Follow the stats, or follow the ideals; The World’s Best Designed newspapers; How to do audio like NPR

Follow the stats, or follow the ideals
It’s a slippery slope. Does Britney Spears shaved head really warrant being on the home page for three days straight? You don’t need to preach to me about using click-throughs as a tool for users to tell us what they want (which for so long most newsrooms have ignored, instead just force-feeding their definition of what’s “news”) … But it’s really a slippery slope. Just because there are stale editors that don’t want to acknowledge that people’s interest are different than everything traditional journalism preaches, doesn’t mean should swing the total other direction and just become E! Entertainment Television.

I do believe that relevant local journalism is something people care about, but most newspapers just deliver it in a form that isn’t very user-friendly, time-friendly, interactivity-friendly or action-friendly. And you can’t continue on that fashion in this new age. And you shouldnt just jump to the other evil end of the spectrum chasing Anna Nicole’s train wreck gawkers. I love the comment from Mark on the post: “We need to send reporters with camcorders to stand outside bars and interview drunk chicks.” It’d get hits! Some papers are doing this kind of thing already.

SND28 Blog: The top winners …
Top 10 award winners in the Society for News Design’s 28th annual Best Designed Competition: NYT, LAT duke it out and a redesigned Mexican newspaper takes third. Click the link for more!

World’s Best-Designed Newspapers
SND announces four of the best designed overall, in the world!

Study: Smallest Businesses Are Heaviest Web Users
“Newspaper sites have the greatest reach with the segment: 14 percent of respondents said they visit them regularly each month, according to the report. But their online time is also spread thinly across many functions..”

APAD Interview: SCOTT STRAZZANTE
oooooOOOooo… Scott Strazzante, he’s so dreamy. Wanna meet him (and me) in person? Come to the IPPA Conference at Northwestern University (north Chicago) on March 9-10. Autographs are free. Photos are $5. Photos with smiles are $10. … But seriously, if you’re in the continental United States-area, you should come kick it with us. (I’m flying up from Florida for it.)

Online is 20 percent of profit; How’d they do that?
Lucas is all up on investigating and correcting this.

How to bring people back to your site in droves
Use gaming techniques to build a community. “I thought about the sites I’ve liked, used and help design and the best, most successful ones all use gaming mechanics to bring people in and keep them there”

How quickly can newspaper video grow up?
“The readers/viewers/users clicking on our stories are actively trying to experience the media we’re offering them, not passive receivers waiting for the sports highlights and weather report while they eat TV dinners.”

PrezVid
New blog from Northwestern Alum Jeff Jarvis following/critiquing presidential candidate video.

Who Is Monitoring Your Domain Searches?
Kinda freaky that people might jack domains based on your searches.

Print Media Makes Its Transition to the Web-Video Age
In a sudden reversal of fortune, newspapers have taken to online video and might just beat TV news at its own game. (Via Romenesko)

YouTube - Stabbing at Leia’s 22nd Birthday
Oh, nerds. You so crazy.

YouTube - star wars cops
If the light saber party fight wasn’t enough for you, here’s more Star Wars nerdery… (via delicious ryan sholin)

best of craigslist : Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It…
I have a feeling this was written by a 13 year old.

Sirius/XM Merger Proposal: The two sides of the pancake.
Everyone said it was bound to happen… (Well, everyone who’s thought for more than 3 seconds about the long-term existence of satellite radio).

On YouTube boobs no, violence yes
Just like TV!

Faili ei leitud!
Interesting 404 page… the webserver talks to you… it’s apparently very depressed.

Tesla Anti-Theft Device: Eye of Sauron - Gizmodo
That is pretty awesome.

WorkHack.com Tasks Management Tool - Making GTD a bit easier
No sign up! I’ll sign up just for that!

Why does NPR sound so unique?
Lots of interesting info here about how NPR audio sounds so crisp, clean and different than most other broadcast media. My advice: Step 1-They eliminate all filler background music. This isn’t a rave. Anyway, there’s lots of good stuff in there including this NPR reporter gear article: How to do Radio

Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales
I blame them for stealing my booty too. Yarg.

Reflections on Seven Years of CLAMOR
Clamor Magazine co-creator Jen Angel’s thoughtful piece looking back on the experience of running Clamor Magazine, the importance of independent media and the eventual closing. [I've been a fan of Clamor since their beginning, I also worked with Jen and Jason Kuscma (the other co-creator) on a panel about corporate control and public relations in the media at UT.]