R.I.P. Page views; Cool blog topics or newspaper beat ideas; 10 most popular newspaper fonts; Yahoo TV listings redesigned to be flashy, end up being slow and useless

The Imminent Demise of the Page View
Right on, Steve. MySpace and the other page view inflators can go die. “The page view does not offer a suitable way to measure the next generation of web sites. These sites will be built with Ajax, Flash and other interactive technologies that allow the user to conduct affairs all within a single web page - like Gmail or the Google Reader. This eliminates the need to click from one page to another. The widgetization of the web will only accelerate this.”

“It’s the largest layoff in Mercury News history”
This is quite possibly the lamest news of the year. “That’s because all union editorial employees at the San Jose Mercury News have been ordered to not come to work on December 5 between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Merc management told the reporters and photogs earlier this week that they should remain at home, waiting by their phones for a call that will tell them whether they’ve lost their jobs.”

“New Rules” Gangrey discusses non-traditional beats that newspapers could explore
Great ideas here for niche topics and uncommon beats/blog topics that could really have legs. You just need the right author to rock it.

Yahoo TV unveils new design
Thank you, Yahoo for redesigning your TV page. As a former avid user of your TV listing site, I was incredibly disappointed by your AJAX-ing of everything, so it now loads incredibly slowly. Fortunately, due to your love of flashiness over utility, I found awesome new TV listings… strangely, at the Sun-Times website, their third-party vendor MeeVee.com is my new TV tool. Besides quick-loading listings, they offer the opportunity to tag and build favorite listings on several categories–even down to favorite actors/actresses! I wish you would have redesigned so I could have found this earlier so I wouldn’t have spent spent hours of my life this year searching for Family Guy reruns and Black Belt Jones the old way.

2006 Media Blog Newspaper Site Awards
Howard Owens gives props to the Washington Post, TimesCast and more.

Did Columbia J-Students Cheat on Final Exam in Ethics Course?
“The exam was an open-book, take-home exam in which students had 90 minutes to write a few essays.” Are you serious? This is totally anecdotal evidence, but of the four Columbia J-School grads I’ve known/worked with, all of them have been totally over-rated, lazy bums.

Why Yahoo Needs Newspapers
I’m not sure I agree with this as a long-term strategy for Yahoo, but for right now… “Newspapers, which were well aware that their strength was in their local content, were loath to let anyone else in on their turf. When Microsoft tried in the early `90s with Sidewalks, newspapers vociferously rejected any and all partnerships with the technology giant. But Yahoo has won them over.”

Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading
First Curley, now another of my web heroes gives Journerdism a shout out. Thanks! You’re the “wind beneath my wings!” … I can’t believe I just said that. Anyway, there’s some interesting blogs on the list (about half a dozen I hadn’t heard of). Check it out!

Emily Addison
Nice local project using video, photos and voice over. (Too much Ken Burns effect, imho, but… good project.) In a world that seems so filled with Soundslidery (No offense, Joe. It’s an awesome tool and the deep penetration and rampant use is a testament to that. But “some” organizations think its the *only* tool available.) I appreciate integrated experience of something like this more and more. I’m also really finding that voice overs are critical to moving the story along in an effective, timely manner. Relying on the grab bag of audio from reporters/photographers seems to take more time to massage into a story than just sitting down and writing a script.

The 10 most popular newspaper typefaces
What, no comic sans?

Web Design Inspiration
There are millions of these sites… but like coffee, they’re great to keep around when you’re looking to get stimulated.

Imagination Cubed Web Whiteboard
Great tool for sketching and visually planning design/layout with folks who are away from the office.

Bad News for Old News And 7 More Things to Look Forward to in 2007
“Traditional media companies will struggle to maintain their audiences.” … “More business models will emerge to reward independent content creators.” … ” TVs, computers, and other digital devices will truly begin to morph.”

Newspaper readership was declining before the WWW - and didn’t decline any faster after it
“First, the study found circulation of print newspapers has been declining since 1990. There was no difference in circulation changes between the two periods 1990 to 1994 and 1995 to 2000. The later period was marked by the popularity of internet newspapers.”

Star Wars origami
I would totally buy one of these and worship it.

Local TV broadcaster: 1337 speak is a danger to children!
Are you serious? Are you |=|_|(|<1|\|6 serious? (Via Sholin)

YouTube - Hold my calls, I’m busy blogging
I’m not sure why I find this so funny.

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