Media - Internet

The age-old tension of free vs. paid-for content online is up for questioning again, as The New York Times explores the profitability of print newspapers who offer free online content. The main source of Web editions' revenues come from online advertising, which news publishers fear will decline if they begin to charge access fees. Newspaper publishers with a Web presence also fear that mandated...

Which website best symbolizes the state of online journalism today? Is it CNN.com, the cyber offshoot of the cable news powerhouse? Or is it Wonkette.com, the dishy, irreverent blog about Washington politics edited by Ana Marie Cox? According to a report released yesterday by the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, the answer isn't clear. While mainstream media companies capture...

In the last two years social networking sites mushroomed across the net, heavily fertilized by hype and the promise of six degrees of connection between socially dispersed people who shared common interests or friends. Now companies actively apply social networking principles to shift more stock and lure more clickthrus to their site. In 2003, social networking sites Friendster, tribe.net and...

News junkies who make the daily pilgrimage to the Google News site now have more control over how they see their news with new customization options, officials said Thursday. The Mountain View, Calif., company added a bevy of new features to its seemingly perpetual beta news site, allowing users to re-arrange the sections on the page, create keyword-driven custom sections and even mix-and-match...

About thirty media heavy-hitters gathered at last week's "Whose News" symposium hosted by the Neiman Foundation for Journalism and The Media Center, to discuss the future of news media, the changing relationships between media and society, and technology's effect on news and information. Here are a few of the principle ideas: Journalism: What we should have (create), what should last (survive)...

AS INTERNET USERS DISCOVER CONTENT aggregation's merit, advertisers and publishers fear a loss of control over their content and how users experience it. Now, several newspapers have launched their own customized RSS readers, in an effort to solidify their relationships with online readers. In the last several weeks, the Los Angeles Times, Britain's Guardian, and CNET each have acknowledged plans...

Penn Media announced today that it will publish fifty of its flagship owned and operated e-zines as Blogs, making them one of the largest publishers of consumer trade blogs in the blogosphere. Pheedo Incis providing the consulting services for the rollout and the providision RSS and Weblog advertising services. The blogs are scheduled to roll out over the next three months. Penn Media President...

Information wants to be free -- as long as you don't have to pay the people who dug up that information. While the Net has long been associated with free things -- free e-mail, free personal Web pages, free searches -- the news business has been repulsed by the notion that their hard-won scoops and journalism should be given away for free. But the newspaper business has had little choice but to...

On the website for last week's Blogging, Journalism & Credibility Conference at Harvard, many articles, comments and links are posted. Here are a few points emphasizing the distinctions between traditional journalism and online news that the Editors' Weblog considers valuable: Organic news vs. Investigative reporting: Jimmy Wales, founder and CEO of Wikipedia says of his Wikinews experiment that...

For an observer from afar, there were three ways to experience the horrible 9.0-magnitude underwater earthquake and resulting tsunamis that wrought biblical destruction just after Christmas in Southeast Asia. First, you could read accounts in the newspaper or online, or you could hear them on the radio. Second, you might see still photographs from the scene. Third was the gripping amateur video...