Content management system Drupal turns six years old, and celebrates with the official launch of version 5.0. The Drupal community is strong, and the team reports that over 492 people have contributed to the fifth version of the popular open source system.

Among the news we’ll find a web-based installer, a new core team, improved usability, user and module administration, improved performance and a bunch of news for developers, including the addition of the jQuery JavaScript library. That’s the latest craze by the way; WordPress 2.1 will include the Prototype JavaScript library.

The 4.7 branch will continue to be supported, but 4.6 are officially out in the dark so if you run that you’d better upgrade to 4.7 or 5.0.

There’s a series of videos in MP4 format to download if you’re curious of Drupal. The last version I fiddled with was nice enough, and I’m definitely looking at the system for some projects.

Originally posted on January 15, 2007 @ 3:00 pm

The P2P TV project, known as The Venice Project, that the Skype founders have been working on is now Joost and gets a logo. A bubbly logo, actually, and lots of colors on the new website.

Other than that, there’s not much more going on. Check out the site and sign up for the beta if you’re interested in what’s in store for TV in the future.

Originally posted on January 16, 2007 @ 2:36 am

Scripps is seeing high growth profits in its new media properties while its traditional profit market, its newspaper division is sluggish.
New media growth is on the rise at record paces as more and more advertisers are heading online instead of towards traditional print. The profit margins for producing content online are much higher than having a traditional print division.

More and more I think traditional print companies will be shedding there print divisions this year and heading more towards an online approach.

Media company E.W. Scripps Co., increasingly focusing on its growing cable television and Internet-based businesses, is taking a hard look at the future of its sluggish newspaper operations.

Scripps management told analysts at a conference in Las Vegas this week that the company is considering options for its newspaper division and didn’t rule out a sale or spinoff. That news drove Scripps’ stock to a new 52-week high with analysts saying investors would respond well to some type of separation of the newspaper division from the company’s higher-growth assets.

Scripps owns daily and community newspapers in 18 markets, but its highest growth is in Scripps Networks – including HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living and Great American Country – and Scripps Interactive Media – including online search and comparison shopping services Shopzilla and uSwitch.

Source: Centre Daily

Originally posted on January 13, 2007 @ 2:29 pm

The New York Times has just discovered hyper local news coverage.

BEFORE the days of the printing press, town squares served as the main forum for exchanging community news and gossip. Now comes the virtual town square. Across the United States, citizen bloggers and deep-pocketed entrepreneurs are creating town-specific, and even neighborhood-specific, Web sites where the public can read and contribute items too small or too fleeting for weekly newspapers. Suburban towns across the greater New York area are joining in, giving residents a new way to avoid traffic snags, find a lost dog or just vent about a local hot-button issue.

While I think there are some real awesome ways to use hyperlocal news, and some great ways to monetize this type of thing. I’m a bit suprised because well I would rather read about regional issues than what’s going on in my neighborhood.

Originally posted on January 14, 2007 @ 8:37 pm

According to New Scientist magazine, Google have filed a patent for an Adsense-like take on billboard advertising. Yes, billboards, as in huge boards on the streets.

Stores buying advertising time on local electronic billboards are able to connect their stock-control computers to the network. The ads are displayed in rotation, but only until the stock-control computer reports the product as sold out. At that point, the ad is omitted from the cycle until the product is restocked.

Big time electronic retailers will probably shy away from this since the model would mean that they can’t lure people into their stores with a ridiculously low priced piece of hardware that’s been sold out forever. Tough luck.

Originally posted on January 15, 2007 @ 11:27 am