Magazine Content Online

Russell is wondering why magazine's put their content online:

Am I the only one who wonders why glossy magazines publish all their content online? I don't get that business model (if you can call it that). Even in the heyday of dot-com nuttiness, I never understood what magazines had to gain by throwing all their content on the web for free. They charge less for online ads and don't get money you pay to offset printing and other costs, etc.

..

Just a thought I had as I was looking some stuff up and ran across several items in magazines that are very recent, like Fast Company's January 2003 issue. With all that online, why would I buy the magazine? [_Go_]

I'd actually challenge that the question more and more is becoming not "With all that online, why would I buy the magazine" but just "Why buy magazines".  One point that Russell makes is that with WiFi and Tablet PCs, why do you need to buy a magazine if you can just browse its web site.  That's a good point but I'd also point out that if you have WiFi and a tablet computer then why not just read a blog?

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Now this is a Motivational Poster for Your Cube!

[_Go_]  Thanks to Paolo for pointing me over here.

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SitePoint on Essential Blogging:

Here's another review of Essential Blogging:

The book is written in an easy to understand manner with a great deal of graphic examples, which keep the book light and fun to read. I really enjoyed studying the graphic examples that were given. I love books with pictures! [_Go_]

Thanks to Allyn Edwards for sending this over.  Essential Blogging covers Radio, Movable Type, Blogger, Blosxom and other tools.

Bias Disclaimer: I was one of the authors of this book and, yes, my Mom does have it on her coffee table.

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Most Loathsome trends of 2002: Michael Moore

I loved "Roger and Me" but I loathed "Bowling for Columbine".  Joe User explains it better than I can. [_Go_]

Obligatory Bias Disclaimer: I did grow up hunting so I come to this with at least some kind of a pro gun perspective (actually not really pro gun just NOT anti gun, something that is increasingly rare these days).

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Institutional Memory

John is hard at work in his new job due to the lack of an Institutional Memory.

I'm busier than hell at work planning a strategy for our online advertising sales teams. It's tough work, honestly, mainly because I'm one of those guys that has to figure out where he's coming from to know where he's going. I like to look at the history of things, so that I know what's been done before...

But, that's hard when there isn't a lot of 'institutional memory'. I'm finding myself concentrating on researching what's happened this past year as I've only been there a month. I'm creating a lot of reports that just don't exist, mainly because no one knew to make them as the work was done. It's going slowly, but not because the information isn't available, but rather because the information generally isn't in an electronic format. [_Go_]

I'd argue that the issue isn't because the information "generally isn't in an electronic format".  My contention would be that even if it was in electronic format you wouldn't be able to find it.  Think about it -- where do you look for an organization's memory?

• File Server?
• Corporate Website
• Corporate Intranet
• Department Intranet
• Your predecessor's machine
• Your predecessor's email
• Fill in the Blank

This is a key knowledge management problem -- where should stuff go?  Perhaps John needs to start an internal blog so the next person who faces this Institutional Memory problem has a place to look.

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How Will Technorati Make Money?

Interesting.  Again from Mark I see this:

Want to know what people are saying about your weblog? For $10/year, Technorati will scan a big list of weblogs whenever they're updated and will email you about new links to your weblog -- or provide you with an RSS feed you can use in Tinderbox or another aggregator. [_Go_]

This is a new twist on web metric analysis -- but the big question is ... Will They Make $$$?  My guess?  Now, no.  Future, maybe.  When there are more businesses with weblogs that are using them to communicate with their customers then they have a chance of making $$$. Right now it's damn hard to get people to spend additional $$$ on something that they aren't making $$$ from.  (For 99.9934367% of us, blogging is a labor of love).

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Blogging = "Personal Knowledge Publishing"

From Mark I found this:

If you are a researcher or knowledge worker who is not very familiar with weblogging and personal knowledge publishing, reading this document should help you grasp the significance of this practice and better understand how you might benefit from getting involved in personal knowledge publishing. Although the emphasis is on research work, most of the ideas generalize to other kinds of creative knowledge work where knowledge sharing plays a role. [_Go_]

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Googling from PHP Anyone?

Here's a PHP class for googling right from PHP.  [_Go_]

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Microsoft Stats

Here are a few interesting numbers on Microsoft from the Wall Street Journal (print, no Permalink):

Last year PC sales fell for the first time in 16 years but Microsoft's revenue increased 13%.

This year, the disparity has grown.  In the third quarter, Microsoft estimates that PC unit sales increased 4% from a year earlier.  But revenues at the Redmond, Wash software maker increased 26%; revenue of the Windows group grew even faster, 33%.  Net incomre more than doubled and Microsoft generated more than $6 billion in cash from operations.

Gadzooks!

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