NOTE: My goal with “MP3 of the Day” is to find great, free, non-DRM MP3 downloads. If you have a tip for a good source, leave a comment.

Publishers who run AdSense should know about this: A service that blocks low-paying contextual ads called AdSense Blacklist. There’s a real problem with AdSense in that a lot of low-quality ads are running with increasing frequency (the built-for-AdSense-only business that bid high, but aren’t necessarily delivering a real service). If you’re interested in serving readers well with AdSense (advertising is, after all, content), then you want to block these sites from your AdSense rails.

When Along Came Jones becomes a world famous blog, just remember who christened it.

Oh, and get what JJ says about the overused word, “bako,”

For me the word Bako conjures up images of being stuck in a tar pit and dying in the sun while birds tear at my flesh, I dunno that’s just me, so bakojones was out of the question. Don’t get me wrong I like the word Bako I have it as part of an email address and one of my dear friends from back in the day was the first person I ever heard use the word Bako in reference to Bakersfield like calling San Francisco “Frisco” or some such.

Yeah, but not call it “Frisco” the the face of anybody from Frisco, or you’re likely to lose your face. Friscoians hate the word for some reason. Maybe it’s time to retire “bako” in a similar fashion. Whadda say, Jones?

The is shocking: Social media is no mo. In the post, Steve Rubel proclaims that social media is dead. This has caused a stir in the blogosphere.

But you have to read the post to get what Rubel is saying.

There’s no point in differentiating any more. The story that Dan Gillmor chronicled in his landmark 2004 book We the Media has only accelerated. We are all one and it’s silly to classify us into two different species.

Rubel’s point is that with established publishers joining the conversation, and conversational publishers evolving into going business concerns, Packaged Goods Media and Conversational Media are converging.

There’s some truth there.

But it’s worth noting that what we now call social media is nothing new. Back when I was a young buck just starting out this business (11 years ago), we called social media virtual community. The web, with its hyperlinks and personal-publishing frameworks is by design social. In a way, you can’t enter web publishing without joining the conversation. It’s foolish to try and be a PGM publisher on the web. What 2006 wrought was a lot of light bulbs going off in a lot of publishers’ heads: “Well, hell, I ain’t growing audience no more with my shovelware. Guess I better get me a blog or two.” (And really, for most newspaper publishers, the thinking hasn’t gotten much more beyond that so far).

So Rubel is only half right. In a way, we’ve always been converged. In another, PGM publishers still only see through a glass darkly and haven’t fully grasped what it means to participate in the online world. In that last respect, Rubel is overly optimistic. It gives PGM publishes way too much credit for getting it and doing it.

The other key factor to 2006 was the vast improvement in conversational tools and models. The thing to keep in mind here though is that the web is yet but a mere decade or so old. The personal computer didn’t really become a household appliance until 20 years or so after is introduction. If that is the adoption rate of the web, what we know of the online publishing is probably only about half of what it will be. It’s a little early yet to say it’s all figured out and PGM and CM are so intermingled that there is essentially no difference.

Wired’s predictions for 2007 read more like a nerd’s wish list (BitTorrent on TiVo, HD-DVD wins, no more dads, life on Mars, etc.) than an attempt at informed sooth-saying, but still, I had to comment on this one:

Print to Web

A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.

Ain’t happening. There’s still too much revenue tied up in print and not enough online. A major newspaper — I’m taking this to mean a major metro — couldn’t support it’s current news operation with a digital-only strategy. Not now. Not yet. Not for a couple to a few years. The only way I see a big city paper shutting down its presses is if it’s a weak sister in a JOA and is largely subsidized by its corporate parent as an online-only experiment (something I’ve long thought Scripps should do with the Cincinnati Post (I believe that JOA was slated to end, but I’m not sure of the current status)).

Here’s when newspapers will stop rolling presses: When digital delivery has become so much more efficient that the cost savings will entice publishers to essentially force subscribers to give up print. Revenue will have to get better of course, but what I’m saying is that the killer of print won’t be so much lost revenue or increased revenue opportunity, but cost savings — eliminate the press, the press men, the trucks, the drivers, the newsracks … all of those polluting, environmentally wasteful inefficiencies of print delivery. Some day, that will very much tempt publishers. But we’re still years away from that … say two to five years. But when mobile devices get better, or digital ink arrives, or households become widely wired at 10mb, then publishers might have the efficiencies needed to kill print.

NOTE: My goal with “MP3 of the Day” is to find great, free, non-DRM MP3 downloads. If you have a tip for a good source, leave a comment.

Steve Yelvington is encouraging news site managers with forums and comments on stories to make a special effort in 2007 to get rid of the bad actors, the guys and gals who start flame wars, get nasty, throw tantrums and are generally uncivil and uncouth.

He’s absolutely right, and I know for a fact cracking knuckles works.

Interactive features are far too important to your community and your business to be left unmanaged. They require staff guarding and participating. They sometimes require a heavy hand. And in the healthiest environments, the best participants help and are recognized and rewarded. But never, ever, should you leave the community to its own devices. The other option — not having forums or comments — is the worst possible option. So in 2007, suck it up, and get participation right.

Greg Sterling:

I just spent an hour lost in YouTube, watching everything from Coldplay to Steve Jobs original iPod keynote to a Dutch TV interview with rising YouTube webcam signing sensation Esmee Denters. (This woman will become a recording star off her webcam appearances, which is amazing in itself.)

This is TV for the short-attention span generation.

The power of online video and YouTube in particular will force more and more “on-demand” style programming on conventional TV. Indeed, in a relatively short period of time most of the distinctions between TV and YouTube will disappear. There are now several ways to get Internet content/video into the living room (most recently SofaTube).

All of those who criticize my inexpensive, disruptive, “good enough” approach to newspaper video should pay attention to what Sterling is really saying about what’s good in online video. It’s not about big production. It’s about making it work and connecting with people and being relevant and entertaining.

Three years from now the $1.65 billion that Google paid for YouTube will probably look like a deal.

Did I say deal? I meant steal.

Scoff if you like, but I think he’s right.

Network TV executives haven’t decided yet how exactly they’ll handle coverage of Saddam Hussein’s execution.

You know video of the execution will be widely available. There will be quality professional coverage uploaded to web sites, and a variety of citizen media coverage available all over. Newspaper site managers are also going to have a big decision — whether to make the video available via download, Flash, direct link, or ignore it.

The citizen journalism angle will be part of the story. This is the first head-of-state execution in the era of widely dispersed citizen journalism and easily accessible video cameras.

You could argue that you shouldn’t dilute your brand by going in for the sensational and the horrid. You could argue that since the video will be easily accessible all over the net (it will probably be the single biggest download by subject, if not for one single video, on YouTube that day) that you have nothing to gain by making the video available through your own site. Or you could argue that news is news, history is history, and it isn’t always pretty. You could argue that you have an obligation to deliver the news without fear or favor and that no matter the content, the story is too big to make nice with.

I know a number of people who will be involved with this decision for newspaper sites read this blog — so, what’s your decision? How are you going to handle Saddam’s death video?

UPDATE: It’s been about two hours since I posted this. Saddam was hung within the last hour or so. I’ve already been hit by more than 50 Google searches of people looking for video of his hanging.

UPDATE II: Well, a portion of this post is rather stupid. It wasn’t a public execution. Nevermind. However, Iraq is releasing video shortly.

UPDATE III: There was somebody with a cell phone video camera at the executiion and the video is now on the web (meaning, in part, this post wasn’t so stupid after all). Nick Belardes found it and embeds it on his site. I’ve been away from the computer all day, so I have no idea how MSM is handling this.

UPDATE IV: Steve Outing also did a post on this topic and says, “No brainer. Publish.”

The post below is my first “MP3 of the Day” post. I’ve got about 30 of these queued up. I hope this is something I’ll continue to do, but I’ve started many projects on this blog only to later lose interest … I think that’s OK to do on a blog, you know?

My inspiration and goals are this:

• I sometimes get frustrated at how hard it is to find quality, free MP3 songs. I figure if it’s an interest of mine, and hard for me, too, it’s hard for others who are interested as well.
• I think the CD/Album is dead. The MP3 is the 78 record of the digital age. It’s all about the single song (by the time 45s came along, we had LPs). The fee-based services have two faults: They are LP-oriented (though single song purchases are possible, the navigation isn’t really about one-song downloads, and besides, 99 cents is too expensive), and all but one are weighed down by DRM. (I do have an emusic.com subscription, but I find it’s limited inventory almost not worth it.)
• We’re all gatekeepers now. You tell me about good songs. I tell you about good songs. Together, we help the best rise to the top and find an audience. We don’t need no stinking DJs or music critics telling us what to listen to.
• I want to do my small part to encourage record labels and artists to release more music as free, non-DRM MP3s, and encourage non-DRM MP3s as much as possible (whether for fee or free).

My first song is Goldmine by my friend, the late, great Buddy Blue. He left a legacy of many great MP3s on his site.

You’ll note that my version of WordPress includes a plug-in for streaming MP3s. Cool, uh? After I made my first post live, I was surprised to see that, and not pleasantly, but then I figured out how to make a direct link to the MP3 on its host site (all of these MP3s are saved on the original host site).

In most cases, the source site clearly owns the rights to make these songs downloadable. There is one source site I’ll use where that isn’t the case, but in that case, this site has existed for years and the record companies, artists and RIAA don’t seem to mind. For the most part, however, I’m looking for sites that are clearly trusted sources of free, legal, non-DRM downloads. With that in mind, send your suggestions my way — leave a comment. I’m particularly interested in artist and record label sites that make MP3s freely available. Those sort of forward thinking people need to be encouraged.

That said, I’m not linking to anything I don’t like. While I’m not suggesting my subjective taste are the end all and be all of musical quality (though I do think I have exceptionally good taste), I think the only way this exercise works is if site visitors are confident that I’m using my best judgment for my recommendations. I can’t offer up a link that I don’t believe is quality music. You may not like what I like, but at least know that I’m not purposely sending you down false trails. Your time with these songs should not be wasted.

One last note: I’m offering up the songs with no commentary. I think the music should speak for itself. You’re not being asked, per se, to make a purchase here, but rather to invest three or four minutes of your time and see if you agree that a particular song is good. Criticism seems superfluous and even a hindrance to the main task — getting you to the music. Keep it simple, is my motto. Besides, I should be spending whatever time I devote to this project looking for good songs, not trying to impress you with the wisdom of my musical insights. In this exercise, it’s all about the songs themselves.

I hope you like this new feature. If you do, encourage me to keep doing it with comments and feedback.

NOTE: My goal with “MP3 of the Day” is to find great, free, non-DRM MP3 downloads. If you have a tip for a good source, leave a comment.

The finalists for the 2007 Digital Edge Awards have been announced.

I’m on pins and needles, of course, wondering if Bakersfield.com can beat out not one, but two sites essentially conceived by Rob Curley.

Terms I hate:

• User-generated content
• Citizen journalism
• Web 2.0
• Social networking
• Mainstream Media

But you’ve seen me use them, and I’ll continue to use them, because I generally use them in a context where the short hand communicates the proper meaning to an audience I suspect largely gets it.

Terms I like:

• Packaged Goods Media
• Participation
• People (instead of “users”)
• Distributed media

This inspired by Scott Karp:

Well, no. There is a revolution in media because people who create blogs and MySpace pages ARE publishers, and more importantly, they are now on equal footing with the “big,” “traditional” publishers. There has been a leveling of the playing field that renders largely meaningless the distinction between “users” and “publishers” — we’re all publishers now, and we’re all competing for the finite pie of attention. The problem is that the discourse on trends in online media still clings to the language of “us” and “them,” when it is all about the breakdown of that distinction.

It’s time we start adjusting our taxonomy to recognize that the tools do not define the activity or the output or the people doing it. There are large publishers and small publishers. There are people who publish for friends and family, and people who publish for professional colleagues, and people who publish for a (relatively) broad consumer audience. The revolution is that ANYONE can publish to the network and that anyone can leverage the power of the network.

While I use terms I dislike, I have a hard time in my own mind separating what the so-called pros do from what the rest of us do. It is, indeed, all just publishing. It is all conversation. That doesn’t mean all communication is equal. There is a lot of crap on the non-professional side of the conversation, but not everything that has a paycheck attached is necessarily all that good, either, though some of it remains quite necessary. So if pay isn’t the distinction, and venue isn’t the distinction, and form isn’t the distinction — what is?

As a matter of taxonomy and clarity, I continue to use these terms, even as in my own mind, the categories of these labels are largely irrelevant.

Greg Sterling is skeptical about Jimmy Wales’ new search engine. For some reason, I’ve been underwhelmed by Jimmy’s announcement. I think Greg nails some of the reasons why the whole thing is uninspiring.

Also, I’m not one of those who says “search is broken.” I think search could be better. I’m quoted anonymously in some NAA report from a year ago that I’m too lazy to go find right now** saying that “search is only about 10 percent (or was it 20?) good as it will be.” I think search will get better, much better, and maybe a company other than Google (or Yahoo! or Microsoft) will make it better. Right now, however, search is good enough, and as long as it’s good enough, it’s going to be hard to get people to switch.

** OK, I can get you this far, the summary page. You need to be a NAA Digital Media Federation member to get the rest.

Jakob Nielsen has published his annual list of design mistakes. Read the whole thing, of course, but here’s one to pay attention to:

7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
Selective attention is very powerful, and Web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal-driven navigation. (The main exception being text-only search-engine ads.)Unfortunately, users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of advertising. After all, when you ignore something, you don’t study it in detail to find out what it is.

Therefore, it is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements.

Davin’s comment on the post below deserves to be elevated to its own post:

I will throw some gas on the fire. If you are willing to use video footage from point and shoot cameras online, I am not sure you need the high end, $4,000 camera at all. We have a pair of Canon XL2s in our newsroom and they are only rarely used. Even our most experienced shooters (including one fella with broadcast TV experience) favor our Casio Z850 cameras. They are quicker (no lengthy capturing process) and they have as good image as the Canon (once you compress the footage.)

It’s nice to have the Canon for long distance shots or internal video production. But for day-in-day-out use, we don’t need them.

As for reliability, we have used Sony and Casio consumer grade (point and shoot!) cameras for the past year without a single problem. To give you perspective how often they are used, we have shot 600+ videos this past year using those cameras.

In my own prejudiced view, there are few in any newspaper sites doing better video than Bakersfield. That said, I wouldn’t want to have a newsroom of that size or larger without at least one $4,000 camera (plus required accessories). Things just come up … and those cameras should get used, because eventually quality will matter more than it is now. A point-and-shoot looks a little silly mounted on a tripod, you know.

FreePress.net is an interesting site. It’s an anti-corporate, anti-big media operation. Ironically, without big media, it wouldn’t have any news. All of it is copied from professional media outlets. They run this disclaimer at the bottom of the lifted stories:

This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Do you think that covers them?

Was Gerald Ford our first (and probably only) radically transparent president? Eat the Press has some amusing background.

Ford is probably best remembered as a klutz, even though he was in fact quite athletic. He has Chevy Chase to thank for the legacy, but Ford always played along.

He explained in his book, “I believe it is always better to err on the side of more exposure and access rather than less. At that time, the media and the general public still resented any hint of ‘imperial’ trappings in connection with the presidency or the White House.”

Ford’s best comeback to Chase came at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in 1975.

When emcee Bob Hope introduced him, Ford got up from the table, “accidentally” caught the tablecloth in his trousers and dumped silverware in Chase’s lap.

As he approached the podium, he pretended to trip, prompting the pages of the speech he was carrying to fly into the audience.

When he got to the microphone and the laughter began to diminish, Ford reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the real script and said, “Good evening. I’m Gerald Ford and you’re not.”

So did Ford’s transparency help or hurt him?

My good friend and former co-worker Bradley Fikes is blogging now — and I didn’t know.  He leaves a comment on a post below, and then I know. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known. Maybe I didn’t notice because he hasn’t blog rolled me. The crumb.  Well, like it or not, he’s now on my Buddy List.
Brad’s one of the smartest guys I know, and it looks like he’s writing a lot about media stuff, so you should check him out.

As much as he uses the internet, Howard Kurtz can’t stop thinking like an old-fart media guy.

I like being able to click on newspapers from around the world, see bloggers smack each other around, Google any person or thing that pops into my brain, watch news videos (and some stupid stuff, too) on YouTube, and generally surf till I drop.

But while I hook up my laptop just about anywhere, IM my buddies and continually check my buzzing BlackBerry, one thing is missing: what I call Ed Sullivan moments.

This nostalgia for mass media is misplaced. Sure those Ed Sullivan moments were fun, but they were an anomaly. They were moments in time that only a Baby Boomer could love. Mass media is a relic of the 20th Century, the only period in human history in which it existed. For most of our history, communication was much more personal, often far closer to one-to-one than one-to-many. Now we’re in the era of many-to-many, which has more in common with campfire media, is more of a deeply felt personal media, more in keeping with our nature. Mass media wasn’t good for us. Distributed media is better.

But isn’t something lost if you can wall yourself off from views and information that challenge what you already believe? If everything is ordered a la carte? If — and this really dates me as an ink-stained wretch — you like turning the pages of a newspaper because you might bump into an unexpected story you would never have found online? If you and your family and your co-workers are plugged into parallel media universes?

Something gained, something lost. Welcome to life, Howie. I’m not going to try and guess at how other people use the internet, but speaking for myself, I consume far more digital content these days than any other. I watch less and less TV with each passing week. I have very little time for newspapers. I still read books at about the same rate, but otherwise, my media life is almost entirely digital. And I still make serendipitous discoveries. The interconnected, networked nature of distributed media makes finding unexpected gems pretty darn near inevitable. For example, I discovered OK Go because another media blogger linked to the video on YouTube.

Let me be clear: I mostly only read media and technology blogs (the narrow focus Kurtz bemoans), and a blogger who does likewise linked to something slightly outside of his speciality, and because of that, I discovered it. And now I’m a huge OK Go fan. And it all happened by accident, and despite my narrow focus.

It’s not exactly an Ed Sullivan moment, but I bet you even Howard Kurtz has seen “the treadmill video.” And we all know about Lonelygirl15. But more importantly, we all know about YouTube. That is the Ed Sullivan moment in the many-to-many era.

It’s a cacophony out there. Take the recent finding that there are 13 million blogs in America. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to read 13 million blogs. Writing one takes up enough of my life as it is.

You have to learn how to manage your media. I think that’s something digital natives do naturally. It’s old-media think to worry about consuming it all. You consume what interests you and what you happen to find by following links. You determine what is important (remember, you are Time’s person of the year), what you need to know, and how best to find it.

Sure, Paris Hilton topped Google searches in 2006, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t more people staying abreast of Iraq. Iraq news, along with the other major headlines, is easy to find and plentiful, and while it might seem that the same could be said of Paris, but in reality, serious news organizations largely ignore her. If you want Paris news, you’ve got to search it out or know where to look. I know some serious-minded people who like celeb gossip, so gnashing of teeth on this point is rather snotty. The real question is, if people need to search for Paris Hilton, are MSM organizations really doing a good job of serving the needs readers and viewers? As for younger audiences, they seem to get the Daily Show jokes about Iraq as equally well as the ones about Paris Hilton.

How do we pick out the stories, sites, blogs, videos and info-shards that are worth our precious time? We can follow the electronic links from people and places we trust, but in an odd way, that’s bringing back the old gatekeeper role, with popular portals granting admission to a selected few content creators.

First, it’s not bringing back the gatekeeper role. The gatekeeper has always been with us, it’s just that the job descriptions and qualifications have changed. It’s no longer crusty city desk editors and executive producers. It’s you and me. As to Howard’s first question: You just do it. You figure it out. You are in control. You’ll find some good stuff, and you’ll also waste some time, but at least you aren’t being forced to pay for the whole CD to get just one song, or buy the whole paper just to read the comics.

… awkward old Ed Sullivan would have a hard time making it today. Maybe he’d have to sell his best segments on iTunes.

Exactly, old Mr. Kurtz. Now you get it. Assuming Mr. Sullivan produced content worth buying and mastered promoting himself and his content on YouTube, his own blog and MySpace. I think Topo Gigio would be a big hit on YouTube, unless Mr. Sullivan tried to make it all too slick.

(hat tip to Romenesko)

UPDATE: Welcome Romenekso readers.  This blog is mostly about media (from the perspective of a guy who has worked most of his life for newspaper companies), so feel free to look around. Here’s the RSS feed.