It’s 4 a.m. and Eagle-Eyes is saying, “Wake Up! Wake up! You have to see this headline. ‘Me’ nudges ‘I’ who in turn pokes ‘Myself’ and all three of us rise and waddle downstairs in our bunny rabbit slippers to glance at an article titled, “The real Fake Steve Jobs stands up.” Hmmm, what’s this all about?
It turns out to be a story about how the technology editor at Forbes magazine was outed as author of a blog that made fun of Apple’s CEO. (Oh no, how low can a blogger go?) It took awhile for the three-of-us to explain to Eagle-Eyes that there was nothing to worry about, we would not out him from our team. All our readers know that this blog is really written by only one person who assumes five identities at various times. This is done, in fun, because “just plain Bill” wasn’t generating many comments to his posts.
Oh-oh, here comes Hammerhead, and he’s waving some headlines printed out from online newsletters. One states, “The Internet Seen As An Opportunity for Newspapers” and the other says, “Online ads to to overtake US newspapers.” Actually, this isn’t “new” news; but these two online articles reported some interested findings as the result of recent statistical studies. Here are a few significant findings that provide food for thought:
92% of America‘s top 100 newspapers offer video on their websites (this is an increase from the 2006 figure of 61
93 papers offer RSS partial text feeds, while three offer full text RSS feeds
95% of papers offer at least one reporter blog. Ninety-three persent of these blogs allow comments. (Last year, 80% of the papers offered blogs, with 83% allowing comments.
67% of newspapers now allow comments on articles. (This is an increase of 14% from 2006, when only 19% of papers allowed comments on papers.)
29 percent of the top 100 newspapers now require users to register before gaining complete website access. (Up 6% from 2006) Three of the 29 papers require a paid subscription, and 26 require free registration.
This comes as no surprise to ‘Me, Myself & I.’ It was bound to happen, sooner or later.It was over a decade ago when PetalumaNet volunteers created the first website for the Argus-Courier and just a few years, ago, produced a site called Petaluma Online that demonstrated how electronic newspapers could include blogs, as well as links to various community website with useful information. The site was free to access.
The tipping point in these surveys, seem to be the shift in where advertising dollars are being used by businesses. Changes from traditional media to online and other digital formats are happening all over the world. Following the money trail should be interesting. A VSS manager (Veronis Suhler Stevenson), stated: “Knowledge and information industries drive the US economy, meaning that information is a useful tool. Companies are prepared to pay a lot of money to get that information.”
OK, Hammerhead; you’ve made your point. We’re assigning you and Eagle-Eyes to follow this story. Stay tuned for future updates.