Sunday squibs

Lots of interesting things this weekend, including:

• What I Missed Only Getting News Online. This Ted Knutson piece in Editor & Publisher would be a lot more persuasive if he told us exactly what it was he missed. Without that, it’s a vague, unpersuasive paean to print.
• Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites. Nobody said this online stuff was going to be easy (reinvention rarely is). This NYT piece has details about what social network sites are up against as they struggle for ad support. Somewhat related: The future of social networks: Social networks will be like air. Take the time to read this closely.
• All eyes on Detroit newspapers: Don’t muff it, guys. Steve Outing is right: everyone does want to see what comes out of Detroit on Tuesday, as rumours mount that they’re about to cut home delivery from as many as three days of the week. That, as much as the Tribune Co. Chapter 11 filing, could shake up the industry. Steve has his own ideas about what they should do.
• Optimism during a tough week for my business. Steve Buttry recounts the bad news, but still finds reasons for optimism when it comes to newspapering. More hints of big things coming from Gannett.
• Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style. A nine-minute video with Clay Shirky. He’s talking about Perl and Linux, but what he has to say about what I think of as the gift economy of the web, has some implications for media struggling to come to terms with the socially-driven net. Part of his message is that you can build businesses on the sharing, but you can’t make the sharing itself into a business.
• Re-engineering the wall between church and state. Does a sponsored post at a popular blog damage the author’s credibility? Should the rules for the big guys apply to the smaller? Tim Windsor asks some questions, and makes some points, about the ad/editorial divide.
• The Places We Live. Based on the five photos at Aperture Foundation, this looks like a photo book worth considering. Note that two of the five photos are panoramas. (Note: I was pointed to this by someone on Twitter, but can’t remember who.)
• The dismantling of CNN. Change is the new constant, apparently, and it’s not just rolling over newspapers.

Note: I really have to figure out why MarsEdit is stripping out the opening brackets of my HTML tags, because after using MarsEdit for a year or so, using the WordPress backend to write posts is painful.