Thursday, August 30, 2007

The human touch

Larry Kramer - formerly of wsj.com and Washington Post, amongst others - has some ideas about the future of news that should be music to news execs everywhere. It's all about the human touch.

Of course, paying for it is another matter. But the bottom line is that machines, ie. search, won't suffice.

Here's the interview with Kara Swisher:

Saturday, August 25, 2007

More women on the web

According to Ofcom's annual Communications Market Report, there are now a whole lot more women using the web. In the UK, at least, and in certain key age groups.

According to the study the web attracted more women last year, with those in the 25-34 age bracket, the most highly sought after age group by advertisers, spending more time on the internet than men of that age.

Art of the interview

... Well, not really. It's just an excuse for a Youtube moment on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

This first one is more of a ramble than a standard interview. But the fact it's the late Hunter S Thompson chatting with Keith Richards adds a certain fascination to their mumblings. And they do mumble.

Filmed in 1993 at Thompson's Colorado property it includes some live footage from Richards' solo tour around the time the album Main Offender was released.


From one extreme to another. This second piece is something of a classic. Taken from Dont Look Back it's the scene where Dylan the media critic excoriates Time reporter Horace Judson - who looks more like the historian of molecular biology he became than a rock journalist.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

PANPA 2007

Long time, no post. I've had three weeks of travelling, budget-related admin, product and staff issues. It's fun, intense, and all to do with managing a fast growing business in a competitive environment. Certainly no complaints, but nevertheless little time to blog.

I did, however, get to the PANPA conference in Melbourne last week. It was an interesting couple of days of conference sessions (Reiner Mittelbach from IFRA was a highlight) punctuated by the inevitable social occasions and culminating in (for APN AP) the Sunshine Coast Daily winning the middleweight Newspaper of the Year award for dailies and Sundays with a circulation of up to 50,000. Here's a happy editor, Peter Atkinson with his award:

The Age won the heavyweight Newspaper of the Year category for dailies with a circulation above 50,000. The award was accepted by editor Andrew Jaspan and MD Don Churchill (below). Mr Churchill is a rather tall chap and the editor is ... err, not. I don't think they've been photographed together too many times ...