One was a $1.1 billion buyout (in Canadian dollars) of Canada's largest newspaper chain, the Canwest newspapers, led by experienced news executive Paul Godfrey.

The other was the launch of a hyper-local, participatory news start-up called OpenFile.ca, backed by venture capital and led by former CBC, CTV and CNN journalist Wilf Dinnick.

Both are betting on the public appetite for local news, approaching it from two sides of the business spectrum, with each of them hoping to revitalize the media ecology in Canada.

As in the U.S., the news industry in Canada is in trouble. The sale of the newspaper chain was a result of some of these problems, brought about by the collapse of the Canwest media empire under a burden of debt.

Newspapers in Canada are seeing falls in circulation as readers turn to websites, blogs and social media for news. But print is not doing quite as badly as their counterparts across the border. Circulation is on a gentle decline, down by around 4 percent from 2008 to 2009.

Print is far from dead. According to the Canadian Newspaper Association, more than 4 million newspapers are sold every day and three-quarters of Canadians read a print edition every week. So there is still a market for the daily paper edition.

Digital Aspirations

The man leading the Canwest purchase, Paul Godfrey, brings to the deal a successful track record in print. In the 1990s, he transformed the Sun Media chain of tabloid newspapers into a business worth $1 billion.

Now he heads a group of Canwest creditors and investors who may want to see a return on their capital sooner, rather than later. In essence, they are looking to recoup costs by issuing public shares in the summer that, hopefully, will rise as the economy improves and the advertising market recovers.

The new company will own and run 46 daily and weekly publications across Canada, together with several related Internet properties such as Canada.com. Despite the challenges facing print, all but one of the newspapers, the National Post, are making money. In April, the publishing arm of the crumbling Canwest empire reported quarterly revenues of $254 million, down just 1 percent from a year earlier, with profits of $41 million

The challenge, as other newspapers have found, is navigating the transition from print to digital media, at a time when most of the revenue still comes from selling newspapers. Digital brings in less than 10 percent of revenue for the Canwest papers. Godfrey is looking to increase this to 25 percent

The new owner is making all the right noises, talking about keeping all the newspapers going, preserving newsroom job and benefits and adopting a digital-first strategy. In a note to Canwest staff, he wrote:

Our potent brands are composed of a pan-Canadian mix of major metro newspapers, the National Post, a wealth of superb digital properties and community newspapers.

What is less clear is how he is going to steer the legacy print business into this digital future. Newspapers are complicated beasts, involving layers of editorial, production, administration, circulation and sales, let alone capital costs of printing presses. The question is whether the new owners are ready to invest in the group to ensure its long-term viability or looking for a short-term return.

Open Source Journalism

By comparison, the new Toronto-based startup, OpenFile.ca, has none of these legacy issues. Launched on May 11, the site has a handful of journalists on staff, among them MediaShift managing editor Craig Silverman. It is based on a collaborative pro-am model, with journalists working with the community.

Readers are invited to submit ideas for stories, which are vetted by an editor and either assigned to a professional journalist or put up on the site for review by the community. Once a story is published, the community is invited to add their comments and content to the professionally produced content, as it says on the site:

OpenFile was designed to let the public decide what local news stories should be covered. You suggest, we report. You comment, we respond. You create, we publish. End result: A vibrant, ever-evolving local news conversation among newsmakers, news-gatherers and news readers.

For now, OpenFile is focusing on Toronto. It is hoping to replicate its model in other Canadian cities, and potentially also in to the U.S. The man behind OpenFile, Wilf Dinnick, enthusiastically described the launch as "one of the biggest media ventures in Canada since the launch of the National Post." He has reasons to be positive. The site is backed by several million dollars of venture capital for the first three years.

Dinnick has acknowledged that "our tough time is going to be in year three," once the initial funding comes to an end. So it is hoping to attract revenue from sponsors and advertisers eager to reach local audiences.

OpenFile's approach bears some similarities to Spot.us, where readers are asked for donations on specific pitches from journalists. The difference with the Canadian idea is turning to the local community for the story pitches. This has led to some skepticism about the quality of news tips from the public or that rival journalists may poach the best ideas.

Rethinking the story

OpenFile does not see itself as the traditional city paper. "We're not a newspaper. We don't expect to be a newspaper," Dinnick told The National Post. Rather it is rethinking journalism as a participatory and collaborative process with the public, where journalists involve the public in what was once the preserve of professionals.

The news article is not the final product, but rather part of an interaction with the community, who can add and develop the story. "We're calling it a 'file', because a story isn't just a single, static text document anymore. It has to be something that lives," Silverman told the Nieman Journalism Lab.

The success of OpenFile will largely depend on attracting a committed and engaged community of users. Aside from traditional media, Toronto already has lively local sites, among them BlogTO and Torontoist. A writer at Torontoist has argued that OpenFile's approach "isn't actually much different from the model currently in place at sites like BlogTO and here at Torontoist, where much of what gets covered is also prompted by openly acknowledged reader tips."

The buyout of the Canwest newspapers and the launch of OpenFile share one thing in common: No one can say whether or how either will dramatically change the face of the media industry in Canada.

Both bring a focus on local news and both stress the importance of digital. A mix of the old and the young, the established and the new, is to be welcomed as journalism tries to figure out its future.

Image of newstand courtesy of Flickr user mag3737

Alfred Hermida is an award-winning online news pioneer and journalism educator. He is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, the University of British Columbia, where he leads the integrated journalism program. He was a founding news editor of the BBC News website. He blogs at Reportr.net

These Big Questions are being asked at numerous "future of journalism" conferences seemingly every week. (This week it's the Carnegie-Knight Conference on the Future of Journalism.) But what is going on beyond just meeting, networking and talking about solutions to the hard problems of transition from old to new media? There are also a handful of new "laboratories" at educational institutions that are gearing up to answer the same questions about the future of journalism.

I've started a list of some of the ones that have been recently announced, and invite you to add to this list with others -- especially overseas.

Educational Centers and Incubators for New Journalism

Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education

This initiative is now more than three years old. It isn't about the creation of an educational center, per se, but includes five universities in its News21 incubators that train students to do traditional and new media reports. I have covered the work of News21 in MediaShift reports here and here.

The Tow Center for Journalistic Innovation at CUNY

Just announced today, this new Center at the City University of New York just got a $3 million grant from the Tow Foundation to "study new business models for journalism and create an incubator to help develop new journalistic products and services using Internet technologies."

A money quote taken from the press release announcing the new Center:

"Universities often do R&D for industry," says Stephen B. Shepard, Dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former editor of BusinessWeek. "There's no reason journalism schools can't do the same for our profession."

Center for Future of Civic Media

Started a year ago as part of the Knight News Challenge, the Center is a joint project of the MIT Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies Program. The idea is to "create technical and social systems for sharing, prioritizing, organizing, and acting on information. These include developing new technologies that support and foster civic media and political action; serving as an international resource for the study and analysis of civic media; and coordinating community-based test beds both in the United States and internationally." I got to see some of the projects-in-process at the Center at a recent conference at MIT.

Investigative Reporting Workshop

This new Workshop was recently announced by the American University School of Communication, and will be led by non-profit investigative journalism guru Charles Lewis, who previously founded and ran the Center for Public Integrity. The Workshop will do long-form investigative work by professional journalists, faculty and students, while also trying to find new business models to support investigative journalism. You can read an in-depth Q&A with Lewis on MediaShift here.

Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI)

Funded by the foundation of media magnate Don Reynolds, this Institute at the University of Missouri at Columbia will dedicate its new building in September. RJI's site says the building will have "state-of-the-art resources to test and demonstrate new technologies, experiment with convergence news production and delivery systems, and conduct real-time and virtual seminars and conferences."

[Note: I participated in a roundtable discussion for RJI in New York.]

New Media Innovation Lab

At Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Lab was launched in 2006 by former BET executive Retha Hill. Its goal is to help develop multimedia applications for media companies. So far, it has helped Gannett "research the news consumption habits of young people and develop applications conducive to reaching this audience," according to a news release at ASU's site. The Lab is set to move into the new Cronkite building in downtown Phoenix this summer.

Thanks to Dan Gillmor for suggesting this addition.

Please let me know of other similar centers for journalism innovation that you know about -- you can mention them either in the comments below or using the Feedback Form that goes directly to my email in-box. I'll add them to the list with a credit to you.

My hope is that these various centers will do more than simply spend huge sums of money on buildings and make big pronouncements. If they can help change the old mindset at educational institutions, with students, with faculty -- and with the larger media business at large -- then they will have proven their worth.

Today is President's Day in the U.S., celebrating the February birthdays of past presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. But rather than looking back, I'd like to look forward to the next president of the United States -- whoever he or she will be -- and consider how they might use technology and new media to be more responsive to us.

In theory, our elected officials are supposed to represent our interests in a representative democracy. In practice, our elected officials usually are more interested in what their donors or lobbyists think. But with all the talk during the campaign about finance reform and the disavowal of corporate influence, perhaps we can hope for more next year.

I'd like to make this a group exercise, and will kick it off by listing some ways that I think the next president can use technology to be more responsive. I would like you to send in your ideas so we can make this an even better, more comprehensive list.

Presidential Participatory Media

> Write a regular blog or Twitter feed that would update the electorate on what you're thinking and doing in official and personal affairs. Allow people to comment and respond on the blog.

> Put major policy initiatives into wikis before they are brought to Capitol Hill. That would allow people to annotate and comment on the initiatives when they are in earlier stages. The wiki would have to be moderated in some way to keep out pranksters and trouble-makers. Imagine how useful this tool might be when you are stuck in a foreign policy conundrum.

> Live online chats or video Q&As. Rather than just the usual boring presidential press conferences, maybe you could go online and answer people's questions in real time via text chat. Or you could use the 10Questions format to get the highest-voted questions by voters, and then answer them via online video.

> Transparent, online schedule. Put your entire daily schedule online in an application that we all can view. Unless the meeting is about something related to war or national security, we have a right to know who is meeting with you and whether they are staying overnight at the White House.

> Show us the money. Every time someone donates money to you, we want to know who they are, how much they gave and where they live on an annotated Google Map. There are plenty of political donation databases but we want the one that you build to be more transparent than we ever could have imagined.

> Create an online community of trusted advisors. Why not tap the wisdom of crowds and invite people with knowledge of critical subjects (energy, Middle East history, religion, etc.) to join up into online communities? These people would have to pass a certain threshold to join and be accepted, but they could give more outside opinions to subjects that are often misunderstood by politicians and political operatives. While lobbyists and special interests might join up, at least the others that join will make it a more level playing field for advice.

So what do you think the new president can do? And among the remaining candidates -- McCain, Huckabee, Clinton or Obama -- who do you think would be most likely to do these things, if elected? Share your thoughts in the comments below or use the Feedback Form. I will then add in your best ideas to the list, with credit to you, and will keep updating it over the next few weeks. Happy President's Day!

Photo of the presidential seal by Allesandro Abate via Flickr.

Every time I sit down to write an in-depth story for MediaShift, I start getting that same sinking feeling: I'm missing something. Did someone else already write this story? Did I talk to all the right people? Did those people tell me everything I should know? Are my assumptions and story angle sound? Did I get all sides of the story?

I'd like to explore new ways of doing story generation, reporting and follow-up, using the tools of online collaboration and going beyond traditional shoe-leather reporting. I don't want to throw out the old style but build on it, taking the best of the new and the old to create something more open and more collaborative. In that spirit, I am outlining three basic flows: old-school reporting workflow (pre-Internet); current reporting; and a new-school method that imagines more people engaged online.

The Way It Was

1. Assignment editor or reporter comes up with an idea. The idea might come from someone calling the newsroom or sending a letter, or from a press release, or from other media stories that could use another angle. The story might also come out of the reporter's own everyday life experience.

2. The idea is brought up at an editorial meeting, discussed by editors and reporters, and given the green light to go forward.

3. The reporter does basic research for the story by checking the newspaper morgue, viewing old TV footage, or finding archival radio reports. The reporter would also contact regular sources to find out what they know. If the story relates to a place, the reporter could visit that place and get a feel for it.

4. The reporter interviews people involved in the story, experts, analysts and other observers or participants to gather as much information as possible.

5. The reporter checks in along the way with an editor to make sure the story is on the right track and nothing is missing.

6. The reporter collects all material, including research, transcribed interviews and editor feedback, and takes out the best and most relevant quotes for the story.

7. The reporter writes the story using that material, and turns it into the editor, going back and making changes until a finished story can be run. The story goes into print, onto TV or radio.

8. Readers or story participants respond by calling the newsroom or writing letters, causing corrections or follow-ups for the story.

The Way It Is

1. Assignment editor or reporter comes up with an idea. The idea might come from someone calling the newsroom or emailing, or from a press release, or from other media stories or blog posts that could use another angle or more depth. The idea might also come from online forums or comments on other news stories, or it could come from a reporter's everyday experience, or from his/her own experience blogging on that subject.

2. The idea is brought up at an editorial meeting, discussed by editors and reporters, and given the green light to go forward.

3. The reporter does basic research for the story by going online and using search engines and seeing what else has been written on the subject in other media outlets and specialized blogs. The reporter also contacts regular sources to find out what they know. If the story relates to a place, the reporter might visit that place and get a feel for it.

4. The reporter interviews people involved in the story, experts, analysts and other observers or participants to gather as much information as possible. That might include emails, phone calls or in-person interviews.

5. The reporter checks in along the way with an editor to make sure the story is on the right track and nothing is missing.

6. The reporter collects all material, including research, transcribed interviews, links to related blog posts, and editor feedback, and takes out the best and most relevant quotes for the story. Sometimes, the reporter also prepares unedited transcripts, audio and video to post online as additional material for the story.

7. The reporter writes the story using that material, and turns it into the editor, going back and making changes until a finished story can be run. The story goes online, into print, onto TV or radio.

8. Readers or story participants respond by emailing or calling the newsroom, by leaving comments beneath the story online or writing thoughts on their own blogs, causing corrections or follow-ups for the story.

The Way It Will Be

1. Ideas come from a community or social network set up specifically for that reporter's beat. This community includes important sources, experts and various people with specialized knowledge of the subject. (See Beatblogging for an early experiment in this.) The reporter might run weekly "Idea Log" posts on his/her blog, listing story ideas and asking for feedback from interested readers. Reporters might also poll interested readers to have them vote up or down possible story ideas, or have them contribute payments or "reader miles" (earned by participation) for stories they would like to see.

Alternatively, an assignment editor or reporter comes up with an idea. The idea might come from someone calling the newsroom or emailing, or from a press release, or from other media stories or blog posts that could use another angle or more depth. The idea might also come from online forums or comments on other news stories, or it could come from a reporter's everyday experience.

2. The idea is vetted by the reporter's social network, who help decide whether it is worthy of more research. On the reporter's blog, the idea might be fleshed out with more feedback from interested readers. The idea is brought up at an editorial meeting, discussed by editors and reporters, and given the green light to go forward. That green light would also take into account early interest from the reporter's blog readers and social network.

3. The reporter does basic research for the story by going online and using search engines and seeing what else has been written on the subject in other media outlets and specialized blogs. The reporter sets up a wiki, where interested readers and sources can help shape the story as it goes along. The reporter also contacts regular sources to find out what they know. If the story relates to a place, the reporter could visit that place and get a feel for it.

4. The reporter interviews people involved in the story, experts, analysts and other observers or participants to gather as much information as possible. The sources would include suggestions made by the social network or from earlier blog posts on the subject. The interviews might take place via emails, phone calls or in-person.

5. The reporter checks in along the way with an editor to make sure the story is on the right track and nothing is missing. The reporter also updates his/her blog as well as the social network to make sure the story isn't missing anything.

6. The reporter collects all material, including research, transcribed interviews, links to related blog posts, and editor feedback, and takes out the best and most relevant quotes for the story. The reporter also prepares unedited transcripts, audio and video to post online as additional material for the story. Possibly, the reporter can give this unedited material to the sources to check and post on their own websites or blogs, with the proviso that they will link to the final story.

7. The reporter writes the story using that material, and turns it into the editor, going back and making changes until a finished story can be run. The story goes online, into print, onto TV or radio and into a wiki, where people can make changes with editorial oversight.

8. Readers or story participants respond by emailing or calling the newsroom, by leaving comments beneath the story online, causing corrections or follow-ups for the story. The story wiki is open to editing -- with oversight -- forever, allowing updates, corrections, links to outside sources and more.

I'd like to invite you to add to these points, sharing your own experiences for "The Way It Is" and also sharing your hopes and ideas for "The Way It Will Be." Please include them in the comments below and I'll update the lists above.

Photo of press box at Fenway Park during 2007 World Series by misconmike via Flickr.

But in the Internet Age, everyone has an equal opportunity to follow the money, pro journalist or amateur. Thanks to a new transparency law brought about by a cross-partisan alliance of liberal and conservative bloggers last year, there's now a database of earmarks attached to spending bills that explain which Congressperson actually attached the earmarks. These earmarks have traditionally been loaded with pork barrel projects like the infamous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. The Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense have built a platform on top of that database called EarmarkWatch.org, in which anyone can perform searches on various earmarks in Defense and Labor appropriation bills before the U.S. House and Senate.

Within a minute of signing up, I found that my representative in San Francisco, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had sponsored 15 earmarks worth a whopping $49.3 million. I could then help do research on those earmarks and find out more about the recipients. Did those recipients contribute money to Pelosi's re-election campaign or to Democrats in general? Did the recipient lobby Pelosi for money? There are links to multiple databases to find out more and add my findings to EarmarkWatch, along with a place to add comments.

You can search EarmarkWatch for any member of Congress to see what earmarks they've sponsored, or search by recipients of earmarks to tally up what they're slated to receive. For instance, Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison notes that military contractor Northrop Grumman is in line to get $37 million in earmark money for this fiscal year.

Very quickly, New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Bill Walsh latched on to a $100,000 earmark sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) for the Louisiana Family Forum, a creationist group that wants to "improve" science education in the state. Walsh's blog post and story on the subject received 85 comments from concerned people who mostly wanted the earmark stripped from the bill.

What will be even more interesting is what average folks will do with this database. Will they take the time to hunt down earmarks to connect the dots? It's unlikely that they would have the time and know-how to compile a deep report like Walsh's that would run in a newspaper, complete with history and quotes from the politicians and recipients. But what EarmarkWatch.org enables is the seeds of a new amateur-pro networked journalism, where bloggers, concerned citizens and political reporters can work together to dig up the connections between political donations and pork projects.

The amateurs can work on earmarks that interest them, whether they are local or related to businesses they might not trust. They can help feed the database until more connections are made. Then once the dirt is dug up, bloggers can swoop in and post some of the more interesting findings. Professional journalists will have their place as the providers of context, giving background, explaining the deeper meaning, and seeing what the participants say in their defense. That leads, in turn, to another round of bloggers dissecting the stories and adding more fuel to the fire for follow-up stories.

It's a new way of thinking of investigative reporting, a more open method that lets anyone dig into the numbers to make connections. It's far from perfect, and no one knows how many people will actually pitch in to do the drudge work of researching companies and projects that are receiving earmark money. But it offers hope that investigative journalism can survive and thrive in the Digital Age, with average folks working in tandem with professionals to unearth the next money-wasting schemes from Congress.

What do you think? Would you use the EarmarkWatch database, or would you prefer that others do the dirty work? Can investigative journalism work in a more networked fashion online? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

And now there are a series of discussions taking place called Journalism That Matters, where various deep thinkers are trying to literally invent "the next newsroom" prototype. Here is the blurb describing what they're going to try to accomplish in Washington, DC, in early August:

Our goal is to facilitate critical discussion on the future and sustainability of journalism. Our unique approach is to first assemble editors, publishers, writers, researchers, academics, entrepreneurs, public advocates, independent and citizen journalists for fast, focused discussion. We'll then define the ownership, management, location and sustainability of a 'next newsroom' prototype in at least one U.S. community, to launch in early- to mid-2008.

We're going to answer this call: Pick an ideal location, and start a news organization from scratch, using the best-available technology and ideas, and without the obligations or burdens of legacy processes or infrastructure. Where will it be, what will it look like, who will own it, and how will it run.

As much as I would like to be at the conference, I have other plans at the time and won't be attending. However, I wondered if perhaps MediaShift readers could help me build one possible scenario for this "next newsroom" prototype. I'll ask a series of questions for you to fill in. You can answer via the comments below or use the Feedback Form. I'll then insert your comments into the blanks and then send along the final blog post by the conference's start on August 7 and 8 (if we get enough input). I will credit and link the folks who contribute. So without further ado...

The Next Newsroom Prototype

Geographical Location?

Physical Setting?
[cubicles in an open room; virtual offices...]

Staffing?
[professionals; amateurs; editors; producers...]

Business Model?
[advertising; donations; paid content...]

Areas of Coverage?
[hard news; investigations; features...]

Community Interaction?
[forums; town halls; citizen journalism; blogs...]

Distribution?
[RSS feeds; mobile; print; broadcast...]

Transparency and Bias?

Power Structure?
[top down; bottom up; combination...]

Technological Innovation?
[map mashups; micro-blogging....]

There's obviously a lot to discuss at this conference, and a lot for people to consider when trying to truly build a newsroom from scratch. We always tend to think about newsrooms in the same way as we are used to them, so it's hard to really start from scratch.

Anyway, I hope you'll leave some thoughts in the comments. Even if you just have one idea that fits under one of these headings (or if you have your own heading) I hope you'll share your ideas in the comments or on your own blog linking back to this post, and I'll update it over time.

Photo of CNN's DC newsroom by Lee Hughey.

Already, newspapers big and small have talked the talk of a new way of doing journalism and reaching these audiences, and some have even walked the walk. The Greensboro News & Record has been a blogging pioneer, the Spokane Spokesman-Review has made transparency a priority, and the Wisconsin State Journal has let the audience vote on front page stories. And the Bakersfield Californian and Rocky Mountain news have had success with hyperlocal citizen media sites.

So perhaps together we can come up with a list of ways in which newspapers can enter this new age while retaining their goodness, and remain relevant whether they are delivered online or via new devices or on dead trees. I'll kick off the list with a few items, and have repurposed an item from a recent Jeff Jarvis blog post on BuzzMachine on this subject.

Imagining a Future for Newspapers

The way it is: Editors assign stories to reporters.
The way it will be: The community helps with story generation through special online forums, blogs and other interactive mechanisms.

The way is: Editors choose which letters to print in the Letters to the Editor section.
The way it will be: An online forum allows all letters to be posted in full.

The way it is: A story runs in the newspaper and is posted online on the newspaper website. Perhaps another day, the reporter files a follow-up story.
The way it will be: The story runs in the newspaper and is posted online, and then is constantly updated by editors, the reporter and the readers in the community.

The way it is: Newspapers are printed and delivered to homes and businesses.
The way it will be: Newspaper content is beamed to special reader devices that are lightweight, flexible and use low power.

The way it is: Breaking news happens in a community, and a reporter is sent to the scene.
The way it will be: Breaking news happens, and the editors and reporter scour the neighborhood for people on-the-scene who might have taken photos, videos or can write up a citizen reports on what happened.

The way it is: We consider paid reporters and editors to be professional journalists and everyone else is an amateur with questionable skills.
The way it will be: We consider everyone to be potential journalists, and there are shades of gray between who is a pro and who is an amateur.

The way it is: Newspapers try to cover all the news themselves.
The way it will be: "Cover what you do best. Link to the rest." -- Jeff Jarvis

More from Jeff Jarvis:

The way it is: Newspapers are all things to all people.
The way it will be: Newspapers do what they do best, which is usually local.

The way it is: Newspapers have deadlines and editions.
The way it will be: Newspapers are never done. (See NPR's effort to start the show that's never over.)

The way it is: Newsrooms are temples (with reporters and editors as a priesthood holding onto what they think are unique skills).
The way it will be: Newsrooms are classrooms (where it is in their interest to improve the journalism done in their larger networks).

The way it is: Newsrooms.
The way it will be: Cars.

From Barbara Iverson:

The way it is: Reporters are discouraged from or sanctioned for "self-plagiarism" -- using the same source to produce different takes on a story.
The way it will be: Reporters will write about issues and ideas across several media, linking to the related stories they write, often with input from readers.

From Ujjwal Acharya:

The way it is: Newspapers can have a website.
The way it will be: The news site can have a newspaper.

From Gil Zino:

The way it is: Papers compile a slim sliver of the overall content, and send duplicate copies of the sliver down a one-way street to each unique individual that reads the paper.
The way it will be: Communities build content, and people interact with the content that matters to them.

From Karl Martino:

The way it is:: Newspapers judge readership size/demographics via subscription numbers and use these numbers to make themselves attractive to classified advertisers.
The way it will be: A combination of metrics that combine traffic with online relationships/connectivity statistics will become the new way news sites make themselves attractive to advertisers.

The way it is: Newspapers finance the cost of in-depth journalism via the selling of classifieds.
The way it will be: I have no idea.
I think newspapers will need to find a new business model online that works and is sustainable. They will likely have to shrink their full-time staffs and depend more on freelancers and the audience to help them with investigative reports.

I invite you to add your own items in the comments below, and try to keep it in the realm of newspapers. We've done similar exercises in the past covering the shifting philosophy of all media -- the Oldthink vs. Newthink list. I hope we can revisit this topic for TV, radio, music and movies in future posts, and make this more of a utilitarian list. I'll also invite a few people who've been around newspapers for some time to submit their ideas, and will update the list with their input and yours -- with credit.

UPDATE: There's been a nice response to my post so far, with Jeff Jarvis calling it a memegame. Jarvis points to some examples to back up my entries above, including Wired magazine's efforts at transparency and The Economist running all its letters to the editor online. Jarvis doesn't subscribe to a future with e-paper or e-ink, but thinks cell phones might play a role. "We need innovation," he says. "Who cares about the gadget. Get me the news." Jarvis adds some nice entries to the list as well, which I've included above.

The anonymous author of the Fading to Black blog ("A look at the downward spiral of the newspaper industry...") doesn't believe that the audience will realistically help with editing tasks. Here's part of this blogger's rebuttal to my future where the audience helps with newsgathering:

Overall, people are too lazy for this to become true. Nothing against the average citizen -- we all want to read the story, we all want it laid out for us, not work for it. If we get upset, we may write a letter to the editor. If we see something missing or wrong in a story, we might call up or email to point it out. But do not think for a second more than a hundredth of a percent of the public is interested in getting involved with the news more than talking to a reporter or perhaps sending in a photo or video. Pretty much the same as it is done today.

Yes, there should be changes. Some have re-thought things already and implemented changes, and the rest no doubt will eventually (or at least see the light on their deathbeds). Certainly, keep readers involved in a greater capacity than before. But the idea of the general public taking an active role in the news they read is akin to thinking everybody with a shovel will chip in with road repairs in front of their home.

I think this is overstating the case. Sure, not everyone will help you edit your stories or generate ideas, but if even if a small percentage does, it will increase the value of what you do as a news organization -- and help create a community newsgathering operation.

UPDATE 2: I guess this really is turning into a memegame, as Jarvis surmised. The newspaper change meme has been turned into an education change meme by edu-blogger Miguel Guhlin, who repurposed my own list and turned them into "The Way It Is" and "The Way It Will Be" for educators and students in a new age. Plus, he took the next logical step of putting his list into a wiki for anyone to edit or add particular examples.

Guhlin's list has even spawned a counter-argument from Stephen Downes, who calls Guhlin's first list "nothing more than slogans carelessly applied." Downes makes some good points that even apply to what we're doing here about newspapers. Here's the gist of his complaints:

The future is much more difficult to grasp than a mere set of slogans. Fundamental values are shifting under our feet. Pretending it's something superficial, as represented by this list, won't change that. It is important to have an accurate representation of the issues, so people can genuinely understand what they are facing.

My hope is that these slogans about newspapering will be put into practice so that we'll have plenty of examples of success into the future. And if the future brings something radically different, so be it.

Photo of newspaper boxes by iirraa.

What I'd really like is a simplistic interface, an easy way to get my audio and channels set up on a next-generation auto media center (AMC). I know that many car manufacturers and consumer electronics companies are trying to deliver this Holy Grail to me. And if I had $70,000 lying around, I would have some of what I want in the 2007 Lexus LS 460L. That luxury car got a perfect 10 rating from CNET Car Tech, and offers voice-activated audio, lets you rip CDs to an internal hard drive, gives live traffic reports in its navigation system, and will even parallel park for you. Not to mention 19 (!) speakers.

But I'm more concerned with the media element of the driving experience, especially the audio, and I want more, more, more! than what Lexus is offering currently. So as this is holiday time, I'm going to write up my wish list for Santa Motors Ltd., in the hopes that some of my auto dreams will come true one day.

The Perfect Auto Media Center

> No one accesses the AMC without a retinal eye scan first. It would only work for my eyes only, or the eyes of people I approve. One of the worst parts of owning a car stereo, especially in urban areas, is theft. This would dissuade that.

> The AMC has a hard drive with enough storage space to hold my entire music library. I can remove the drive easily and connect it to my Windows or Mac computers.

> The AMC also has inputs for all types of portable music and MP3 players, and can play all types of media -- CDs, cassettes, and just for the heck of it, 8-track tapes.

> Cellular or WiFi uploads of music or podcasts. When I am in my car, stopped, I would like the ability to buy music on the fly through an internal cell connection or WiFi connection to the Internet. The interface must be simple and upload speeds quick.

> The AMC will have all XM and Sirius satellite channels built in, as well as HD Radio for the new digital over-the-air broadcasts.

> All functions of the AMC will be voice-activated so I can go through music libaries, audio channels, and uploads with ease -- while driving.

> Full cell phone integration into the AMC, so that if I am listening to music cranked up, a built-in computer voice tells me, "Mark, your mom is calling. Do you want to take the call?" I then choose to switch to cell or let it go to voicemail. (For the record, I would never do that to you, mom!).

> All satellite and radio channels would be fully time-shift capable, meaning if I wanted to rewind, replay or save audio for later, I could.

> Built-in web searches. If I'm listening to music, and want to learn more about the artist, I could pause the music, ask the AMC to do a web search on the artist and read me pertinent information. Same goes for talk radio guests or breaking news stories.

Do you have other ideas for the ultimate auto media center? I invite you to share what you'd like to see in your dream auto media center, and I'll update my list with your top ideas. Or if you've build the dream system, share your specs in the comments.

UPDATE: One correspondent, Pam, responded by email with more ideas for a car stereo wishlist. She obviously has more experience checking out seriously high end systems, and her conclusion is that the manufacturers haven't worked out all the kinks yet -- and the costs are still sky high. Here's the report from Pam:

I have been impatiently waiting for years for an ideal car MP3 system. Your list captures the essentials. A few things I would also like to see:
- random play across album, genre, all songs
- ability to browse by genre, then album, then song
- GPS navigation
- touch screen
- works with steering wheel volume, mute, and radio station controls
- fast MP3 navigation
- ability to create playlists in the car
- custom background
- RDS [Radio Data System to get text from radio stations] capability
- automatic volume adjustment based on car's speed

I'd even be willing to pay for a custom built system if I didn't think it would be so expensive! I had the Alpine HDA-5460 installed in my car a few years ago, and I loved it. It had an in-dash 16 GB hard drive that I could slide out and download MP3s from my computer via USB. I could navigate songs by genre, album, etc. It wasn't cheap, but while it was working I thought it was the best thing I ever bought. Unfortunately it was on the market for less than a year due to problems -- mine stopped transferring files after a while.

I've currently got an aux-input for my iPod, but I'm not devoted to my iPod, as long as I can have something with a good size hard drive that's easy to navigate songs. I'm eager to see what new systems show up at the CES show in January. This might be the year to try a new system...I came close to buying a Kenwood MP3/GPS system this summer, but the MP3 navigation was pretty bad. Anyway, I hope the major manufacturers come up with some better solutions than what's out there today.

The installer I've dealt with said some of the current systems such as the Eclipse AVN6600 just weren't reliable and he had a lot of returns and repairs. Others just weren't easy to use such as the Pioneer AVIC-Z1. The Alpine IVA-W200 looked good but it doesn't allow you to browse by genre. The Kenwood PNAV6019 requires you to scroll through one long list of albums, without being able to filter through genres, artist, etc. I also found the MP3 navigation confusing. I'm intrigued by the new Chrysler MyGig and would like to check it out, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on something I won't be happy with. Anyway, I am hoping some better options will come out soon. I know there are a lot of other eager buyers out there as well.

[Photo of car stereo by Michele Finotto.]

What is wrong with me? I blame it all on technology. The computer revolution was supposed to spark the paperless office, right? Wrong. The e-book revolution was supposed to replace all printed books, right? Wrong. The digital music and movie revolution was supposed to replace all CDs and DVDs, right? Wrong. Instead, having access to so much more music and movies online just makes us want to burn, baby, burn more media to discs.

A friend of mine who has quite a large collection of bootleg movies and DVDs from the Net now has a whole shelf in his apartment dedicated to movies he's burned to DVD. He's created such authentic-looking artwork and packaging for them that they would be the envy of the pirated movie hawkers in the Mission district of San Francisco.

What's wrong with him? After all these years of technological innovation, we still have a desire to touch and feel our media, to show off our stuff to friends. But the result is the ugly mess of "physical media sprawl," which for me includes a bursting-at-its-seams CD shelf in my home office that is about seven feet high and poses an imminent danger in case of earthquake.

The solution is in technology as well. My various hard drives could hold all the music that I own in the physical media sprawl. But how do I organize all that and how do I make sure I don't lose it all in a tech meltdown? What happens to all the cover art for CDs and DVDs? And with books, obviously I could trade many of them in at a used book store or give them to friends. Rather than purchase new ones, I could try audiobooks downloaded to my iPod.

My goal is to eliminate just half of my physical media sprawl, which currently stands at the following estimate of crap:

• 1200 music CDs.
• 400 books.
• 20 to 30 DVDs.
• 100 videotapes.

Here's where the open source reporting comes in. I'd like to hear your own stories of eliminating physical media sprawl. Did you rip your CDs and sell them? Did you scan the artwork? How far along are you in eliminating physical media sprawl, and what tips can you share with me and others to help us remove the media clutter in our lives?

Or perhaps you are a media sprawl developer, a proponent of the old and the dusty, someone who likes to touch and feel your media. Tell me why you stand by your media and pay rent for the media that is your constant yet quiet roommates. I will return to the subject with your thoughts and stories, if enough people join in the fun. And perhaps in the not-so-distant future, I can declare victory over the physical media sprawl in my life.

[Photo of physical media sprawl by Frederik Vandaele.]

We'll get to the MediaShift Lonelygirl15 contest details in a minute. But first, the back story and the theories that are being floated around the blogosphere and in the media...

Back Story

It's a simple story that got complicated. A young girl, saying she was 16 years old and named Bree, started posting videos of herself on YouTube under the user name "lonelygirl15" a couple months ago. Bree said she was home-schooled and had an awkward friendship with a boy named Daniel, who helped edit the videos. But as the site became more popular -- due to Bree's geeky cuteness and the well edited video vignettes -- people started to question whether this girl was for real or a product of an online marketing conspiracy.

The Lonelygirl15 channel on YouTube is the second most subscribed channel of all time on the site, with more than 23,000 subscribers. In aggregate, Bree's videos have been viewed millions of times (the Joystiq blog puts that number at a staggering 18 million views). And major media have caught the Lonelygirl15 obsession, with New York Times TV critic/blogger Virginia Heffernan detailing her email exchanges with Bree, BusinessWeek media critic Jon Fine floating Deep Throat theories, and the Los Angeles Times seemingly putting more resources into the Lonelygirl15 mystery than the California governor's race.

New York magazine's Adam Sternbergh hailed the Lonelygirl15 saga as perhaps "the future of television -- or the promised land of a new narrative form."

Then came the big news yesterday in a post on the Lonelygirl15.com fan site (note that this site is now down):

To Our Incredible Fans,

Thank you so much for enjoying our show so far. We are amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response to our videos; it has exceeded our wildest expectations. With your help we believe we are witnessing the birth of a new art form. Our intention from the outset has been to tell a story - a story that could only be told using the medium of video blogs and the distribution power of the internet. A story that is interactive and constantly evolving with the audience.

Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is "who is she?" We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us. Regardless, there are deeper mysteries buried within the plot, dialogue, and background of the Lonelygirl15 videos, and many of our tireless and dedicated fans have unearthed some of these. There are many more to come.

To enhance the community experience of Lonelygirl15, which you have already helped to create, we are in the process of building a website centered around video and interactivity. This website will allow everyone to enjoy the full potential of this new medium. Unfortunately, we aren't programmers. We are filmmakers. We are working furiously to complete the website, and hope to have it up and running shortly.

So, sit tight. You are the only reason for our success, and we appreciate your devotion. We want you to know that we aren't a big corporation. We are just like you. A few people who love good stories. We hope that you will join us in the continuing story of Lonelygirl15, and help us usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between "fan" and "star" has been removed, and dedicated fans like yourselves are paid for their efforts. This is an incredible time for the creator inside all of us.

Thank you.

This was the weirdest and cruelest cut of all. Fans were up in arms at the fakery (even though they must have suspected this), and no one could figure out how the fans themselves would get "paid for their efforts." Worse still, the L.A. Times reported that a gaggle of online fans traced an email from Lonelygirl15 to the offices of the mega talent firm Creative Artists Agency. Is Bree ready to hit the big time?

The Questions that Remain

So if we can believe that message from the creators of "the show," we now know that there is a wizard behind the curtain and this is no typical YouTube teenager talking about her loneliness in a small town.

But we still don't know who is behind this effort, who the actors are playing Bree or Daniel, or where they really are going to go from here.

So here are the questions that remain for you to answer so we can wrap up the mystery and get on with our lives...

• Who is Bree a.k.a. Lonelygirl15? What's her name and is she an actress or just a pawn in someone else's production?

• Who is Daniel and what is his real relationship with Bree?

• Who are these other people behind the site, the ones "who love good stories"?

• What's Bree's religion and the connection to occultist Aleister Crowley?

• Is there a connection with an upcoming horror movie or other film or TV show?

• Will anyone care by next month?

The Contest

The comments for this blog post are open for your theories, guesses or investigative sleuthing. The person or people who come up with the most correct answers to these questions first will have the choice of being featured in a future blog post on MediaShift, or writing a guest post themselves on MediaShift (subject to my final edit). As long as the subject matter of your post is relevant to new media, it should be fine.

Or if the contest isn't appealing, tell us what you think about the Lonelygirl15 phenomenon, why it's so engaging, or why it annoys you. Did the fakery upset you and make you feel tricked? Are you sickened or happy about all the major media coverage? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

UPDATE: Of course I'm having second and third thoughts about even posting this and bringing more attention to Lonelygirl15 after all that has been written already. The first two comments below make very good points about how sad it is to take up so much valuable editorial real estate with such a mindless pursuit. That said, there is a rubbernecking quality about getting sucked into such a mystery, not unlike previous entertainment mysteries such as "Who Shot J.R.?" and "Twin Peaks" and "Desperate Housewives" (Season One). The difference here is that it's a true 21st century new age mystery, where people band together over the Net to find out more.

And in the most selfish sense, my headache seems to have subsided just by putting it out on the blog and passing on the obsession to other people. Whew. And sorry about that...

Before I get into the particulars of your best ideas, here's a generalized tally of the topics you want covered more deeply. Note that I've counted the government topics twice -- generally under the "government" heading and also under a more specific subject matter (e.g. a suggested story on investigating Iraq War pre-war intelligence would be counted under government and Iraq War).

Government: 8
9/11: 2
Media issues: 2
Iraq War: 2
Department of Homeland Security: 1
African-American reparations: 1
Biotech: 1
Education: 1
Sports: 1
Online data: 1
Real estate: 1
Health care: 1
Elections e-voting: 1

Part of my motivation for asking this question was that a new project, NewAssignment.net, is getting ready to soft-launch this fall (I am an advisor for this project). Jay Rosen, a blogger at PressThink and associate professor at New York University's Department of Journalism, is the idea man behind NewAssignment.net. The idea is to create "open source" investigative reports, where people fund projects directly and help professional editors do their investigations. The site has already received money from Craig Newmark of Craigslist and the Sunlight Foundation.

Rosen (pictured here) is of two minds when it comes to putting this open-ended question to people.

"Reviewing the results of this exercise, and simlar ones I have conducted, I realize it's hard for people to respond to a generalized call for story ideas," he told me via email. "Too abstract. 'What would you like to see investigated?' is a question that lacks a context. As a taxpayer in California, as a parent with kids in Montgomery County public schools, as a customer of the cable companies, as a military family...what would you like to see investigated? Those are different questions, closer to life."

Despite that, he also noted that there is value in open-ended questions "precisely because there is no direction." Here are the three ideas that Rosen liked best out of your submissions.

From Zach Rodgers, who blogs at Limb from Limb:

I think we need closer investigation of the storage and use of registration and clickstream data generated by Internet users. Our online behavior tells a story about us, and by now most people know that story is preserved on servers and databases. Questions: Who owns the data? Where's it being kept? How long is it being kept? What's it being used for? What might it be used for some day? How does this compare with the ways data has always been used in the offline world of print subscriptions and direct marketing?

[Note that fellows in the News21 journalism program did cover this territory in an investigative Digital Trails report.]

From Mike Cantor, a childhood friend of mine who works in health care for the elderly:

Ever notice that our country, and our world are getting older? The lack of a system to care for people with chronic illnesses, and there are more and more every day, threatens our entire public health and health care systems. Yet, no one seems to notice when the government cuts funding for education of health care workers in geriatrics, or that Medicare cuts and the Medicare drug benefit (Part D) shell game hurt the people who need it most.

Let's hear what journalists dig up from the politicians too scared to face the tough decisions that need to be made to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent. And, let's hear from the people -- older people living at home, in assisted living, and in nursing homes. What do the caregivers, spouses and adult kids, family friends and neighbors, have to say about the challenges and rewards of providing care for their loved ones? How will technology affect the ways the Baby Boomers age and use health care services? These realities are inescapable, and it is time for all of us to face the future, or should I say, the present.

Rosen likes the idea of tracking the workings of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.

And from Russ Walker, an editor at Washingtonpost.com:

There was much consternation about electronic voting in some quarters after the 2004 election. Were the results manipulated? Do the machines record votes properly? Can someone hack into the machines and change results later? What voting machinery you use depends on where you live, by and large. Local governments generally have the final say on what type of machine you will use. After the 2000 election mess, Congress approved billions to help states and local governments acquire updated machines.

So here's the project: Let's build a database to identify what voting machines are in use in every precinct in the nation. That will be our baseline data set, from which we can attempt specific reporting projects after the 2006 midterm elections.

Perhaps Washingtonpost.com could help in such an effort? Rosen liked the idea and thought it was intriguing. "I could imagine a polling place project that tries to gather good information about every place Americans vote -- who runs it, how it is equipped, who works there, how the votes are collected."

I also liked an idea that came from website developer Jon Henshaw:

I would like to see more investigative reports on companies in the biotech industry and other industries where we know wrongdoing is going on, but nobody will report on it for fear of being sued. Ever since the covered up Tampa Fox report of Monsanto secretly shooting up milk cows with rBGH hormones, I haven't seen an investigative report worth watching or reading about -- because investigators and their corporate parents are too worried about being sued."

The promise of open source or networked journalism is that there wouldn't be such a corporate parent worried about lawsuits, though legal issues would still be important.

So what comes next? NewAssignment.net is looking to start with a pilot project this fall, with a full-blown launch coming next spring. You can join in the conversation at their site or check out other collaborative projects such as the Sunlight Foundation's Exposing Earmarks effort. Got any other ideas in need of collaborative investigation? Share them in the comments below.

The list wasn't just about which technologies were new and which were old, but more about the mindset and the way we think about things as a society. As I said in a recent speech to a (very cool) old media company looking to get the new religion, "Breaking your addiction to old media doesn't mean giving up on newspapers or television; it means breaking out of your mindset, breaking out of the old hierarchy and control system and letting the audience in to be co-creators." They were very receptive to the idea.

Anyway, I was impressed at the tremendous feedback and input I received from MediaShift readers and from around the blogosphere to my blog post. So I'm going to highlight some of the more interesting and thought-provoking entries that you added to my list.

I will also cop to the comment by Diane, who said the list reminded her of the old Wired/Tired lists from Wired Magazine. I know it is reminiscent of that to some extent, but I also cringe at the comparison because I didn't want to come off as some sort of snarky trend-master. Thus, opening this up to your own ideas should help alleviate any tone from on high. My comments below are in italics.

David Hutchins of Nomads Land Films

Oldthink: Relying upon film festivals, commissioning editors and distributors to tell us which films are worth seeing and which are not based on a limited amount of airtime and shelf-space that only reward the few.
Newthink: Uploading a film to Google Video or MySpace in order to reach a niche audience directly -- a platform that can allow interactive reactions to the film, viral promotion and watching the film anytime -- like passing along a good book.

Phil Shapiro of Digital Divide Network [gets award for most entries]

Oldthink: Go to the public library to sign out a children's book.
Newthink: Compose an original children's story and with the help of others in your community release a rich media, Creative Commons version of the story in more than 10 languages, including sign language.

Oldthink: Use the op-ed page of the newspaper to print the tired old "professional thinkers" point of view year after year with nary a new thought or idea ever surfacing.
Newthink: Use the op-ed page to quote excerpts from the best of bloggers writing about issues of the day, using a Digg-style system to have the public identify some of the most cogent comments.

Brilliant idea, Phil. Are you listening, newspaper editorial page editors?

Oldthink: Make no use of volunteer citizen journalists to do legwork that will help professional journalists write better articles.
Newthink: When appropriate, tap into the energy of volunteer (or paid) citizen journalists to do legwork that could assist professional journalists to write better articles.

Oldthink: Giving newspapers subscribers a take-it-or-leave it subscription price.
Newthink: Allowing subscribers to name their own subscription price, Priceline-style. Newspapers, eager for subscribers, can either choose to accept or not accept these subscription offers.

Howard Owens

Oldthink: Stickiness -- trying to control the audience by not linking out, not sharing your content with third-party distribution channels (RSS, MySpace, Yahoo!, YouTube), trying to be everything to everybody while being nothing to nobody (and if you have RSS, using only summarized feeds hoping to trick people into clicking a link to your site).
Newthink: Linking to all sorts of sites with content relevant to your audience -- even competitors' sites, and uploading your video to YouTube and your classifieds to Google Base, etc. and making your content open enough so that users can do, and are encouraged to do, what they want with it.

I like this idea, because it encapsulates the new openness of media vs. the old closed systems and closed thinking.

Oldthink: Competitors.
Newthink: Partners.

Oldthink: Only we know best.
Newthink: Our audience knows best.

Oldthink: Only we publish content on our site.
Newthink: Anybody can publish content on our site.

Davis Freeberg

Oldthink: Not allowing someone to see a baseball game just because they happen to be traveling out of their own ZIP code.

Newthink: Being able to watch content that you've purchased anywhere you'd like, whether or not you happen to be at home.

This would be called the Slingbox Theory, as Slingboxes allow you to place-shift your TV content to any Internet-connected computer.

Scott Shawcroft of Open Road Trip

Oldthink: Congratulating yourself on a job well done while fighting to keep things the way the are.

Newthink: Stopping only for a second to admire the work done while continuously fighting to make things better. In the time we spend admiring YouTube and MySpace we could be brainstorming and implementing ways to make culture better.

Erik Sundelof from In The Field Online

Oldthink: We create the content on our websites.

Interimthink: Everyone contributes to the site.

Newthink: Everyone can contribute to a site with "some slight editing." This "slight editing" can be done either by the community or by a selected group of editors [chosen] from the contributors. Many forms are available but still the editing part is crucial for most websites.

This idea plays well on the recent push/pull over open collaborative systems and hybrid approaches that include editors and citizen contributors.

Mark Fletcher from Australian Newsagency Blog

Oldthink: It was smart to pay to get to the top of a search list or on the front page.
Newthink: Be where people will want you -- they will ignore those who pay extra to be noticed.

Oldthink: People trust the masthead [on a publication] and all it carries.
Newthink: People trust people more -- now that people have their own voice.

Oldthink: The price of a classified ad is based on the number of gatekeepers.
Newthink: The price of a classified ad is based on the cost of providing the service.

This might also be known as the Craigslist Rule of Classifieds.

Ruben Ortiz

Oldthink: English is THE universal language in the marketplace (just like in the movies).

Newthink: A translation option on a web page can open new market niches for your products. Multiple language bands for the same program can aid in the creation of a true "pluribus unum" for PBS programming.

Nice idea, Ruben. Hopefully the PBS brass are listening.

Lisa

Oldthink: Setting up false dilemmas to make one's specific predictions look truly egalitarian and cutting-edge.

Newthink: Recognizing that "the media" is not a monolithic entity/enemy and concentrating how to bring the best of successful media -- immediacy, credibility, editing and curating raw data into a coherent narrative thanks to a combination of knowledge and story-telling fundamentals -- into increasing communication channels. All without attributing one or two outlet's practices to an ENTIRE FIELD.

Point well taken, Lisa. I realize that this type of list can't avoid looking a bit stereotypical and monolithic. That's why I opened up the list to all of you to set the record straight(er).

Ross M. Karchner [who claims he really isn't a pessimist...]

Oldthink: The forces of openness and decentralization will ultimately win.

Newthink: Verizon, Comcast, Clear Channel, etc. have the resources to compel governments to restore their birthright -- false scarcity and easy money.

This is perhaps the corollary to everything we've said here, or perhaps the contra view of what might happen if Net neutrality fails in some type of nuclear option by regulators.

Thanks to everyone for playing along and adding your smart ideas to the list. If you'd like to add even more Oldthink/Newthink entries, do so in the comments below. Who knows, maybe I'll create a wiki or some collaborative way to keep this open and evolving on a regular basis.

[Photo by Eugene Zhukovsky.]

Soon the Bivings Group was putting out a Call for Newspaper Research asking for people in other countries to send in their findings. Plus, the Bivings Group posted its latest research on Japanese newspaper sites. In the space of a few days, the project shifted from one focused on the U.S. to one with a global footprint, thanks to volunteer researchers who jumped in to help without compensation or even someone asking them to do it.

"The collective research is exciting and a good example of what's great about the Internet," said Todd Zeigler, head of online PR for Bivings Group, in an email to me. "As far as I can tell, people just started doing their own research spontaneously out of interest in how newspapers in their own countries stacked up. The Italian study was the first sister study and the others came after that."

The Italian study was the most elaborate of the three, done by blogger/journalist Luca Conti, and is in a 19-page PDF file (in Italian, of course). Conti told me via email that he did the report out of curiosity, wondering how Italian newspaper sites measured up to American sites. But soon, the report paid off for Conti.

"Yesterday I wrote an article for Nova24, a weekly edition dedicated to innovation and technology," Conti said. "It was my first article for Nova24 and the topic was my study. The PDF [for the study] has been downloaded more than 300 times in a week. The house organ of the National Association of Italian Communication Agencies asked me to write a two page article about the study."

Other Countries Lag U.S.

In general, the sister studies found that newspaper sites in Italy, New Zealand, Japan and the UK lag behind the American newspaper sites in implementing Web 2.0-type features such as RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts and forums. Keep in mind that the conclusion of the U.S. report was that American sites still had room for improvement.

Conti told me that Italy -- a country with 57 million people -- has about 18 million active Internet users, with only 6-7 million high-speed DSL users, half of whom are on "pay as you go" data plans. That might help explain why so many Italian newspaper sites have been slow to adopt Web 2.0 features. The chart below compares the Top 25 Italian newspaper sites with the Top 25 American newspaper sites and the Bottom 25 (out of the Top 100) American newspaper sites. (Note that "Piu letti" means a "Most Popular Story" list, and "Salva preferiti" means social bookmarking.)

In only one category do the Italian sites lead even the bottom U.S. sites: forced registration, which isn't necessarily something you want to lead. Conti points out that the top two Italian newspaper sites are a bit more out in front when it comes to features.

"Italian newspapers have mixed feelings with the Internet," Conti said. "A small group have feeds, blogs, forums and sometimes something more. A big group (19 out of 50) has a registration wall, usually you have to pay, only for reading articles written for the paper edition. We have a low adoption of Web 2.0 tools. La Repubblica.it is the most read newspaper online and offline. It is the most advanced. It has a real-time PDF edition, many blogs, Internet radio and TV station that also broadcasts on digital terrestrial waves, with audio and video podcasts and many RSS feeds. The second one, Corriere della Sera has feeds, a video edition for the web, no podcasts, no blogs, but many forums."

Meanwhile, journalist and web designer Fraser Mills did his own study on the Top 6 New Zealand news sites and found they also lagged the U.S. except in video, where the Kiwis came in at 66% to the Americans' 61% usage (but keep in mind this is of all Top 100 American sites):

Online community specialist Robin Hamman did his own survey of the Top 11 British newspaper sites, which did better than the other countries vs. American sites. The British Top 11 was behind the U.S. Top 10 in video usage (3 vs. 7), podcasts (4 vs. 7) and blogs (6 vs. 9), but led the U.S. in comments on articles (4 vs. 1) and online forums (7 vs. 4).

As for Japan, the Bivings Report found that the top Japanese newspaper sites lagged American sites in almost all categories. In video, the Japanese sites got close (with 11 of the Top 21 offering it), and nearly every Japanese site offered a special page for cell phone surfers.

So why was this such as successful foray into ad hoc open source reporting? I think it was easy for anyone to gauge the features on a newspaper site by just poking around and tallying their offerings. It didn't require calling up people to survey them or other more time-intensive or expensive research techniques. You just list the results, create a graph, and presto! -- you're an online media research expert.

Of course you might miss something, and with no centralized controls, mistakes might happen. But with centralized control, mistakes happen, too. Plus, you can count on others -- especially online newspaper publishers themselves -- to correct the record where possible.

I'll continue to update this post when new research comes in from Bivings Group or other outside sources to try to get a picture of how newspaper sites are doing with Web 2.0 features around the globe.

What do you think about these research results? What about the open source reporting? Is this an example that could be replicated in other fields of research? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

What used to be pay-per-view, where you had to watch the movies on the schedule of the cable provider, is now on-demand at any time of day or night. Through my cable service with RCN, I can order a variety of films for $3.99 each or watch various free entertainment options, including PBS Sprout's kids shows. That means I don't have to visit the video store as much, and can feel good about canceling my NetFlix account (despite the various attacks I've received in the blogosphere).

Still, this is far from a perfect system. Without paying attention to the charges for on-demand movies, they can add up quickly. Plus, the amount of information you get for each movie or show isn't really enough to decide on how good it might be. You end up having to go online to find movie reviews or more information. And the selection is still rudimentary at best, and nowhere near the variety you'd get on Netflix or other DVD rental services.

Perhaps together we can help design a more perfect on-demand video service. The following are some features and payment schemes that I think would help improve the service and make for a real DVD-killer.

1. Include all the DVD extras such as deleted scenes, director's commentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, etc. (RCN does offer some of these with its on-demand service.)

2. Make an online component where we can get more movie reviews, or get more details on who made the film, who is acting in the film and more.

3. Add sports on-demand for after an event. How many times have you forgotten to tape a game and wished you could have watched it? It would be fantastic to have an archive of sports contests for people to watch after the fact. There would be a big market for exciting games that no one predicted would be interesting beforehand. Highlights on-demand would be even better.

4. For TV shows, we are willing to pay a small fee such as 50 cents per show without advertisements, or they can contain ads that are shorter and placed at the beginning of the program.

5. Give us more user-generated content options, so we can watch the best video clips from services such as iFilm and YouTube on TV.

6. Create interactive learning experiences for kids, where they can answer questions via a remote control. This might give them more interaction than just staring at the screen.

7. Provide more flexible payment options. Rather than having to pay per movie or show, perhaps there could be an all-you-can-watch option with a monthly fee. If you subscribe to premium channels such as HBO, you can already get free on-demand shows on some services. It would be great to open that up to other channels and programming.

8. Give us a five-minute money-back guarantee where we don't have to pay if we decide the movie is horrible and have buyer's remorse.

Now it's your turn. How would you design a better on-demand video service? What features do you want, and how much would you pay for such a service? Share your thoughts below, and I'll return to the subject and include your ideas in a future blog post. You can also feel free to defend DVDs and tell us why you think on-demand services will never fly.

Then I asked you to add your own experiences of how the Internet has changed your life -- for good or bad -- in an "Open Source Reporting" exercise. The idea was to learn more about how your lives had changed and then report back on what I found.

In general, I would say that the Internet and computers have made your lives more efficient, and saved you time and energy. However, some of you mentioned that because of the Internet, you may be spending less time out in the real world with face-to-face interactions.

Before I get to some of your responses, I want to point you to some relevant research done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew found that the Internet is becoming more important in life's "major moments and milestones." The survey found that 45% of Internet users, or about 60 million Americans, say the Net helped them make big decisions or get through major episodes in their lives in the past two years.

In comparison to a similar survey Pew Internet did in 2002, more people used the Net for career training, to help make financial decisions, to find out about serious health issues, to find a new place to live, and to learn more about finding a school for themselves or their children.

Unlike the Pew survey topics, many of you focused on how your media lives had changed. Oliver, who blogs at eText from Switzerland, said that he previously subscribed to fanzines, magazines and journals to find out about his niche interests -- but now favored online news feeds to stay updated on similar topics.

"There is a positive Long Tail effect -- it's much easier to get acquainted with new subjects/ideas online than it was one or two decades ago," Oliver wrote. "On the other hand I miss some of the 'cool places' I frequented when I was younger..."

Another contributor, John Champagne, also mentioned how the Net had helped keep him informed, especially when it comes to finding academic material. Champagne noted that Amazon and other online services let him read sections of academic articles or books to find out which are relevant before buying or reading them in full.

"Before I had to read volumes of extraneous material before I could find the analysis I needed, relying on library catalogues and brief descriptions to decide where I would spend my time searching," Champagne wrote.

There's a trend toward less print material in our lives, and more reading via computers. Angel, who blogs at The Itinerant Librarian, said "I don't read print newspapers much anymore. That's what online editions and using [news] feeds is for. There is a lot more information available, but that is a good thing. At least, I think so."

Bree, who writes the Breebop blog, had a nice list of changes in her life brought on by the Net, from writing her diaries publicly through her blog to communicating with more far-away friends and family. And she makes those communications richer thanks her digital camera and photo-sharing services such as Flickr and Picasa.

"I take many more photographs, and more of my circle sees them," Bree wrote. "I also get more feedback on photos. It costs me less money in the long run, but more in the short term (SD cards cost more than film, but I don't need to buy new ones all the time, nor develop them; I only pay to print must-keep photos)."

Madalyn seconded Bree's experience, using Flickr as a kind of photo diary she could show relatives or people with common interests. Madalyn also mentioned how her iPod and iTunes let her carry around her entire music library cheaply and easily -- and making the radio obsolete for her. Plus, she also uses an online dating service.

"I can find people easily who have similar interests," Madalyn wrote. "I don't have to go up to strangers; I can get a good sense of what someone's like before I ever commit to a date. Much more efficient!"

So we have improved efficiency, better communication and more sharing of personal experiences through blogs and photo-sharing sites. But what about work? ptvGuy, who does web development for public TV stations, said that he could now live wherever he wants to work for clients in other physical locations.

"I live where I want to live (surrounded by mountains and national forest) without losing out on employment opportunities," he wrote. "I work daily with people I've never met and yet consider them to be my friends and colleagues. I do a highly technical job out of my home where I'm free to be a major part of my children's lives. I can't imagine living the nine-to-five life of the previous generation of fathers."

I heartily agree on that one. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to work for three months from an island in Thailand, where cybercafes with satellite Internet access helped me work from there while playing with my wife and 7-month-old son on the beach.

If you think that people living their lives online has been a generational experience limited to the youngest folks in our society, think again. Charles Meshel said he's "past the 80 mark in life" but listed all the ways the computer has changed his life since he started using it three years ago.

"I listen to music far more than I had before," Meshel wrote. "I view the news, local as well as national and international. I have contact with people throughout the country by email, which I never did before. It is something that from my viewpoint is stimulating, and I sense that it has helped to keep my mind more alert. I am able to research so many things including medical information that would take days to do otherwise, if at all. I heartily recommend use of the computer for all ages."

I was a bit surprised at how little you all mentioned any downsides to using the Internet -- that it might take away from time spent in the company of your friends and family. I think it's easy for us to get caught up in all the great features, sites and services we find in surfing around the Net, and we don't always come up for air enough or disconnect to appreciate all the beauty around us.

I want to keep this report open-ended, so if you have more items to share on how the Internet has changed how you live your life, feel free to share in the comments below. I hope to return to this subject at various angles in the months ahead.

[Photo above of woman and cat looking at a laptop by ThomasK]