Lou Alexander gives his spin on the "devil's bargain" involved in publically-traded news organizations. While shareholders' funding at offering was great, in return CEOs and company boards fiscally, legally, competitvely and professionally cannot trim back on profits to better fund newsroom intiatives - especially not in this age of migration from print to new media among consumers.

Newspaper critics don't understand the business [Grade the News]

Related:

N.Y. Times, Philadelphia Papers Plan Job Cuts [WashingtonPost.com]
Times Company Announces 500 Job Cuts [NYT]
Globe parent cites weak ad revenues, uncertain economy [Boston.com]

Quote from Good Morning Silicon Valley: "The first rule of The Google Partner Forum is - you do not talk about The Google Partner Forum. The second rule of The Google Partner Forum is - you DO NOT talk about The Google Partner Forum."

Google Zeitgeist '05 [Google]

Blogver-what? Oh hell no… I think at best it's spam, at worst it's fraud.

No, on second thought, I'm sure: Intentionally confusing readers about editorial content with advertisers' messages is just plain fraud on everyone involved.

Is It an Article, an Ad, a Blogvertorial? [Poynter]

Related:

Spam Blogs [Photo Matt]

Having recently gone into the thick of the 800×600 vs. 1024×768 issue with the recent redesign of the JSOnline.com home page, I was glad to see this designer's retort: If your content sucks, your screen size doesn't matter.

The Question that Wont Die: Optimal Screen Resolution? [Jared Spool]

Related:

224 more pixels, please [Jay Small]

"Starting in June, [MSNBC.com Publisher Charlie Tillinghast] refocused the unit on four areas he believes will drive more traffic to the site, enabling MSNBC to break away from the competition - search engine optimization, content syndication, content personalization and video."

Behind MSNBC's plan to win online news race [Puget Sound Business Journal]

Again, duh.

RSS Users Visit Three Times as Many News Web Sites as Non-Users, According to Nielsen//NetRatings [CyberJournalist]

JupiterResearch: "The New York market researcher found adoption is up from last year, albeit 64 percent of adults still said they wouldn't pay for content to avoid online advertising. However, 31 percent of online adults paid for content over the Internet, up 5 percentage points from last year."

Consumer Resistance to Paid Content Stays High [DM News]

Related (new 9/20/2005):

NYT Op-ed Columnists Locked Down Tight [Poynter]
NYTimes.com to launch TimesSelect [CyberJournalist]
TimesSelect [NYT]

CBSNews.com wades into "community journalism" with a blog.

Public Eye [CBSNews.com]

Peter Schumacher's tips for multimedia news on the Web:

Principle 1: Avoid an information overload.

Principle 2: Have users' expectations concerning interaction functionality in mind.

Principle 3: Be careful using animation.

Principle 4: Let users fully control the interaction.

Principle 5: Involve users in testing your graphics.

User feedback drives five principles for multimedia news on the Web [OJR]

Jay Small breaks down how matching user experience between print newspapers and their branded Web sites came up a top concern among audiences within both Scripps and Belo markets.

"All the usability problems exposed in our testing can be, and will be, addressed. The bigger problem - that seemingly unbreakable chain that lashes us to consumers' expectations of the old models - can be addressed only with investment. And I mean investment of an order of magnitude greater than the caretaker staffs and small-scale internal "build" projects most of us put on our Web sites."

Hard to reset consumer expectations [Jay Small]

Related:

Saving Newspapers I: Focus on consumer experience [Jay Small]
Saving Newspapers 2: Redefining local interest [Jay Small]
You can customize print distribution [Jay Small]
Saving Newspapers 3: Know the eyeballs you seek [Jay Small]
- links to this AP article: The Young Labeled 'Entitlement Generation'