Resources

• Folio magazine did a very informative webinar on Publishing in the E-Media Age on Jan. 31. It will be available free until May 1 (registration required).

• For an introduction to the technology, take a look at Mark Briggs' Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive. A digital literacy guide for the information age, published by the University of Maryland’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and the Knight Citizen News Network.
• The Reuters Mobile Journalism site features news stories and videos produced by Reuters reporters using a Mobile Journalism Toolkit that included a video capable mobile phone and a bluetooth-enabled keyboard.

Links to come

• A blogger discusses how he made his decision on blogging software.
• The (defunct?) Online Journalism Review at USC produced this comparison.
• Splitbrain.org explains what led them to create the weblogmatrix which allows you to compare selected software on the fly – useful for comparing the choices that are supported by your web host.
  

• An introduction from ZDNET.
• The wikimatrix from Splitbrain allows you to compare software you select – again, useful for comparing the choices that are supported by your web host.

To come

To come

• Write a Title Tag That Will Improve Your Ranking in the Search Results and Increase Your Sales (Wired Magazine)
• Avoiding web censorship - a cautionary tale

• Copyright

• Newsweek on Amazon’s Kindle: No need for a book to ever go out of print.

• //The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More// by Christopher Anderson. And see the Advertising Age interview in which Anderson discusses his upcoming book Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business which is excerpted in the current issue of Wired magazine. Now, I'm skeptical of the hype that is used to sell many non-fiction titles – and I note that the title of Anderson's new book seems to contradict that of The Long Tail. However, if you sift through the inevitable overstatements and too-broad generalizations, you'll learn a lot about how the digital economy has undermined the newspaper business and get ideas about how to survive as a writer.
• Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, by Mitch Meyerson (2005, Kaplan Business). Sure, some of the “stars'” tactics are cheesy, if not sleazy. But you ought to at least know what you're up against.
• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (2005, Crown Business). Bossidy, former Chairman of Honeywell International Inc. and AlliedSignal, shares a lifetime of management experience, including 30+years at General Electrict, where he was a disciple of Jack Welch. Ram Charan shares his insights as a management consultant.Although the case studies they cite involve large, publicly-traded companies, the discipline they describe will be useful to any small businessperson. Read an excerpt.
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay Books, 2002). Essential for understanding “viral” marketing. Are you a Connector, a Maven, a Salesman?

• The Vanishing Newspaper - Saving Journalism in the Information Age (2004, University of Missouri Press), by Philip Meyer, author of Precision Journalism: A Reporter's Introduction to Social Science Methods. See the AJR review, which quotes some of the findings from Meyer's statistical analysis of the quality and profitabilty. Sadly, while Meyers finds a positive correlation between quality and business success he notes “there is very little to suggest that quality is the prime cause rather than an incidental effect of profitability.” More encouraging is a quote from former Knight Ridder executive Hal Jurgensmeyer, who posits that what newspapers sell is not information but influence: ”…An influential newspaper will have readers who trust it, and therefore it will be worth more to advertisers.” Or listen to the American Press Institute webcast featuring Meyer and others.