Another one bites the dust

For the second time this week I learned of a former ink-stained wretch abandoning a print sub to read online only.

From Jimmy Guterman:

But, after years of wavering, I'm done. The environmental argument alone should have been enough for me, but the simple fact is that I do more and more of my reading on a screen (the only holdouts: fiction and poetry). And plenty of that reading has been from the Times. What finally made me give in to the inevitable was realizing, one barely-dawn morning last week when I was reading the paper at our kitchen table, that I had already read much (most?) of it online. For all the pleasure of holding and print, the Times on paper is just too late. In 2008, today's paper is yesterday's news.

Read full post here.

Impending doom

From today's NY Times: The Journal Register has hired Lazard as an adviser as it weighs a restructuring.

If the company were to seek bankruptcy protection, as analysts said was possible, it would be a first in recent memory for a publicly traded newspaper company, John Morton, a longtime newspaper analyst, said.

Two tidbits I find most interesting:

• The company, according to the Times, is carrying $625 million in debt. Not good when the economy is slipping and newspapers are no longer the medium of choice for advertisers.
• Four years ago the company spent $415 million on several Michigan dailies. And we all know how the car industry is doing these days.

Talk about the perfect storm: a recession, heavy debt load, a bad acquisition and, oh by the way, a sector that is fast in decline.

Update (4/12): I just came across this interesting perspective from Louis Hau at Forbes.com. He points out that newspapers, if run properly, can be quite profitable. The problem is when they're saddled with debt or a recession hits. (Click here for full article.)

Understanding Twitter

The hardest part of Twitter is explaining it to people. IM on steroids is the best I've heard to date. But it doesn't do Twitter justice.

Abbie Lundberg, editor of CIO magazine, does one of the better jobs describing her fascination with it and how it works with a demo of how she was able to reach out to a small community and gather info. (See her blog posting here.)

A few tidbits:

If you're into fully articulated thoughts, Twitter may not be for you. But if you're a CIO or any other busy professional, having a tool that quickly and simply aggregates immediate information is a wonderful thing.

Abbie also points to this post from Harry McCracken at PC World which describes Twitter's practicality pretty well. Harry points out some useful tips as well. (Click here for full article.)

Making Web sites easier to read

Jack Shafer goes on a rant against the Washington Post's Web site. He has several points, two of which stand out: (Here's the link to his full article.)

First -- Web sites that don't send links to their competitors. His specific beef with with the Washington Post not linking to the NY Times and vice versa. Jack's right. If your goal is to be the one place people come for news/opinion why wouldn't you point to your competition? Doing so only increases your credibility and makes readers realize that by going to your site they will get as complete a view of the world as possible. At a dot com I worked at I was pulled aside and told to view the Web site like a TV channel. "You don't want anyone changing the channel." How wrong that was and is.

Second -- Link infestation. Jack has beefs about all the links in so many of the articles. I am not sure it's the volume of links but instead the lack of description of where they are taking you. For example, "Google" with a hyperlink. Is that going to the Google home page, to latest stock prices, company profile, article about Google? I think much of the junk we see today would be solved if the author of a posting explained clearly and concisely where the link is going to take people.

Counting by hand

This just came across from AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) The Census Bureau is abandoning plans for the first high-tech census in 2010 and returning to using paper and pencil to count the nation's 300 million residents.

How is it that the United States, one of the technically advanced countries in the world, can't figure out a way to use technology to ensure our census is more accurate?

Update (4/4/08): From today's NY Times more details. It's worse than I thought. So now the federal government will hire 600,000 people to help with the count. The cost of conducting the census will now be $14 billion, $3 billion more than expected. Here's the money quotes with references to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez:

Mr. Gutierrez, whose department oversees the Census Bureau, said many of the problems were a result of “a lack of effective communication with one of our key contractors.”

Congressional testimony and government reports indicate that the agency was unprepared to manage the contract for the computers. Census officials have been faulted for poorly spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, the Harris Corporation, based in Florida.

John Murrell of All Things Digital agrees.

Opening Day -- Yankee Stadium

The weakest link in data security

There's lots of discussion these days on the security of data. And most people think that hackers, poking their way into corporate systems, are the primary culprits. I haven't seen any stats but my sense is that the weakest link are individuals who lose their laptops.

Here's the latest incident from FierceCIO: (Click here for full story.)

Another week, yet another data theft. This time a laptop PC was stolen containing unencrypted, confidential data on March 4 and the event was disclosed after the company began notifying employees that their data had been snatched. Agilent Technologies, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of test and measurement equipment, sent letters to 51,000 current and former employees telling then that some of their personal and financial data had been stolen. The breach occurred when a laptop was stolen from the car of a Stock & Option Solutions employee, a stock-plan management services firm that works for Agilent as a third-party contractor.