Personal
Vodaphone Nightmare
I don't know what to say, or do. I've had three weeks now with 'no access' on my UK mobile due to some sort of network problem. I've spent an hour or two on a very expensive foreign line trying to fix
Latest
Blogging
How addicted to blogging are you?
Hmm... it could have been worse (via Adriana): 78%How Addicted to Blogging Are You? It's quite ironic to publish this when I've just had huge difficulties accessing Typepad, which this blog is hosted on - again, I might add. Maybe it's the Monday
Media
Our Man in Hell
He won a Pultizier Price for his stories from Ukraine under Stalin, stories which supported the official Stalinist line that the Ukraine famine never took place. Now Walter Duranty, or his alter ego rather, is reporting more 'good news' from beyond the grave (via Steve Boriss): "I
Freesheets
The future may be free, but is it on paper?
I found this picture from Piet Bakker's Newspaper Innovation blog (via Nigel Barlow) quite compelling. Free newspapers are currently published in 50 countries, totalling 40 million copies daily, read by at least 70 million people. Piet looks at worldwide trends for 2007 here, and for Europe here. However,
Web/Tech
Internet thieves beware
This really beggars belief: guess we have to add wi-fi broadband theft to the list of new world crimes unheard of before the age of Internet. I thought Scandinavia was bad for legislating all things great and small - I could go on for hours about the dog poo squad
Marketing and PR
Weird marketing from Amazon
I've been beset by so many technical woes over the last few days that I've almost felt this must be some sort of big cosmic conspiracy, part of what's kept me from blogging, but here's a marketing ploy that really, really puzzles
Acquisitions
No French luck for Mecom
The highest bid was not enough to persuade the Lagardère and Le Monde groups to sell their regional newspapers to Mecom. Lagardère Group announced on Monday that it had sold its regional dailies in Southern France to Groupe Hersant Média for €160m. Le Monde Group is suspected to follow suit
RSS
Celebrity scandals and the trouble with Bloglines
Now, I was planning to write the post on media's celebrity obsession last week, and gleefully report towards the end that getting minimal exposure to celebrity news is easier than ever in world where you can slice and dice content as you see fit with RSS and newsreaders.
Media
A few thoughts on mass vs niche media
Following on my previous post: there is, of course, nothing wrong with trying to captivate the greatest possible number viewers/listeners/readers. That is by definition what mass media is supposed to do. But what if the days of mass media are numbered... In Steve Borris' words: "The
Media
Media's celebrity obsession, eh... who's obsession?
Americans blame the media for giving too much space to celebrity scandals. That is, if we are to believe a survey by Pew research centre where 87 per cent of the respondents felt media didn't get the balance between celebrity and serious news right (via Roy Greenslade). I
Media
Website adds news to nudity to make readers linger
Media websites often go to great lengths to make those eyeballs linger, but here's a novel one: forget all the accusations of how media is sacrificing serious news for celebrity scandal, ever heard of the celebrity rag who plan to seduce readers into spending more time on its
Blogging
The road to hell is paved with amateur contributions
Fabulous title for a not so fabulous op-ed from journalisten.dk. And yes, we're talking about Andrew Keen's "Cult of the amateur – how Today's Internet is killing our culture and destroying our economy". In short: the journalist thinks this is a very