The big read today, for everyone, has been Clay Shirky’s essay on thinking the unthinkable . A more cogent discussion of the issues around newspapers would be hard to find. Lots chimed with me and to pick one part to quote kind-of defeats the structure of the piece. So worth a read though.
Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
On the heals of Shirky’s essay comes news that the Seattle P-I is to publish last edition Tuesday. Given Clay’s take and the general shifting to the recognition that change is, well, inevitable, they may feel like they are in a goldfish bowl but this will be one closley watched (re)start for a paper going online.
We don’t have reporters, editors or producers—everyone will do and be everything. Everyone will write, edit, take photos and shoot video, produce multimedia and curate the home page. That’ll be a training challenge for everyone, but we’re all up for the challenge and totally ready to pick up all these skills.
Other stuff that I read today included
- DigiDave | Communication is Key: It is NOT personal branding – it’s Just living your life online. – “Yes. I live parts of my life online. I keep some of it separate. My nomdeplum has served me well. People remember and recognize me. I’ve built a strong presence online that shows consistency in my strengths and dispositions. While this seems somewhat ego-centric, it is MY blog about MY life. I am not an institution and my personal brand is nothing more than me just living my life online.”
- The Daily Dust | UK News | Good News – The only good news on this web site.
- TwiTV – visualising Twitter – A neat little mashup that listens for Tweets containing listening and then tries to match them with a youtube vid. Some fun contrasts.
- 6 Unique Twitter Visualizations – Many may be familiar with these apps but if you are new to twitter this may just prompt a few more follows and drag you deeper in to the Twitter is great camp
- Movie Mosaics – Mike Jones has a great post about why Movie Mosaics are more than just pretty pictures
- Play the news – Interactive News Via Online Gaming – Thanks to Louise over at the JP Digital Digest for reminding me of cracking interactive site Play the News
- AudioBoo out of beta, now available at App Store – An iphone app that looks like fun
- Is YouTube The Geocities Of Online Video? – I get where Tod Sacerdoti is coming from with this but I’m not sure it holds water. After all building a website was an active process compared to the passive consumption of Video
I’d like to think I’m ‘living my life online’, but everyone has their limits, sooner or later you need to unplug. It just depends how far people are willing to go to make things work, it might not be enough.
With the amount of videos out there on YouTube about how to use Twitter (many from as far back as 06), it’s clear that people as a collective are starting to see the merits of this mass-sharing of information, but there are only few in the media who exemplify the right way to do it.