. (Really? They can’t print off a list of the registrants and just look at that if they try and sneak into the job fair?) ONA is also charging anyone that’s hiring (all 3? maybe 4? publications) $250 to set up a table. (Boo!)

+ Dinner for $125 — you better be sure you’re taking home some glass
ONA has also announced they’re charging $125 per person to attend the awards banquet if you’re not registered for the conference. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS. So if you’ve got a spouse or a proud mom that you want to impress with your shiny piece of ONA glass (assuming that you actually win) that’ll be $250. Are you a polygamist? You might want to get out your Centurion Card.

In retrospect though, I realized $125 may be the standard fee for eating dinner with ONA; I, unfortunately, attended an ONA dinner in Orlando a couple years ago and was surprised by a $125 per person check (which my multimedia producer ass couldn’t expense like some of the ‘other’ ONA fat cats).

But seriously — high fives all around and a little wag of the finger
Please don’t get me wrong. I definitely think ONA is making *VAST* improvements in 2008. But the cost issue concerns me as we are all feeling an immense financial crunch of an industry going through massive change during a recession or economic downturn or whatever we’re calling it now. I worry that new, non-uppercrust members, who may be intrigued by some of the leadership and cirriculum changes, may be locked out by the money issue. Which is unfortunate, because there’s great potential in an organization like this that gets young, energized creative people behind it.

I’m also kinda writing this to for all the kids out there to let them know that sometimes when you speak up for change you can make progressive things happen (even if no one acknowledges it).

A monster site created by the dynamic duo of Maurice Tamman and Charlie Szymanski at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. It’s filled with deep historical data, Google maps and offers an full-screen experience.

http://stormadvisory.org

A clean, basic Google map mashup of storms, their strengths and paths. It gets the job done.

http://www.stormpulse.com

This is just a beautiful site all around. Beyond it’s aesthetic appeal, it’s brilliantly engineered and doesn’t use Google maps. Nor Yahoo maps. Nor Microsoft Live Vista Longhorn Maps (or whatever they’re calling it now). All the visual and storm data is automated from NASA and NOAA. There’s even (semi) live clouds formations! It’s just remarkable.
Full disclosure: Storm Pulse is a side project of programming ninja, Matt Wensing (half of the Storm Pulse team), who is now a coworker at my day job and quite a dope g if I do say so myself.

Weather Underground

http://www.wunderground.com

Not nearly as pretty as Storm Pulse but the grandfather and an immense hive of information. Especially Jeff Master’s weather blog.

Am I missing any awesomeness in other sites out there? Please let me know in the comments!

How news spreads in the digital age
Medill ninja and homie, Rich Gordon, rocks solutions for saving journalism. “So here’s a stab at some lessons from the two News21 stories:

• Journalists still play a critical function in identifying stories important for citizens to be aware of.
• To maximize the audience for any particular news story, both traditional media and new media are important.
• Because mass media journalists must make news judgment decisions based on limited space or air time, they inevitably (and sometimes mistakenly) bypass stories that appeal primarily to niche audiences.
• Attention is aggregated differently on the Internet than in traditional media — blogs and other Web sites with niche audiences are critical to driving traffic to Internet content.”

FTC shoots down Net Neutrality, says it is not needed
“The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to “Net Neutrality” proponents as it issued a report dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.”

Mika Brzezinski of MNSBC rips Paris report
‘Bout time. “MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski refuses to talk about Paris Hilton on the Morning Joe show. Perhaps more people in the media & news outlets should FOLLOW her example and STOP following up on worthless news about hardly worthy people…”

‘Cloner’ Allan Detrich Busy Promoting Himself and wrasing wikipedia history?
“A contributor going by the name ‘Mesopix’ has been busy, lately, changing threads concerning ‘Dr. Cloner’ Allan Detrich – in a positive way. ” (MESO is a group of storm chasing photographers that Allan belogs to. Maybe it’s a big coincidence, but it’s possible he or someone he possibly knows is trying to erase his epic photojournalism cloner from Wikipedia history. I really hope this isn’t true. (As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I knew Allan from my days back in Toledo.)

ICM interview: Will Sullivan aka the Journerdist
If you haven’t heard, I did an interview with College Media Hero, Bryan Murley, on topics ranging from my sanity to flossing. …Oh, and journalism. Bloggers say stuff.

Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World
This is a facinating article for mappin’ nerds. Especially how they’re developing MyMaps/KML to essentially collect searchable social media maps. Check it out: “But with the launch of My Maps, Google is anchoring its new search strategy to KML. The company is indexing all KML files on the Web — it has cataloged several million so far — and is working with the Open Geospatial Consortium to makeKML the standard. ‘Right now, Google Maps is mostly about searching for businesses,’ says Jessica Lee, a Google product manager. ‘But what we don’t have is the sort of niche, long-tail content. We don’t know where all the endangered species or the pandas in China live, or where the best places to go bird-watching are. By providing the tools, we can let other people create it.’”

Official Google Blog: Put your photos on a map, and Picasa on your phone
“…we’ve got two new features on Picasa Web Albums to help you out. First, we’re excited to let you know about ‘Map My Photos’ — it lets you show exactly where you took your favorite snapshots. When you share an album with friends, they can see your best photos arrayed on a map (or even Google Earth). It’s the perfect way to showcase a memorable road trip or a globe-trotting vacation.”

Developer uses Knight News Challenge grant to encourage citizen publishers
Ok, seriously. Can we get a correction or something? He’s not developing applications. Amy Gahran has confirmed this. He’s exploring what’s out there in his blog. Both are great but there’s a HUMONGOUS difference.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
This is freaking rich with cool stuff.

Your Guide to Online Advertising
Use this to explain to folks in the newsroom how you make money on the net.

Web video replacing stills could leave photographers without copyright
“Newspapers are now looking to simply include video as an extra task at stills rates but grab all rights at the same time, arguing that is how the video industry does it. The claim is false and misleading.”

‘Too few people subscribed’ to CNN Pipeline
“As popular as the service was, it became clear to us that reaching true scale was going to be impossible if the product remained a pay service … Remember that our entire mission is about getting more news to more people on more platforms, and too few people actually subscribed for us to meet that goal.”

Medill and Drupal
“Each year, Rich Gordon’s class undertakes an innovation project, usually in partnership with a media company. This year they did two projects — one with a Morris newspaper, the other with Yahoo.”

Journalism’s future is in global dialogue
“I advise young journalists today to learn how to use a digital video camera, and to get used to working in multimedia. Nearly every story I write today for the Atlantic, and every book I undertake, I do in conjunction with a documentary filmmaker. ” [Via Multimedia Shooter]

What We Still Don’t Know | Center for Media and Democracy
“Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in 10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11…”

Interview: BILL FRAKES
(On video) “It’s always going to be something. What matters is that you use the technology to express yourself. You make pictures with your heart, soul, mind and eye. The box is just a capture device.”

For One Analyst, Facebook Is a Screaming Buy
“The main thing about Facebook, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield wants to make clear, is that it is ‘not just for college students — if you have not signed up or have not used it lately, you should.’ And if you are a big media company, he has another piece of advice: Buy the company.”

Young Workers are Impatient With Good Reason – The Voice of Millennials at Work
“I also have a burning desire to be wildly successful in the business world. Typically, to be a huge success you must put more than eighty hours a week into your job. Balancing that with piano practice on Tuesday, a baseball game on Wednesday a dance recital on Friday, and family dinners nearly every night is just not practical. Luckily, I am 23 years old and most likely won’t have this family until at least my mid thirties. If you do the math this leaves me with about a decade to become a successful business person. Once the wife and kids come, the career must take a backseat. This is why I’m so impatient!

Study: 96 % of Tweens, Teens in Online Social Networks
“A whopping 96% of online tweens and teens connect to a social network at least once a week, according to a study and white paper being released today from Alloy Media & Marketing, a youth-oriented marketing firm. And nearly half engaged with a brand in the space in the past month.”

Corporate Engagement: Ways to recognize employees
These are rough times at papers. Managers, use these methods to help boost moral and give props to those who are sticking with you through the long haul.

U.S. Net access not all that speedy
“The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).”

Aussie daily rocks with slideshows
Andrew, Mike and the old crew at The Herald blowin’ up slideshows that are more popular than video.

The Boys Project: Statistics
Boys get pwnd by girls in just about everything. [Via Reddit]

LEGO Aircraft Carrier
Mission accomplished!

I like turtles
We all do, Jonathon.

Springwise: Craigslist meets YouTube — online video classifieds
I saw this a while ago and didn’t think much of it… Not much has changed. That one guy on here is still selling that freaking stuffed beaver thing.

When You’ve Got To Go, Go To Mizpee.com
George Costanza has been replaced.

And finally, just in case you hadn’t heard about this new thing called the “iPhone”:

• iPhone reviews: The first batch
  Most reviews seem to be postiive and that it’s living up to its hype. Too bad they picked At&t…

• My iPhone Review
  “I love Steve. I love Apple. I’m even open to spending more on a phone than a computer, but AT&T? The slowness of its data network is only exceeded by its lack of customer service. Can I just buy an iPhone to use as a PDA to impress my friends, listen to music, watch video, and access the Internet via Wifi while not having anything to do with AT&T? Can you hear me now?” EXACTLY!

• 6 Reasons Why I Won’t Buy the iPhone
  “4) It only runs on AT&T. I’ve had the best luck with Verizon on voice, at least, and I gather AT&T’s Edge data network is relatively slow. So I’d rather wait until I get a choice beyond a carrier that vies with Sprint for worst Consumer Reports rating in many cities.”

• Craigslister offers to scare people out of iPhone line
  “A San Francisco Craigslist posting is offering to supply “diversions” that will allow buyers to cut in line for the iPhone, and sadly, we’re afraid he might not be joking.”

Spectrum Warriors of the Digital Infrastructure
“This year the Federal Communications Commission will auction off another chunk of wireless spectrum; the U.S. Senate will hold hearings on the plans for the sale this week. Now a band of technology veterans and wireless entrepreneurs is asking the FCC to set aside a chunk of that spectrum as a kind of sandbox for entrepreneurs.” This is basically Net Neutrality for mobile.

Apple Reignites the Browser Wars
“On June 11, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs stepped up his assault on [Microsoft]. … Jobs, clad in his traditional uniform of black turtleneck and jeans, announced new versions of Apple’s Safari Web browser for the ubiquitous Windows operating system.”

Google’s PowerPoint viewer goes live
“Gmail users who get Microsoft PowerPoint attachments in their in-boxes can now view them without having PowerPoint installed on their machines.”

Internet bringing back the dignity of video storytelling
“If documentaries are hard to get shown in theaters and on TV, imagine the obstacles faced by serious shorts. But now, in the online archives of U.S. papers are thousands of videos, among them dozens of exceptional short docs, more like miniature Frontlines or public-radio-with-pictures than like network-news segments, available anytime. This is video-journalism-on-demand years ahead of digital television …”

Eye-Tracking Device Lets Billboards Know When You Look at Them
Ok, this just really creeps me out.

Online video shows absurdity of NFL policy
“Great work by the Houston Chronicle’s John McClain, who interviewed some Houston Texan football players and put together this video that shows just how silly the NFL’s draconian rules about online video use really are.”

A Brief Interview with Jason Calacanis of Mahalo
Introducing a new ‘human-powered search index’ from Jason Calacanis

Doing Local Right
Great presentation on doing local news right.

Trulia Hindsight – Maps of Properties Through Time
This is really beautiful. (Or depressing, if you watch Detroit.)

Defense Contractors Reap Windfall in 2005 Earmarks
So Boeing made a 4,352% payback on it’s lobbying and campaign contributions? Yeesh. I feel sick. Sunlight Foundation, you are awesome.

How much does 48TB really cost
Yeesh… only 88 hours of 1080P video storage for $66,300?

Etsy: A Site for Artisans Takes Off
“Etsy is actually making money. Just a few days shy of its second anniversary, the site has grown to a community of more than 250,000 registered members and 50,000 sellers, and is expanding daily. By the fall, the team expects Etsy to be completely in the black.” Shameless plug: Support your local artists and craftsmen / craftswomen, like my homie Cyd!

No Ads in Embedded YouTube Player (Yet…)
“YouTube is developing its video-fingerprinting technology, to ‘spot television shows and films posted by consumers without the content owners’ permission, so the sites can remove them or share advertising revenue.’”

HD DVD sales spike in wake of price cuts
HD vs. Blu-Ray battle ending finally?

//
“…just felt like a good thing at the time” — Tim Berners-Lee, apologizing for the use of double slashes in web addresses

Yahoo! omg
omg is right. Yahoo! continues building niche content sites. Something newspapers need to seriously consider (hopefully not celeb gossip though… although it’d definitely get traffic.)

J-Lab: Knight-Batten Awards
TODAY’S THE LAST DAY TO ENTER!

MySpace IM launches
I thought this would have come a lot earlier, given their core demographic.

Yahoo! Food
Yahoo Food is quite awesome in it’s use of tagging. I love how they tag by taste “Buttery,” “Cheesey,” “Chocolately” for when you’re in the mood. This is a sleeper site that’s doing awesome stuff.

“Interactivity: an open sewer through your newspaper website”
“What does it mean when you don’t have the resources to verify, to select or to think? It can mean that you can be [only] as reliable as the next blogger. But if you want to think, if you want to take your time, you will be perceived as being as slow as the postman. The amazing worldwide web, what does it mean to your little paper? It can mean you are hosting a clash of civilisations and because of linking the beheading of a hostage or some child-porn may only be one click away.“

Poynter EyeTrack07: The Myth of Short Attention Spans
“That was the predominant behavior of roughly 600 test subjects — 70 percent of whom said they read the news in print or online four times a week.” Can’t wait to pour over this report in June. Although, I the normal population is not 70 percent newspaper readers… So I’m not sure if this is exactly a cure all for the industry.

How We See
“A Norwegian study, that showed 16 pictures to both trained and untrained artists used eye-tracking software to show that not only do they see the world differently when drawing it, they also see differently when studying it.”

What is the Future of Text Online?
Writing for the web 101.

Washingtonpost.com Revamps Homepage — Increases Emphasis on Video
“On Thursday The Washington Post’s Web site will unveil a redesigned homepage, which is aimed at simplifying navigation and increasing the site’s emphasis on video and multimedia content.” Check it out here!

Readership Holds Steady in Canada, Online Grows
“A new study from the Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank) reveals that 2006 readership levels in Canada are flat compared to the prior year while online readership is growing.”

Young journalists in a print world
“Far, far more troublesome are the journalists my age with not a single skill in their toolbox that would give them any appreciable advantage over a 19th-century newspaper reporter. There are a shocking number of people that fit this There are a shocking number of people that fit this description in our newsrooms. It’s journalism malpractice, plain and simple. So, Step One: Stop hiring these junior dinosaurs.” Right on. I’d add, start firing or ‘laying off’ any dinosaur.

SMS – a sleeping giant with YouTube potential?
“First of all for SMS cell phone text messaging to be successful as a medium that encourages viral message spreading amongst a specific demographic, its use needs to be frequent amongst this demographic.”

For the first Newsroom Barometer, nobody “killed the newspaper”
“In this era of rapid and accelerating change for journalism, the World Editors Forum believes that editors worldwide need sharp and focused information to help them do their jobs.” A 6-part series!

San Antonio Express News Redesigns Print Edition to be More Like Blogs
“First, we are providing readers with a larger menu of items, allowing the front page to be a better window into the rest of the paper. Second, we’re doing more to emphasize and develop our best story of the day, focusing as much as possible on local news…”

Bloomberg Report: Tribune to Accept Zell Bid By End of Week
“An agreement is likely by Tribune’s self-imposed deadline of March 31, said the people, who declined to be named because no decision has been made,” Bloomberg continues. Zell’s offer of $33 a share is 6.8 percent above yesterday’s close. ”

Curleys 7 statements about media
“Quick note from Citygate forum. The picture shows the seven local media strategies from Rob Curley, a man the occurs time and time again in these surroundings.”

Does User Annoyance Matter?
“Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It’s worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.”

Flash to the desktop: Adobe Apollo
“Apollo from Adobe Labs seems worth watching closely. It appears to be an attempt to take widely deployed Flash applications out of the web browser and move them on to the desktop.” Is that Web 4.0? Moving backwards?

The Role of the Journalist in a Participatory, Multimedia World
Good list, but I don’t see anything explicitly about being a watchdog for the community. I suppose it could be covered in being eyes and ears/town square/community pulse/most trusted info possible.

It’s hard to conclude that TimesSelect is a success
“How much money is TimesSelect costing the New York Times? The lost advertising revenue could potentially exceed $10 million annually. It’s hard to calculate for sure, but just in eyeballing it, it seems possible, if not probable. The disparity is certainly enough of a cautionary tale for other publishers considering pay models.”

Three job tips for students
Valuable students embody: 1. Youth itself. 2. Self-taught. 3. Entrepreneurial.Knight launches citizen media resource
“The Knight Foundation has launched a website aimed at helping “citizen journalism” or community media operations find resources and best practices. Called the Knight Citizen News Network…”

The Oregonian’s putting their photos up on flickr
Nice way to market outside of the site. And Flickr can actually handle the traffic, unlike SO FREAKING MANY photo gallery vendors. I bet their photographers are having a fit though.

Time ends Life, again, on 4/20
“Time Inc. announced today that it will close LIFE magazine, but the company will continue to develop LIFE online and operate the brand’s other successful businesses. The issue dated April 20, 2007 will be the magazine’s last.”

10 Newspaper Myths deconstructed
“Old Media dies, because it is too authoritarian. Journalists are not going to die out. The more information we have, the more we need intelligent filters; newspapers should integrate into social media:”

We Missed the Marshmallow Roast
The vandal that damaged a Toledo Blade replacement worker’s vehicle by spray painting and burning it took the time to use an “Old English” font (note the serifs on the “S” of “Scab”). Classy.

onBeing Outtakes – washingtonpost.com
Outtakes from the onBeing show (Via WMH)

Star Wars rap
Language not safe for work

Droid mailbox comes to Santa Cruz
Hot human-on-R2D2 love in this video.

YouTube – Intro to Idiocracy the movie
Stupid people breeding.

Blogs turn 10–who’s the father?
“Was the first blogger the irascible Dave Winer? The iconoclastic Jorn Barger? Or was the first blogger really Justin Hall, a Web diarist and online gaming expert whom The New York Times Magazine once called the ‘founding father of personal blogging’?”

The changing skill set for journalists
Funny, a few months ago I peeved off a bunch of people saying some of this…

$13,000 VJ Prize
Might as well hand it to Travis Fox right now.

Best of Photojournalism – TV Winners
Lots of video examples to watch on a rainy day here.

robcurley.com » “The Creativity 50″
“…our take on what a huge hyper-local community site looks like when your local newspaper is The Washington Post, and a local sports site that’s got me so excited I just keep the “Rocky” theme music playing in my office in a continuous loop.”

Super Deluxe – Fark TV – Baby Trade
“Outie for an Audi.”

How mass media tries to pass off crap as news (our new book)
“A drop-dead hysterically funny look at the go-to stories mass media uses when there’s not enough hard news to fill a newspaper or a news broadcast. It’s not media’s fault per se, the main problem is that ads have been sold. You can’t sell a blank newspaper full of ads, broadcast white noise bracketed by commercials, or expect people to visit a website full of ads with no content.”