And the NYTimes delivers [yay]

That discussion I was hoping for? Here's a taste

Utility in the Jumble of Twittered Thoughts

Thank you New York Times.

Things I hope we can talk about now [Setting myself up for disappointment]

It's far from Christmas and it's not my birthday but I'm going to ahead and make a wish anyway. Here are the thing about which I'm really excited to see intelligent analysis following the drama of #amazonfail

1. The massive gaps/fails (loooove NiemanLab's use of #mediafail in reference to this debacle) that came to light. Author Craig Seymour says that his book was de-ranked back in February, and media outlets weren't interested. Will they only be interested now because it's had a day of internet madspin? How much of it has to do with the Easter holiday? How much to do with less reporters reporting? How much to do with the subject at hand?

2. Amazon is consistently pointed to as one of the kings of predictive search, behavioral targeting and general keyword mastery. What does this massive fail say about that? Does it make us question who, if anyone (besides Google), really is a leader in this area? Is it scary that someone who supposedly uses it so well screwed it up so royally, making it clear that the knowledge gap in this arena is even wider than a casual glance makes clear? Are we all even on the same page about how important this type of technology is to the next phase of making $$ on the web?

3. Twitter as a news-breaking entity. I know. I don't really want to talk about it either. But here we are. Not talking about it is silly. There will likely be a lot of whining and complaining and disagreeing and "but how will the monetize-ing," but it would be nice to see discussion on how the power of Twitter (I can't believe I just typed that) can be harnessed and used by traditional outlets on a regular basis - if at all.

And what remains to be seen, is what Amazon will do. While a Publisher's Weekly report that a representative called is a "glitch" crashed their site, an LA Times blog reports that indeed, they're trying to play this off as a mistake.

Best of luck with that, Amazon.

(And ps, I found the link to the LA Times through following the trend topic "glitch" on Twitter.)

When Twitter breaks news [This hurts me more than it hurts you]

Apparently, late last week, Amazon started stripping rankings from books it deemed "adult" in nature. Not surprisingly, there seems to be a lack of rhyme to their reason - or some would say, definite rhyme to their reason - suppress books that have gay themes; ie: Brokeback Mountain's ranking has been removed, Playboy's The Complete Centerforlds still has its ranking.

I found out about this just because I randomly decided to look at the top trending topics on Twitter. One was #amazonfail. I had to read a few tweets to see what that meant and I was able to quickly discover it had something to do with some new policy. So I went to Google to search "Amazon policy" and came up with nothing. Went to Google News search and found nothing. So back to Twitter (ugh), where after reading more tweets, I was lead to this blog entry, which seems to be where it all started, a mere 12 hours ago.

Then I went to Amazon and checked out some titles. Seems to be true.

So I went back to Google and searched "Amazon.com adult policy." Nothing. Searched Google News. Nothing. Also haven't seen anything show up within my usually-on-this-type-of-thing Facebook network.

Regardless of right or wrong, this will be a PR nightmare for Amazon, and will eventually make it to the mainstream. The question is, how long will it take? And I guess the more interesting point here is that Twitter beat everything else for timely delivery.

Oy.

Note: At the time of this posting, there are only 6 Google results when I search '"Amazon Follies" Mark Probst' (the name of the blog post and blog author of the incident that started it all). Twitter is showing up about 10 new results every 30 seconds.

UPDATE: More here - #Amazonfail and the politics of anti-corporate cyber-activism

And a Google-bomb attack attempt is already underway.

Still no Google News results. The top Google web results belong to aggregators, keyword hoarders and twitter-bots.

And then I put a band-aid on his severed neck [The press is falling]

A friend posted a link on Facebook tonight to the Reuters article about the senate bill introduced today that would allow newspapers to restructure as nonprofits.

Pause.

Now, I clearly work for a nonprofit news source, so I believe in the concept.

But riddle me this: says the article "Cardin's office said his bill was aimed at preserving local and community newspapers, not conglomerates which may also own radio and TV stations."

Oh, really?

The Reuters report later lists the papers that have ceased or reduced publication -

Seattle P-I - owned by Hearst (28 TV stations)

Rocky Mountain News - E.W. Scripps (10 TV stations)

Baltimore Examiner - part of a media group of newspapers, but the owner also owns stakes in a number of professional sports teams, movie theatres, radio stations

SF Chronicle - see Hearst

He then mentions Gannett, Advance and Tribune.

Seriously?

Community newspapers, according to the National Newspaper Association's 4th quarter 2008 results, are outperforming the industry at large by 14%. Larger metros were down 20%, the industry 21% and community papers - 6.6% (Full NNA report >).

Forest, meet trees, trees, meet kettle, kettle, meet - oh, nevermind.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer goes online only [The press is falling]

It was announced today that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will print its last edition tomorrow, March 17 and shift to online only publication. This leaves Seattle with one daily newspaper, The Seattle Times.

While many saw this coming, it will be interesting to see it actually play out - how will seattlepi.com change and grow and will it truly embrace the medium it now calls home? Will it innovate and problem solve, or continue to try the same old tricks?

Here's hoping that having the staff of this large and this prominent of a publication fully focused on an online model will uncover a thing or two. Or ten. And help illustrate the common sense that many are missing.

Because, really.

In Denver Times [Striking while the iron is hot]

Former Rocky Mountain News staffers announce online venture called In Denver Times based partially on subscriptions.

Now, while I thoroughly believe that unless you have highly specialized content, subscription models don't work, I'm going to go ahead and say that I think they have a pretty good chance of reaching their goal (50,000 pledged subscribers by April 23rd). Why? Because their business model has little to do with the circumstances under which they're kicking it off: the perfect storm of passion, drama, incessant "death of newspapers" coverage (oh wait, is that the same as drama?) and a city that just lost an institution. It's very Mickey and Judy "let's put on a show" and that is never to be underestimated.

And the logo design is good.

Now, whether its sustainable or not will have to do with a whole different set of details - how good is the subscription-only content? How is the business structured internally? See all previous questions regarding seattlepi.com.

But I personally think we'll get to the place where these questions get the chance to be answered. This, in itself, is almost more a viral campaign than the launch of a new form of journalism. 'Twill be interesting to watch indeed...

Update: I like the logo, less so this video, but in general the right idea...

iTunes SchmiTunes [This thing isn't that thing]

Why bother breaking down why you can't compare micro-payments for news to iTunes (duh) Clay Shirky has done it so well?