Editor’s note: I always hate when Sports Illustrated publishes a double issue. It’s just an excuse to not put out a magazine for a week. They just stuff it with a couple extra pages so you think it’s worthy of two weeks’ worth of work. And since I skipped out on the Linkage last week, you’re getting a couple extra links this week. I know it’s a crappy deal, but if SI can get away with it, why can’t I?
Whenever I tell people about my career path – from newspapers to a startup web marketing company – the response has become pretty predictable: “Makes sense. Newspapers are f#@%ed.”
In a lot of ways, that’s true. Newspapers across the country are shrinking, losing money and downsizing. I see the web as a big part of journalism’s future. I hope that’s a future that includes newspapers. But will the web be the savior of newspapers, or the cause of their eventual demise?
New York Magazine ran a feature in late July about the New York Times’ battle to survive the Internet age and how the decision to start using a paywall in March has actually proven successful thus far. I’ve always been of the belief that a subscription-based website was not the way to go for newspapers – the Times website isn’t exactly all-out subscription; they still offer a lot of free content – and I’m still not entirely convinced it’s the answer.
The answer thus far has been sitting around hoping that everything will be OK. So it’s good to see that the Times is actually taking a chance. And maybe if the Times can figure out a way to make it work, others will as well.
Onto the beefed-up linkage…
- This is a great story about how Yahoo Sports has become ESPN.com’s biggest competitor. The best strategy Yahoo has employed: Hire really good people. Sounds a lot like how to build a successful startup.
- A call for longer tweets? Plus one.
- Twitter has started showing promoted tweets in your timeline. Sounds a lot like newspapers deciding to charge for content. It’ll be interesting to see how users react.
- When I thought about going to grad school for journalism, a professor once told me that it would be a waste of time. He was probably right. Here’s an interesting read on how to fix humanities grad school.
- AT&T has pissed off some iPhone users by changing the costs of some data plans.
- If you run a small business, here are five online tools you need to be using (or, at least, Tech Vibe thinks so).
- For KC folk, a battle to see who is the best bartender in town. (I feel pretty unhip since I don’t think I’ve been to one of these establishments. Guess I need to venture outside of Waldo more often… Nah.)
- From our photography nerd Mia: How Instagram is challenging Flickr.
- For those of you that read my story from earlier this week about the Wilderness Brewery guys, I'm happy to report that they reached their goal of $40,000. Can’t wait to taste their beer.
- With the Modern Family season premiere still more than a month away, I needed something to hold me over. Luckily, the Washington Post shared the video below in celebration of Colombia’s Independence Day a couple weeks ago.
- And finally, the best thing I’ve read lately. Amazing reporting from the New Yorker on how the Osama bin Laden raid went down.
