Fear & Loathing

A Post-Newspaper Era

Michael Kinsley says if the New York Times disappears, there will still be news. Life After Newspapers. I'm not so sure. Since most Web news is repurposed content from newspapers, especially financial and investigative reporting, and because few if any sites can monetize or profit from online news distribution, when newspapers die I fear there will be little to replace them. Certainly NOT television.

Posted via email from glenn's posterous

Generating Product Buzz with PPT - Pay-Per-Tweet

So Intuit is paying social media users to post reviews and plugs of TurboTax in Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere by paying for a mention of its flagship tax preparation software. This may be a good example of a corporation embracing Web 2.0 media savvy, but I think it is just as bad -- perhaps worse, if the relationship is undisclosed -- as pay-per-post used to create blogosphere traction by compensating those who post favorable comments. At the very least there has got to be transparency when a product placement is made for compensation. At the worst, it still stinks IMHO.

Posted via email from glenn's posterous

Can BHO Play FDR?

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes that Pres. Obama has a great historical opportunity to speak directly to Americans about confidence as part of his quest to ameliorate the fiscal crisis. Barack Obama's "Nothing to Fear" Moment [Washingtonpost.com]. In times of panic like now, we desperately need an inspirational leader like FDR, who bravely told Americans only to fear "fear itself." I hope he can step up to the plate, but so far on this score he has been a serious disappointment.

Online trumps retail in 4Q. Tipping point or one off?

This day had to come, and it now has. And the Bragging Rights Go to Internet Retailers [WSJ.com]. So is it a paradigm shift or just a depressing response to the financial crisis?  Only time will tell, but I suspect the former.

Blackberry Part Deux

Hey! Mashable agrees with my Dec. 23 post, observing that "[l]ike the forgotten child in the orphanage, it seems no one talks about the still popular RIM smartphone anymore."  They're right in part.  People are only talking about how far RIM has fallen (57.6% in 2008 alone) and whether it can recapture momentum while continuing to lose market share!

Note to Readers: Would have added this as an update, but the other entry was drafted in a stand-alone blogging application that does not permit TypePad to edit HTML, thus I could not insert the Mashable link. Stupid product design.

Say Goodbye Blackberry

BlackBerry Storm Downgraded to a Depression [NYTimes.com].

Isn’t the thumb keyboard the defining feature of a BlackBerry? A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel. A Prius with terrible mileage. Cracker Jack without a prize inside.

After years on top, RIM is facing real competitive pressures these days. But trying to copy the touchscreen of the Apple iPhone seems retarded to me. GIving away RIM's key product differentiation feature. Is this the first sign of a long, slow decline.

What To Do Without Newspapers?

With increasingly frequent reports that American newspapers are in severe financial difficulty because of a rapid and accelerating shift of advertising revenue to other media outlets, it is fair to ask how citizens, investors and consumers will get their news in the next decade. Newspaper Ad Revenue Falls Nearly $2 Billion [Advertising Age]. 

Without a profitable newspaper industry, it is difficult to see that any of the re-purposed Web content offered online by those publishers can remain. After all, the trend is decidedly against online subscription content business models and, as has become clear, Internet traffic to news sites needs to be an order of magnitude greater in order to support positive advertising net revenues. Television networks like CNN and FoxNews offer a little, but the bulk of their content is a superficial summary of the prior day's news cycle, drawn principally from newspapers. And without all those reporters, how are the blogosphere or GoogleNews going to function?  As the L.A. TImes asks in commentary, "How long can newspapers keep delivering the news?"

This problem is one that is indifferent to politics. Whether you like the supposedly liberal New York Times or conservative Wall Street Journal or something else, not even the newspapers with the widest circulation are making any money online. The Detroit Free Press' recent discontinuation of most home delivery to focus on Internet distribution is a serious cry for help.  So if the "paper-and-postage business" dies on the newspaper industry -- which is where it certainly seems to be headed -- where does that leave us? Without any serious defenders of the 1st Amendment and certainly lacking news organizations with the scale and resources to report on our increasingly interrelated world.  Newspapers indeed have to reinvent themselves or die, but it is not at all clear what they should come back as in their next business model iteration.

Less Than Zero

So the FOMC is going to meet and cut the federal funds rate yet again. Fed Meeting: Rate Cut Likely, Then What? [BusinessWeek]. Of course, given the lack of bank capital, that key interest rate measure has effectively been zero for awhile now, with no discernible effect on US or world economic output. Which suggests that the "Panic of '08" is not jut a routine economic downturn, but instead a transformative event that may well shake up the conventional wisdom of post-war macroeconomics. 

Lord knows we need that, as fluctuating from irrational exuberance to irrational gloom is not doing the markets or consumers any good. Government had better catch up, with some new thinking, or it may become irrelevant as well.  Sorry, Milton, monetary policy is really looking dead, at long last.

He's Back? Go Away

Had I noticed Bernie Ebbers, former WorldCom/MCI thief, seeking an 11th-hour pardon from the Bush Administration last week, I surely would have ranted. Ebbers Trying to Join the Bush Pardon Party [WSJ.com]. His sleaze never ends. Bernie was fairly convicted for some really serious financial crimes and deserves all the punishment he was handed. He absolutely ruined the life savings of scores of my friends, clients and colleagues from MCI by driving the company, and its stock price, into the ground. I for one hope he rots in prison.

What a Change Six Months Makes

It was less than a year ago -- when oil was selling at $140/barrel and gas for more than $4/gallon -- that forecasters said the growing demand for energy in the developing world (China, India, etc.) made this a seller's market for the foreseeable future. But not now.

Oil prices fell nearly 4 percent on Tuesday after the government forecast the world economic slowdown would shrink global oil consumption this year for the first time since the early 1980s.  Crude oil in New York trading fell $1.64, or 3.7 percent, to settle at $42.07 a barrel.

Oil Declines on Forecast of a Drop in Consumption [NYTimes.com].

So what does this tell us?  For me, it says that trends and statistics cannot be trusted.  Certainly not as a sign of Future Shock.  We could ask Alvin Toffler, but then he's deceased, isn't he?