It’s nice when one’s sons turn out to be better photographers than their father. This is by Brian. Flickr version here.
Quote of the day
“I’ve got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules. You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.”
President Obama, commenting on his mistake in running Tom Daschle for a post in his Administration.
Wow! When was the last time you heard a prominent politician saying something like that — and meaning it?
Journalists as windsocks
Andrew Currah has written a thoughtful piece in the Guardian based on his report, What’s Happening to Our News? which he wrote as a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute in Oxford.
As more news consumers migrate online, the clickstream is likely to assume an even more important role. In the future, it has the capacity to not only transform the nature and breadth of the news agenda – but also to redefine well-established values.
In an effort to boost hits and advertising, publishers are already in danger of diluting their brand by allowing it to become the digital equivalent of a windsock – given shape by the prevailing direction of the clickstream rather than by a core of long-term editorial values.
The basic logic of a webcentric strategy is to maximise the size of the audience around the news, for as long as possible. But a rush to generate clicks may in fact erode the distinctiveness of the brand and its connection to a specific audience. By anchoring their brand identities in softer content, news publishers risk losing traffic to specialised sites that provide showbusiness and sports news more effectively – and also to advertisers who are increasingly demanding engaged, rather than transitory, eyeballs.
So what should news publishers be doing? A more viable strategy may be for them to identify and follow ‘editorial isolines’ – points of consistent editorial judgment that would establish them as digital "anchors", rather than digital windsocks. In practice, that would entail a strategic focus on certain kinds of coverage, and audiences reflecting existing editorial and brand values.
The report (available as a pdf download) is worth reading in full.
Job Loss in the Age of Blogs and Twitter
Interesting WSJ.com piece.
Internet games, gambling and other forms of online entertainment have seen significant surges in use in the several months since the economic downturn deepened. Social-networking services like Facebook, blogs and discussion forums — all well-known time sinks even during good times — are also seeing strong growth. Some purveyors of online entertainment say business has never been so good for them.
Robert Kraut, a professor of social psychology and human computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, says games and other forms of entertainment can provide escape for people steeped in anxieties about the economy. “There’s evidence these distractions have a psychological benefit because they prevent a downward spiral of rumination,” says Dr. Kraut.
England’s white and pleasant land
Where next?
In memoriam
Photographed this morning in a country churchyard. Click on image for larger size, or here for Flickr version.
Searching for the Davos Guy
From Thomas Friedman at Davos.
DAVOS, Switzerland — In its own unpredictable way, the Davos World Economic Forum usually serves as a crude barometer of the latest mood or mania on the world stage. This year did not disappoint. What has struck me is the quiet urgency that infused so many panel discussions and private conversations here between investors, politicians and social activists. To put it crudely: Everyone is looking for the guy — the guy who can tell you exactly what ails the world’s financial system, exactly how we get out of this mess and exactly what you should be doing to protect your savings.
But here’s what’s really scary: The guy isn’t here. He’s left the building. Elvis has left the mountain. Get used to it.
What do I mean? First, if it is not apparent to you yet, it will be soon: There is no magic bullet for this economic crisis, no magic bailout package, no magic stimulus. We have woven such a tangled financial mess with subprime mortgages wrapped in complex bonds and derivatives, pumped up with leverage, and then globalized to the far corners of the earth that, much as we want to think this will soon be over, that is highly unlikely.
We are going to have to learn to live with a lot more uncertainty for a lot longer than our generation has ever experienced…
Joke of the day
Q: What is the capital of Iceland?
A: $25
The bad news
Tim Weber’s report from the Davos discussion.
The threat of cybercrime is rising sharply, experts have warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
They called for a new system to tackle well-organised gangs of cybercriminals.
Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves, they said.
The internet was vulnerable, they said, but as it was now part of society's central nervous system, attacks could threaten whole economies.
The past year had seen “more vulnerabilities, more cybercrime, more malicious software than ever before”, more than had been seen in the past five years combined, one of the experts reported.
But does that really put “the internet at risk?”, was the topic of session at the annual Davos meeting.