The Web 2.0 backlash is underway. Guy Kawasaki makes fun of it at the start of this video, and Chris Anderson posts a comic that makes fun of the flavor of the month in over actual content.

I think this is what happens when buzzwords and trends become more important than thinking about what people want. Buzzwords and trends is how bubbles get created. Unfortunately, when the bubble bursts, the real value of the technology for doing stuff people want gets thrown out with the bathwater. In the newspaper industry, when Bubble 1.0 burst, a lot of publishers lost interest in the Internet. They’re paying the price now. When Bubble 2.0 bursts (the Web 2.0 revolution), a lot of business leaders will lose interest. But the underlining infrastructural need for people to connect with people will not go away, even after the buzzwords are forgotten.

According to Guy Kawasaki, Helio is the hot new phone among the youth. Just so you know. It looks pretty slick, with all the features a social-networking, media-addicted kid might want. It promotes myspace and boosts a “home theater in your pocket.” Just so you know.

Mark Cuban says only a moron would buy YouTube.

Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because of copyright violations.

“They are just breaking the law,” Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. “The only reason it hasn’t been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.”

I’ve said before, copyrighted material is YouTube’s poison pill, in a manner of speaking. Who wants the headache?

Cuban doesn’t see a revenue model, but he’s got a conflict of interest in that matter with his new venture. I think there is a way to make money in this space.

Jon Fine on why the Times won’t pass to private hands. My previous related thoughts here.

Note: If you’re planning to publish a free paper with home distribution to non-opt-in subscribers, make sure you have a rock solid system to let people opt-out.

Tribune may be getting ready to go private.

David Geffen is serious about buying the Times.

Mindy McAdams offers five categories of tips for driving site traffic. It’s all good stuff.

Jay Small has a link-filled post related to design and usability.

Here’s an interesting bit of news: The Knight Foundation is putting up $25 million to help foster news of a local nature.

Great lede from Vin Crosbie:

Let’s peek under the blanket because there’s a lot of people in the dark there. A widespread misconception is that taking printed or broadcast content and putting it online or wireless is new-media. This misconception blankets even many new-media executives.

No, taking printed or broadcast content and putting it online or wireless is as much new-media as microwaving hamburgers is new cuisine. It’s just the same old beef reheated a new way. (bold added)

As they say, read the whole thing. Vin, as always, serves up good food for thought.

I was pretty amazed to hear that Pervez Musharraf appeared on the Daily Show. Then when I started to watch, the cynical side comes out and I think, “He’s just another guy promoting a book.”

The interview proves once again how good Jon Stewart really is. He conducts a better interview than the big names on big networks.

For me, though, a guy who hasn’t had any sugar in four or five weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Twinkies.

Romenekso’s summation:

The American Press Institute-sponsored Newspaper Next report says newspapers can turn themselves around if they quickly develop publications and affiliated websites packed with local information. It suggests that papers assemble databases about parks, medical facilities and restaurants, information about schools, consumer-supplied ratings for restaurants, mechanics and contractors, as well as chat groups for parents and shoppers.

Look, I’ve got to say this: I started down that path in 1995 with East County Online. Local, local local.

Then there is this old E&P story.

I’m no longer so anti-AP, but commodity news is not a differentiator. The one thing the average newspaper can do better than anybody else is local, and not just news, but everything. Everything.

In my own mind, I’ve been questioning whether paid content on mobile would work any better than on the Web.

ESPN’s exit from the realm of mobile service provider isn’t a spot-on repudiation the paid-content model on mobile, but it isn’t a good sign. The biggest problem for ESPN was their fundamental misunderstanding of how hard it is to get people to switch service providers (family plans, contracts that are expensive to cancel, etc.). While the barriers were big, you have to wonder if content is truly king, especially sports content, why more people weren’t willing to switch?

I recently started a new service with SprintPCS and a Treo700. This is my first experience with video on mobile, and I’ve got to say: It rocks. My other observation is that there is so much free video content on my phone that I’m not really tempted to try any of the paid services. What I get for free is quick hits of news, sports and entertainment, and that’s all I really need on mobile. It’s great for us information junkies who need to kill a few minutes here and there, in this or that line, etc. I can’t see spending the time to watch movies or TV shows on it, though. It’s not the small screen that’s the problem. It’s just that I can’t see using it for a primary entertainment source. There are better options when you have time to make a commitment to a show.

Paid content on mobile may work yet, and maybe it’s working better than I imagine (I have no data), but I’m skeptical.

But mark this: mobile video is here to stay. I’m sold on its viability for content delivery, if it’s the right content.

These are extraordinary and challenging times for the newspaper industry.

Knight-Ridder fell, and no Tribune Co is rocked by shareholder decision. In Los Angeles, the publisher and editor are refusing Tribune’s demand for more job cuts. The NYT has a pretty thorough article on the principle players.

We are posting two jobs in my department this week. Both positions are full-time and are based in Fairport, NY (just east of Rochester).

First, we’re looking for a great Web artist to serve as our Senior Web Developer. This key position will lead our Web site design efforts. We have designs for more than 450 sites to develop and manage, so we’re looking for somebody who has both the creative vision for building a variety of options for site managers, but can also conceptually view Web site design in an object-oriented, module manner. Our designs will share common templates and themes, but use modular concepts to allow for variety. User-focused design, usability and standards compliance is vital to our business model. Our ideal candidate is motivated to build the best information-service sites in the business, has at least three years experience, and never stops trying to improve his or her chops.

The second job is also vital to our plans. We are looking for a Deputy Multimedia Editor. This position will oversee our universal news desk and help us develop the GateHouse News Service, which will not only serve all GateHouse Media properties, but a variety of non-GateHouse publishers, both online and in print. The job entails developing the best content (text and multimedia) for our news service, managing the news flow, and working with our local editors to understand their needs and deliver to them content that helps them serve their readers better. The editor will supervise a multi-person staff of multimedia editors.

If you are interested in either of these positions, or know somebody who might be, I can provide you full job descriptions. Write to me at howens – at – gatehousemedia dot com.

For more information on GateHouse, visit www.gatehousemedia.com

I stumbled upon this on YouTube — Gary Brolsma is back. The original Internet viral-video star has a new, slick and professionally produced video, with a marketing-drenched companion Web site.

Clearly, Gary is cashing in. Some (see the comments on YouTube) saying he’s selling out. I say good for Gary.

Gary taught us all a powerful lesson about the drawing power of entertaining video on the Web. I’ve used the Numa, Numa Dance video in every presentation I’ve done on multimedia over the past two or three years. It’s wickedly funny and engaging. It’s popularity is an accident, a coincidence of broadband explosion and and audience readiness for video on the Web in the pre-YouTube days. Gary should take full advantage of his cyberfame while he can.

The new video isn’t really entertaining, despite Gary’s powerful personality, but that’s almost beside the point now.

More interesting is the Rocket Boom interview.

Bonus link: American Idle.

A few days ago, Steve Outing put out a call for newspaper new media executives to share their insiders view on the key things newspapers are not doing. Here’s the resulting column.

Nothing, I would say, too surprising — too many decisions driven by print revenue concerns, editors who remain clueless about online, not enough programmers and complaints about pay walls.

When I look around the industry, I would add: We’re not doing a good job yet at building connections between people; and with only a few exceptions, not enough video.

Sometimes I get a sense that there is this large group of newspaper publishers who operate under the notion: “OK, we’ve got a Web site. Now I’ve done my innovative duty and I can get back to fretting over circulation and classifieds.” And that Web site hasn’t changed since 1998. Surf around to a few dozen newspaper.coms. It’s real obvious which sites are ghettos of shovelware.

I saw a video recently where Laura Rich Fine (tangentially related link, because I can’t find a bio page for Laura) talked about the need for newspapers to start spending more money on technology. I think Wall Street is ready for newspapers to cut into revenue growth and profit margins, if necessary, to fund innovation. And for a privately held company, there’s no excuse.

Mark Glaser is good at letting his mind jump outside of the box once in a while, and if nothing else, his ideas are worth a little contemplation.

His latest column Glaser gets a little wild on the topic of alternatives to public ownership of newspapers.

I’m still not convinced this is a public vs. private debate. The structure of newspaper ownership is not an either or proposition. There are private ownership models that suck, such as the single owner of the single newspaper. Many years ago, I worked for a one-owner newspaper where the drive for profits and the complete disregard for ethics was much worse than any public newspaper I know of. On the flip side, I have high regard for E.W. Scripps and McClatchy, two publicly-traded newspaper companies with great ownership models that to this point, at least, have worked very well at keeping Wall Street out of the newsroom.

Structure is important, but no structure can save you from bad leadership. It takes smart people making smart decisions with a clear vision of where to take the business. That’s why the St. Pete Times works. It has nothing to do with the non-profit status of the paper. Some of Glaser’s suggestions, such as “citizen ownership” could potentially muddle the lines of leadership. And the minute you set up a clearly defined leadership structure, you’re going to offend some people, which leads to a break down of citizen participation.

As for white knights putting up the initial financing for a citizen buy out of the LA Times — that’s a lot of money. I don’t care how altruistic they feel about the community, they are going to want to protect their cash. If they have even a single capitalistic bone, they are going to want to grow profits. Even if that were to happen, the subsequent small investors, such as the Pasadena grandmother putting up her last free $100, will not want to lose money. Fiscal responsibility requires a steady hand and sometimes leads to decisions that newsrooms find distasteful. In abstract, I’m not sure this model is the answer. I see more conflict and inertia than I do a return to glory. That’s not to say that with the right structure and leadership in place, it couldn’t work, but it would be easier to get cats all running in the same direction than to manage the LAT by citizen committee.

Friday evening I returned from two weeks on the East Coast. My swing took me through New York City (on 9/11, no less), Rochester/Fairport, Fredericksburg and Boston/Quincy. Of course, I took pictures.

In NYC, I stayed at the New Yorker and saw the Empire State Building.

In Fairport, I spent my Saturday driving around and saw an old barn, a train, a church and I found a cigar shop. I also drove to Batavia for a gathering of master gardeners, where I learned that growing roses in upstate NY is hard. There are some great buildings in Batavia such as this one and this one.

Then I spent one day in Fredericksburg, Va. There I saw a building with a canon ball in it.

The last stop was Boston, where I made my first visit to Fenway.

In 1978, Elvis Costello sang:

… the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
tryin’ to anaesthetise the way that you feel

He debuted on Saturday Night Live with that song, even though (allegedly), he wasn’t supposed to.

Rumor has always had it that with one song, Elvis alienated himself from radio programmers the world over with his angry statement of bile and truth.

I don’t know if all of that is true, but I do know that in 1978, I loved “Radio, Radio,” because it blasted the lack-of-imagination, formulaic and possibly payolized nature of AM and FM commercial radio. The world was exploding with good music as punk and new wave crested, but good luck hearing any of it on most radio stations.

And radio was so important. For a high school kid like me, radio was the only connection with music outside of my bedroom. I didn’t own a cassette player yet, and the Walkman hadn’t been invented. A year or two later, I could produce my own mix tapes, but in 1978, if I were away from my LPs, I only had the radio. And radio sucked.

Tonight, I’m watching Elvis on Austin City Limits and he opened with “Radio, Radio,” and it struck me how in a manner, that song has become totally irrelevant. An relic of the past like 8 tracks and magic 8 balls. And not just for me, but the whole world. Now I have my iPod, XM Radio and disks that can hold more than 100 MP3s. What do I, or anybody else, need radio for? Radio still sucks, but so what?

Then I was reading over the lyrics of the song tonight — there is a way “Radio, Radio” still matters. What is interesting, it is a meaning that Elvis could not have anticipated in 1977/78. The relevance is this — vapid talk radio, which is the only kind of talk radio there is (on both the left and the right). The song fits even better as an anthem against Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken as it does the mindless radio programmers of the Top 40 era.

Talk radio has come to dominate the airwaves, but with all the good current affairs blogs out there, does it really matter, either?

My wife calls Trevor Hoffman “Candy Ass.” She’s never fully understood why one guy on the team only pitches once in a while and then for only one inning at a time. He rarely pitches in tie games, and almost never when the Padres are way ahead or way behind. She’s not really a baseball fan and the the deeper importance of a “save” is apparently lost on her.

Minutes ago, she said, “Now I feel bad for calling him a candy ass all these years.”

Mr. Hoffman is now the all-time saves leader and we just watched it live thanks to Directv and MLB Extra Innings.

The Pittsburgh broadcasters were exceptionally professional, giving Hoffman all due credit. They didn’t even break to commercial prior to the bottom of the 9th inning. We got to see the whole spectacle of “Hell’s Bells,” with one of the broadcasters remarking on how Hoffman’s entry into a game in San Diego never fails to give him goosebumps.

They also stuck with the post game celebration for several minutes.

Thank you, FSN.