Map of Newspaper layoffs

This map paints a sobering picture for anyone concerned about the state of the news business.  As the layoffs pile up, the coverage of important news stories shrinks and becomes more reliant on bulk news and news wire material.  Hopefully citizen coverage and material from local people will help to compensate for the loss.  Democracy doesn’t work without access the facts so a lot is at stake here.

NowPublic

Tags: USA | California | New York | Texas | San Francisco | Florida | Miami | Seattle | newspapers | news | Journalism | Tech & Biz

The Crisis of Suburbia

Noted economist Nouriel Roubini paints a frightening picture of the future of North American life.   Roubini is one of the few  people who anticipated the current US financial crisis and should be taken very seriously.  

A whole genre of films – such as American Beauty and Twin Peaks just to cite two cult classics – have unveiled the moral ambiguities – and at times the darkness – that lurk behind the bucolic and idyllic façade of American Suburbia. The pretty and prototypical image of such suburbian lifestyle is the seven-bedroom and four-bathroom MacMansion with a driveway where three gas-guzzling SUVs are parked (one for dad, one for mom and one for the kids) and a sprawling green lawn that is perfectly manicured with sprinklers spewing hundreds of gallons of water a day.

Thanks to the worst housing recession since the Great Depression, sky-high gasoline and energy prices and rising water shortages from global warming this suburbian American dream way of life is turning into an economic and financial nightmare. Let us count the ways of this nightmare…

Source: rgemonitor.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: USA | California | Lifestyle | Real Estate | Florida | Nevada | economics | housing bubble | energy | Global Warming | Gasoline | depression | Crisis | SUV | Suburbia | McMansion | Tech & Biz | Nouriel Roubini

Gannett Q2 Profits Down 36%, Shares Tank (GCI)

More pain in the newspaper business today.

Thanks to a write-down of nearly $3 billion, we knew Gannett (GCI) was looking at an ugly Q2. And Gannett delivered, announcing 36% earnings drop in preliminary results reported today.

The nation’s largest newspaper company hasn’t finalized the amount of the write-down announced last quarter, but said it would come in between $2.5 and $2.9 billion.

Source: alleyinsider.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: USA | New York | first | Journalism | profits | Tank | results | shares | ugly | REVENUE | gannett | USA TODAY | billion | year-over-year | write-down | Tech & Biz | newspaper company

Praise for NowPublic from Canadian Tech Community

As I posted yesterday, NowPublic was chosen by Backbone and KPMG as one of Canada’s top new web companies.  Here is the write up. 

If you’ve heard the term “citizen journalism” it’s because of companies like NowPublic. “This is a superbly thought-out and executed approach to crowdsourced news,” O’Connor Clarke said. “There are a lot of players in this space, but the way NowPublic have put things together, the way the site operates and their success in securing major partnerships with traditional media companies are all well worthy of recognition. NowPublic is a superb example of how 2.0 thinking can bridge the old and new media worlds to create something wholly new.” Other judges also raised the competition flag. Shuttleworth said there is “too much competition in this space” and Moffitt felt that “given its success already and its international scale, NowPublic could be creating an interesting form of new journalism, but it could also raise the hackles of well-moneyed competitors — but they have the head start.”

Source: backbonemag.com via mtippett

— You guys are gonna make me blush 🙂

NowPublic

Tags: Canada | Vancouver | NowPublic | Media | competition | companies | Magazine | judges | KPMG | Backbone | winners | could | raise | pick | Tech & Biz

Baltimore & Vancouver experience underground electrical fires, blackouts

This is a very strange coincidence given what happened in Vancouver yesterday.

BALTIMORE — An underground electrical fire in downtown Baltimore that closed streets and caused power outages has been brought under control.

Fire Department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright says there were reports of a manhole cover explosion shortly after 5 p.m. Monday in the 300 block of North Charles Street. The fire was brought under control around 3:30 a.m. today.

Source: delmarvanow.com

NowPublic

Tags: Baltimore | Vancouver | fire | Blackout | underground | street | Strange | control | under | brought | electrical fire

Who is leading the Web 2.0 Revolution in Canada?

NowPublic has been identified by KPMG and Backbone Magazine as one of Canada’s top Internet companies.

(Toronto, July 15, 2008 ) – KPMG and Backbone magazine congratulate the top twenty winners of the first annual ‘PICK20’ Awards, the only national roundup of Canada’s up and coming Web 2.0 pioneers who are leading the 2.0 evolution of the Web. These new emergent online social platforms designed to link individuals to each other, are now increasingly being used to connect companies to both partners and clients.

Source: kpmg.ca via mtippett

Thanks to all our members who helped us get there. — Mike.

NowPublic

Tags: Canada | Public Relations | Toronto | Ottawa | Vancouver | NowPublic | awards | companies | Partners | e-commerce | Venture Capital | KPMG | Michael Geist | annual | winners | used | pioneers | Tech & Biz | Backbone magazine | online social platforms

NowPublic Buys Truemors

You may have read today’s news about our acquisition of Truemors. For those of you not familiar with the site it is the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki. Guy is a legend in Silicon Valley as a best selling author, VC and one of the early players at Apple — among other things. I’m a big fan of his and am psyched to have him join our team as the Chairman of our advisory group.

In addition to the wealth of Guy’s experience we are also picking up a great group of editors and Trumorists to add to our expanding pool of citizen editors. Welcome to Annie and the rest of the group. We will be working hard to get you all integrated into the NowPublic editorial team and I think you will all be a fantastic edition to our news gathering capabilities.

As you’d expect, an acquisition like this in such a crazed space (those were the words of Michael Arrington) there has been a great deal of press attention. The AFP picked up the story as well as most of the Valley tech media. We’re getting lots of emails and thanks to everyone for their good words.

So day one of the merger seems to be going well. But as with any new success there are sometimes some growing pains. NowPublic is weathering the traffic barrage well but truemors is having a tough time staying online. This has provided our tech team with a good opportunity to get to know the Truemors servers a little earlier than we had planned ☺ Rest assured, Truemors is in good hands and we’ll have it back on his feet in no time. Stay tuned!

Michael.

NowPublic

Tags: New York | San Francisco | Vancouver | NowPublic | citizen journalism | Journalism | Guy Kawasaki | Tech & Biz | truemors

NowPublic Buys Truemors

From Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

NowPublic bought Truemors yesterday, and I became chairman of NowPublic’s board of advisors. You can read more details here. These are exciting times! Thank you everyone for contributing your stories to Truemors and for visiting our site.

Source: blog.guykawasaki.com

This is great news for NowPublic and we are very excited to be working more closely with Guy. 

NowPublic

Tags: New York | San Francisco | Vancouver | NowPublic | Guy Kawasaki | Tech & Biz | truemors

What’s with the NowPublic tab on Truemors?

What’s with that?

NowPublic

Tags: Vancouver | NowPublic | citizen journalism | news | Guy Kawasaki | Tech & Biz | truemors

Download BitTorrent files at home from wherever

This is great.

BitTorrent tracker Mininova has a cool and useful new feature that lets you download any file to your machine at home with just a click of a button from any remote machine. It works by using a new bookmarking option found next to the download link on any file in Mininova’s directory. All that needs to be done on your part is to subscribe to a special RSS feed in your local BitTorrent application and it will automatically start downloading as long as you’ve got it running. You can also share this feed with others in case you want to start your own recommended files feed with friends.

Source: webware.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: Running | San Francisco | Home | file | BitTorrent | directory | Friends | application | Case | MACHINE | remote | works | special | bookmarking | Share | button | feed | tracker | Subscribe | others | recommended | also | This | want | automatically | Mininova | Tech & Biz