Goodbye Windows. Goodbye Fast Company. Want my prediction? Magazines will be gone by 2016. And so will all my bad memories of Windows.

Gatekeepers
TV schedulers, A&R guys, Wall Street researchers, cool hunters. As punishment, now it’s our turn to ram stuff down your throats. Hope you like Bon Jovi!

Bloggers
Pay someone to write snarky comments? Do you think we’re getting paid for this?

Advertising creatives
Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to be better at your job than you are. Bonus: No more “whither the 30-second spot” whining.

Auto mechanics
As cars run on software, the grease monkey will need a makeover.

U.S. high-tech jobs
But software engineers can always get a job down at the garage.

Indian call-center operators
American customer service is rescued from oxymoron status as companies realize that being nice to the people with the money is the only way to win.

Via Fast Company

Originally posted on March 28, 2006 @ 6:17 pm

I’ve had a couple of wordpress.com accounts and guess what its about as annonying as having 10 gmail accounts. We all have to go over and thank Matt Mullenweg and the rest of the Automattic staff for setting this up. If only Google would allow us to do the same thing.

I mean its truly annonying to have this many different accounts for the same purpose. The best part is you can even virtually merge accounts.

I was laughing a little too much as Matt sounded British when he made the announcement.

Originally posted on April 8, 2006 @ 3:26 am

In the past the plagiarism club has had some noteworthy faces CNET, The New York Times, most recently Weblogs Inc, and now entering the plagiarism club because its the lazy popular thing to do is The Associated Press.

Plagiarism is the reason that old media will die.

To appropriate the writings, graphic representations or ideas of another person and represent them as one’s own, (that is, without proper attribution). Plagiarism is a form of intellectual property violation.

I plagiarised that quote on purpose. To prove a point. Plagiarism is the art of attempting to masquerade your works as source. This is something that all Old Media wants to do. They never want to admit, credit, or reveal their sources. New Media however is betrothed to its sources. We interlink. We collaborate. We share ideas and we share credit.

The ways and means in which news is reported over the next 5 years will gradually change from the need to always be the source to developing rock solid news sharing communities. This is the success of new media startups like Memeorandum, and Newsvine, Digg and the like. Instead of needing to be the source they delegate. Instead they force you to link to the source. Bringing news into a central data point to share conversations around. New Media is not replacing Old Media, New Media is truly replacing the local coffee shop. It’s where the conversations are taking place. Old Media is being replaced by nothing. We are all finally waking up that Old Media will believe any old crock of a story and republish what doesn’t belong to them.

Old Media is killing itself piece by piece. Because it won’t fact check. It won’t verify sources and it clearly brushes off the New Media which isn’t New Media at all its the community of the consumer. As in any business if you alienate the consumer long enough your business will go under. This is why Newspapers are a dying breed. They are alienating the consumer.

Recently Jay Rosen mentioned the newspapers that are doing a good job. Arguably some better than others on this list. Plagiarism is a product of fear of new media, and the very consumers of your product. See bloggers aren’t afraid of republication. Most would probably allow for it if you just asked. But please don’t steal. If you are going to republish please contact us. Link to us give us credit. Because blogging takes time. The more I blog, and the more you steal the less I will read your papers, and your websites. Because there are plenty of good conversations going on around news stories. But because this is a blog. You will ignore this article. Probaby not even see it. In fact anyone that is driven by fear of giving credit will pass away. Driven by greed they steal, driven by laziness they fact check not. Driven by profits they are swayed by advertisers that pay the bills. But the advertisers go where the people are. This is why the Old Media will pass away. Because the people will find the blogs who are the sources. And yes Weblogs Inc you joined the Old Media last year when you were bought by AOL Time Warner.

hat tip: Search Engine Journal

Originally posted on March 31, 2006 @ 2:39 pm

Industrious Kid gets 6 million in funding to bring children to the wonderful world of blogging and social networking.

Myspace.com and TheFacebook.com may have the attention of teens, “tweens” and college kids, but Industrious Kid Inc. plans to carve out a space in the crowded social networking world by making bloggers out of elementary school students.

Formed last September, San Francisco-based Industrious Kid has pulled in $6 million in Series A financing from a group of undisclosed individuals. The company is using the round, which closed last fall, to finish development of its first offering, imbee.com, which it plans to launch in May, said Vice President of Marketing Tim Donovan. “The age demographic [for blogging] is getting younger and younger,” said Donovan. “But none of the [current sites] were developed with children in mind.”

via IK

A question for the readers. Will this work? Not having kids of that age yet. I wonder if there is enough attraction to get elementary kids blogging. I mean really what’s the point? Don’t they get enough interaction at school? Is this a dumb shellout for a VC to hand over 6 million and bank on children blogging at age 9?

Originally posted on March 24, 2006 @ 1:11 pm

This should come as no suprise. But Iran is ramping up its campaign to shut up bloggers who don’t agree with the mainline government.

On his last visit to Iran, Canadian-based blogger Hossein Derakhshan was detained and interrogated, then forced to sign a letter of apology for his writings before being allowed to leave the country.

Compared to others, Derakhshan is lucky.

Dozens of Iranian bloggers have faced harassment by the government, been arrested for voicing opposing views, and fled the country in fear of prosecution over the past two years.

In the conservative Islamic Republic, where the government has vast control over newspapers and the airwaves, weblogs are one of the last bastions of free expression, where people can speak openly about everything from sex to the nuclear controversy.

But increasingly, they are coming under threat of censorship.

via Canada.com

Originally posted on March 29, 2006 @ 12:30 pm