Keep to Open Standards

The following is no overstatement: The Internet was founded and grows upon the concept of open standards. Moreover, when the Web, a subset of the Internet, was designed, its designer’s intentions were that all content on the Web use the same standards so that all that content could be accessed by anyone on Web. Here are our reactions to an Online News discussion currently underway about what, if any, standards that media Web sites should use.

Denying Readers the 'Enhancements' of Annual Publication?

Apparently denying its readers whatever ‘enhancements’ that publishing just annually would bring, Editor & Publisher magazine has announced that it will enhance its contents by switching from weekly to monthly publication, beginning in January. As much as we enjoy being buffetted by a good PR spin, E&P‘s is simply fatuous and underscores the magazine’s decline under ownership by VNU Media. Read our analysis, which compares E&P against one of its competitors and outlines why E&P has been failing under VNU’s mismanagement.

Seybold Sparse This Year

The Seybold San Francisco 2003 Conference this year was, in the words Wired.com, “barren and sedate.” Attendence was down to only one-third the usual at this 21st annual Seybold show, which was held not in the main Moscone Conference Center but in…

The PowerOne Merger

Editor & Publisher Magazine this morning asked us to comment about (a) the merger of PowerOne Media, Inc., and Employment Specialists, L.L.C., owner of Employment Wizard and Careersite, and (b) PowerOne’s acquisition of employment voice technology company , The Center for American…

Creative Showcase.net

We’ve long thought that European online advertising shows greater flair than its American cousins. For examples, Creative Showcase displays the best of UK online advertising. Launched in association with Media Guardian, it highlights the UK’s monthly award for the best online campaign,…

SMS in Kansas

Because American publishers & consumers are far behind those in rest of the world when the topic is news by SMS, we heartened and not surprised to see progress in the American heartland. The reason we’re not surprised is that the news…

Tilting European Libel Laws

We’re watching with increasing alarm the European Commission’s ‘Rome II‘ proposal to harmonise laws relating to non-contractual obligations across Europe. Its ramifications for libel, defamation, and privacy laws, could have a startling effect upon European publishers, including online publishers. Under its latest…

Some Clowns Are On the Phone

SonyEricsson, a mobile phone manufacturer, has licensed content from Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network for use to Sony Ericsson phone users around the world. Starting in September, owners of SonyEriccson phones can, if they pay a premium rate, download games, ringtones, screensavers and…

Universities Band to Offer Licensed Music Downloads

Here’s a brilliant solution by some universities that might stop their students from illegally downloading copyrighted music and thereby spare the universities ilegal peril from the copyright holders: According to Penn State University President Graham Spanier, roughly a dozen colleges and universities…

CJR on Media Weblogging

Columbia Journalism Review has launched its redesigned Web site, which this month features a story about weblogging by alternative newspapers, amateur journalists, and mainstream media, with a list of mainstream American media that weblogs.

Photojournalism & Mobile Camera Phones

The Online News listserv, an discussion list for journalists, was today discussing reporters who carry mobile phone with cameras. We pointed that discussion to the May edition of The Digital Photojournalist, in which Evan Nisselson, a photo editor who is now a…

Half Off-Target

A ClickZ column today by David Cohen of the Universal McCann Interactive advertising agency tells how far off the target demographic many media Web sites ad campaigns hit. For examples: “One amazing thing we routinely find is the relatively low target composition…

We Like Montana Tech

We’re pleased to see our Theory of New Media — which we originally formulated as a way to explain to publishers and broadcasters what the differences are between Traditional and New Media — is now the required reading during the first week…

More Practical Than An Air Guitar

Former banking and securities lawyer turned novelist and inventor R. Douglas McPheters has patented, demonstrated, and begun commercializing holographic keyboards and keypads. That’s right, nothing to touch. Use your fingers to type on a projected image of a keyboard. Or, while driving,…

The Difference Between MMS and SMS

For publishers and broadcasters, what’s the cogent difference between SMS and MMS? “With SMS it’s hard to differentiate and create a premium product,” Sky Sports’ Head of Enterprises Stephen Nuttall tells New Media Age. “With MMS we can provide audio and pictures,…

Why Banner Ads Don't Work

BBC World Service’s commentator Bill Thompson muses about why online advertising is so unmemorable. “I suspect nobody reading this will be able to recall a single web advert or campaign. They just don’t seem to stick in the mind.”

Welcome to WiFi Niue!

The South Pacific island of Niue on Monday become the world’s first nation to provide free wireless Internet access to its entire population. Located east of Tonga in the Cook Island archipelago and formerly known as Savage Island, Niue is approximately 1.5-times…