ePay It Forward?
You’ve no doubt watched or at least heard of the movie Pay It Forward, with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and the incomparable Haley Joel Osment, who sees dead people. The title of the movie is a phrase that means, essentially, that you can make the world a better place by making the lives of a few people better. They don’t pay you back but when they’re able, they pay it forward by doing the same for a few other people.

Well website eKudoz wants to do something similar using messages. Send a nice message, congrats, kudos, to two people who will hopefully do the same to two more. This is a great social experiment and seems to have a grounding in the concept of Six Degrees of Separation. A story related to Six Degrees involves an experiment where people had to send out two letters addressed to someone they didn’t know by sending them to someone they did, who would in turn repeat the process.

More Streaming Video Sites: Pyro TV, UStream TV
The latest entries in the streaming video website wars are Pyro TV and UStream TV.

Pyro’s interface is clean, with video playing on the top half of your browser screen and tabbed listings on the bottom half. But I don’t see anything all that different about Pyro.TV compared to any other video sharing site, other than an abundance of content from specific TV channels such as Cartoon Network. Am I missing something?

UStream has nothing visually outstanding. They do push the social aspect by highlighting members, offering a link to their profiles and allowing several types of communication: message, 1-on-1 text chat and 1-on-1 video chat.

Now, given that you can search for various types of people (single, swinger, married, etc.) who are looking for various types of meetups (dating casual and serious, networking, etc.), you’d figure they’ve for some reason combined a dating site with a video sharing site. Speed dating, anyone? There’s a section for it.

Not saying that it can’t work, just that I don’t judge my potential partners only by what video content they watch. Just strikes me as odd.

Originally posted on April 9, 2007 @ 9:00 pm

NY Times: Top Newspaper Website
According to the Neilsen/NetRatings, the NY Times website was the top newspaper website for February, followed closely by USA Today and the Washington Post. Editor and Publisher has the full top 30 list.

Blame Canada. For Being Boring?
Apparently, the Washington Post is the last American newspaper to have a Canadian bureau. Or was, now that they’re closing their Toronto office. Ah well. Just wait until both countries merge, maybe 20 years down the road. Or sooner, if the Prime Minister sells the country over.

Have Blogs Jumped The Shark?
Last week, while flipping channels, I came across Friday night’s WWE wrestling. The ringside announcers blabbered on about how the two lead female wrestlers were having a blog battle. Does this actually interest anyone other than twelve year olds who think wrestling is real?  It’s one thing to follow an athlete’s thoughts, and yet another to follow a fake battle – i.e., fiction – in blog form.

Originally posted on April 6, 2007 @ 10:00 pm

Off With Her Head?
Danny Bonaduce, radio host and talentless ex-Partridge Family child star, calls for the execution of Rosie O’Donnell, the loudmouth, opinionated TV host and Tom Cruise-salivator. That’s right, execution. Last I heard, there was something called free speech in the United States. Whether you like O’Donnell or not, a rational human being must realize that what Bonaduce is saying could be construed as counselling to commit a murder – which IS a crime. I’m not sure if the US applies the death penalty for sedition, but maybe they can get Bonaduce at the same time on a dope charge. Dope as in utterly stupid. Then again, this could be one of those stupid April Fool’s jokes conducted days early.

London Calling
If you’ve never believed in Big Brother, you might reconsider, at least in the UK. (It’s been said that George Orwell knew what was coming because he had insider sources in the British government.) The UK has been described as an endemic surveillance society because of all the public cameras, watching your every move.

Now things get even better. Whether you’re a blogger or a journalist, if you are out in the field covering a story and have a camera, press credentials are not going to be enough to not get searched. It seems, every citizen has become a threat, and police officers can stop you for any reason at any time. [A UK source tells me that this is in fact the way life is there now.]

What Are You Paid For Your Writing?
London Freelance has an interesting collection of rate tables for online, print, broadcasting, and photographic content. These are actual rates collected together from numerous publications from around the world, ordered by publication, not date of collection.

Now if you’re a blogger/writer looking at these tables, before you go screaming for more money, consider the ad revenue of the publications you write for, as well as your own experience. These have always been a factor for print rates and are no doubt the case online. You might want to check out their fees guide, which gives suggestions for what to charge for different types of content.

While the rates are in British Pounds, even the same numbers in US$ mean promising returns for those of us that are “pro” bloggers.

Originally posted on April 2, 2007 @ 8:32 am

Would You Watch Ads On Your Cell Phone?
Some people seem to think that you and I would be willing to watch ads on our cell phones in return for free calling minutes. A Harris Interactive survey suggests, however, that more people would prefer cash before minutes, and fewer people would accept free ringtones or discount coupons. I don’t know. Would you want to watch ads on your cell phone? I’d think the incentive would have to be high.

Who Reads More? Print or Online Readers?
You’ve probably read or heard that online readers only browse, have short attention spans, and probably don’t finish anything they start reading. That’s probably true of those that subscribe to hundreds of feeds, but a Poynter Institute study, Eyetrack, suggests that online readers actually complete more stories than print readers.

Twitter From the Founders’ Viewpoint
Alexandra Berzon at Red Herring gives a nice explanation of the success of Twitter from the founders’ point of view, and how the blogging of influential people such as Steve Rubel and Robert Scoble contributed significantly to that success.

Originally posted on March 30, 2007 @ 7:38 pm

More Print Mags Go Bye-Bye
Life Magazine, which was revived some time in the 1980s, will be publishing one last print issue. After that, their only presence will be online. Child Magazine is also ending print life but will have an online presence as part of a portal.

Newspapers may not be dead yet, but magazines sure are dropping. Though it’s good to hear that many are maintaining online presences.

The Money’s In Social Networks
Print mags might be finding focusing on online editions more profitable, but in the meantime, MySpace is pulling in about US$30M in revenue. Per month, that is.

Minority Journalists Increasing Or Decreasing?
Editor and Publisher magazine reports that the percentage of minority journalists in the US decreased since last year, according to an annual survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. E&P also points out that the actual number of minority journalists actually increased by 200. Furthermore, of the 2,000 full-time journalists only working online for a newspaper, 16% were minorities.

I would think, though, that the percentage of full-time “minority” bloggers online is much higher. Of course, online, how do you define “minority”?

Originally posted on March 27, 2007 @ 8:50 pm