Paid content update: El Pais

Apparently El Pais plans to charge for online content by the end of the year. The argument: "It is not fair that readers of the paper pay for online readers." If you can read Spanish, the announcement is here. Dreadful Google translation here.
(From E-Media Tidbits)

FT goes public with Eidos deal

Eidos Media has released a press release detailing its deal with the FT for Méthode, its CMS now being described as a "news management system to create and publishe the daily mulitple print and online editions of the paper".
(From Eidos Media)

"Eight Technologies that will change the world"

According to Business 2.0: (1) Biointeractive materials (smart clothes etc); (2) genetically engineered fuel crops; (3) bionics; (4); direct brain-computer interaction; (5) genotyping; (6) a posteriori theories (using computing power to analyse data and identify trends, rules, etc); (7) molecular manufacturing; (8) quantum nucleonics (tapping the power of atomic nuclei).
(From Busines 2.0)

Felt tip wreaks revenge on Celine Dion

After all the "Celine Dion kills your computer" furore, it turns out that you can overcome Sony's key2audio copy protection by scribbling on the CD with a marker pen. Now that's hi tech.
(From Yahoo News)

Broadsheets "will go tabloid"

Eminent newspapers designer Mario Garcia predicts that many broadsheet newspapers will go tabloid in the next 20 years, as papers such as Le Monde and El Pais have proved that tabloid does not necessarily mean low brow. Garcia, who has just redesigned the San Francisco Examiner from a broadsheet to a tabloid, reckons that European and South American newspapers are taking the lead in this respect.
(From Editor & Publisher)

Google Sets

Another Google Labs beta, Google Sets allows you to enter a set of words and Google will attempt to expand that set to include other related terms. Example: enter three song titles by one artist, and you'll get a whole load more. Each resutl is clickable to run a search on that term. I've found it quite successful, but it could do with some sort of set restriction, perhaps: I'd like to enter three song titles and an "AND" album title to see just the songs on that album. Since Dictionary.com started spewing popups all over my screen I've converted to Google Glossary.
(From Google Labs)

Kartoo search map

Another implementation of topic mapping à la flux and numerous "3D thesauruses" that have come and gone; this one is a meta search engine. For pure aesthetics, see also the Atlas of Cyberspace.
(From Kuro5hin)

Factual error found on internet!

Nice bit of foma, for once: "The Internet's status as the world's definitive repository of incontrovertible fact has been jeopardized" It may have happened before . . . "In 1998, an e-mail made an unverifiable claim that [the reader] could earn thousands of dollars from an initial $5 investment. The claim was never conclusively proven false."
(From The Onion, natch)

Online Subscriptions Summit

Steve Oututing's summary of Marketing Sherpa's Anne Holland's summary of conclusions drawn from the Selling Subscriptions to Internet Content Summit: 1. Renewal! 2. Automatic Renewal! 3. Take credit card details for free trials — then auto-renew! 4. Cater to medium; sound unique. 5. Direct marketing! 6. Be clear about what is free and what is not. 7. Advertisers pay to sit with paid content.
(From E-Media Tidbits)

Freeland on FT.Com relaunch

FT.Com editor Chrystia Freeland on the site relaunch, which features a tranche of subscription services. The emphasis is on rebranding the site as an extension of the paper — which, of course, people have been willing to pay for. "The reporting, writing and editing judgments you will read in those online sections are faithful reflections of the journalism in our newspaper. They are produced by a fully integrated team of reporters and editors, working in the same offices around the world, at the same desks."
(From FT.Com)

Deep linking update: printer-friendly links

Wired reports on a new take on the deep-linking controversy: health mag publisher Rodale Press has demanded that LetsRun.com stop linking to the printer-friendly versions of its stories. Arguably, the legal point here is stronger, given that linking to an advert- and branding-free version of a story could have identifiable financial implications for the publisher. LetsRun.com's reply is here.
(From Wired)

New tech can bring revenue

Editor & Publisher essay giving examples of how automation can generate revenue as well as cut costs. As usual, the big winner is improved customer data providing new ways to flog advertising or subscriptions.
(From Editor & Publisher)

Papers shrink book sections

Several US papers have been cutting back their book sections to save on newsprint and restore advertising ratios. When one reader complained after a six-page section in the Philadelphia Enquirer was whittled down to one and a half pages, he was told by the editor, "I could find nowhere else in the paper to reduce expenses that would not have an impact on readership." Ouch. Other papers shrinking their book sections: New York Times, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury-News, St Paul Pioneer Press.
(From US News.Com)

Five million OSX users by end of year

In an interview with CNET news, Steve Jobs predicted that 20 per cent of Apple's current 25 million customers will be using OSX by the end of the year. At present somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million (6-8%) are using OSX, although a good 3 million Macs have shipped with OSX installed.
(From CNET news)

Flying robot assassins

The United States is tripling production of unmaned air vehicles (UAVs) this year. These craft are now so sophisticated that hey can be used to pick out and destroy precise targets such as individuals. A UAV was responsible for the identification and destruction of the jeep carrying a "tall man" near the Tora Bora mountains earlier this year. The accelerated production of more UAVs suggests that political assassination is now very much back on the US foreign policy agenda.
(From MIT Tech Review)

Paid content update: more on mobile phone micropayment

Europemedia.net has some more detail on Vodaphone's "iPIN" technology that provides a plausible micropayment system for web sites and services. The idea is this: (1) Customer goes to website and and sees something that they want to access. The thing they want costs £x — which could be as low as 5p. (2) Customer sends an SMS message to a number listed on the site. (3) Customer receives a reply containing a PIN number. The user is billed £x to receive the message — so the fee is deducted as a normal part of the customer's phone bill. (4) Customer types PIN number in to website and accesses the material.
(From Europemedia.net)

Tampa Tribune joins NewsStand

The Tampa Tribune has signed an agreement with NewsStand to deliver an electronic edition of the paper for 50 cents a day or $22.75 for 15 weeks. NewsStand sales count on the ABC in the United States, but not in the UK.
(From Editor & Publisher)

Copyright update: beware the dinosaurs

Interview with "net freedom fighter" Lawrence Lessig in Business Week — fleshing out his theory that the grip on intellectual property now being exercised by the big media giants will lead to a stifled medium.
(From Business Week)

Adobe converts to OpenType

Adobe has converted its extensive font catalogue to OpenType, the cross-platform format that supports a much wider character set and is supported by InDesign 2.0. Explanation here. The move may encourage other foundries to do the same — which should precipitate a wider adoption of the format.
(From MacUser)

"Ganging up on the public"

Readable rant by Dan Gillmor on manouevres by big players from Hollywood to Belo to force customers to experience media product in the precisely way the publishers wish — by banning deep linking; by disabling the fast forward button during the adverts/copyright intro to DVDs; by accusing people of "theft" if they decline to view every advert thrown at them. "Law and technology are combining to carve away your rights in favor of the owners' control".
(From San Jose Mercury News)

ABC figures for US papers

Here are the ABC figures for the top 20 papers in the United States, for the past 6 months (with percentage change on same period last year). The average weekly circulation for a total of 820 newspapers was down 0.6%, according to the NAA. More info on Yahoo news.

1.	USA Today	2,120,357	(-3.5%)
2.	The Wall Street Journal	1,820,525	(0.1%)
3.	The New York Times	1,194,491	(3.8%)
4.	Los Angeles Times	1,011,732	(N/A)
5.	The Washington Post	811,925	(0.7%)
6.	Daily News, New York	733,099	(2.2%)
7.	Chicago Tribune	689,026	(1.6%)
8.	Newsday	577,796	(0.1%)
9.	New York Post	562,639	(15.4%)
10.	Houston Chronicle	545,727	(0.1%)
11.	San Francisco Chronicle	525,369	(-1.4%)
12.	The Dallas Morning News	511,159	(2.0%)
13.	The Arizona Republic	496,373	(N/A)
14.	Chicago Sun-Times	487,480	(0.5%)
15.	The Boston Globe	478,735	(1.9%)
16.	The Star-Ledger	406,717	(0.0%)
17.	Star Tribune	405,459	(1.6%)
18.	The Atlanta Journal-Constitution	405,367	(1.2%)
19.	The Philadelphia Inquirer	381,104	(-3.0%)
20.	The Plain Dealer	368,322	(1.3%)

(From Editor & Publisher )

Classified drift update: Monster revenue up 41% in 2001

Another article suggesting the doom of print classified: Ad Age.com predicts that newspapers are unlikely to recover fully from that advertising slump last year. As people begin to spend money on advertising again, increasingly they will turn to online sites such as Monster.com, who made excellent business during (and possible thanks in part to) the slump. Monster.com's revenue reached $535.8 million last year, while newspaper classified revenue in the US fell 15.2% to $16.6 billion. The biggest loser in print was the jobs sector, with job ads slumping 37%.
(From AdAge.com)

Paid content update: Irish Times

The Irish Times announced on May 1 that it is joining the "pay for premium" newspaper brigade on the web. The cost: 79 euros per annum, with short subscription alternatives. The product: pretty much the standard interpretation of premium — breaking news, access to the archive, and full access to the newspaper content. Partial access to the paper will remain free, as will the ad revenue sites (jobs, cars and property) and specials such as a World Cup site.
(From Irish Times)

British newspapers least trusted in Europe

A study by the European Commission includes that 20 percent of British newspaper readers trust newspapers — far less than the European average of 46 percent. Surprisingly, 20 percent marks an upward trend: last year it was 15 percent. Radio and television are trusted more; averaging at about 63 percent. More Britons (48 percent) read newspapers than the European average (40 percent).
(From Guardian Unlimited)