Category Archives: The Future

Finding A Better Business Model

Free is not a business model. Free is how you smash old crappy monopolies and how you force businesses who don’t give a rats ass what their consumers want to pay attention. Free is how you get some momentum so you can prove there really are better more efficient ways of doing some things. Thanks [...]

Paying For Media

I think we will eventually arrive at some kind of micro payment/advertising business model for online media in the not too distant future. Ideally there will be a common payment system on the device I use to access media or some kind of accepted everywhere pass. Either way it only works if the transactions are [...]

You’re Going To Pay For Information That You Want

Q: What’s the future of print media in the Internet age?
A: If you’ve got ink on your hands, which means that you’re a print person, you’re finished. These news-gathering organizations depended upon being the only place in town. And everybody has advertising now. So, it’s a very tough transition.
You’re going to pay for information that [...]

I think it is a kind of performance on my part

“You put a camera in my hand, I want to get close to people,” he said. “Not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it. It’s part of the process.”
“It’s a very weird thing being a photographer.”
Danny Lyon – NYTimes.com.

Should Photographers Work For Publicists Instead Of Magazines?

Working with publicists has always been tricky for photographers who make a living shooting celebrities. Crossing a publicist can get you removed from the list but too much sucking up can also put you out of favor too, so there’s a very fine line to walk in the business. From the magazine side I’ve had [...]

Can Design Save Newspapers?

Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

Thanks, Luke.

Media Is Thriving, Media Owners… Not So Much

“For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there’s a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself.”
via MediaWorks.
It’s important to realize that media is booming right now. What’s broken is the system where crusty old men take the piles of cash they already had and make more piles from printing [...]

NY Times Article Skimmer

This new article skimmer for the NY Times is pretty sweet (here). They could improve the thing 1000% if they just added original photography to each of the story excerpts. I don’t actually expect them to value photography above headlines and text (it’s still the NY Times after all), but someone out there will finally [...]

The Boom Is Over. Long Live the Art!

It’s day-job time again in America, and that’s O.K. Artists have always had them — van Gogh the preacher, Pollock the busboy, Henry Darger the janitor — and will again. The trick is to try to make them an energy source, not a chore.
via NYTimes.com. Found it on we can shoot too.

Magazines Try To Save Newspapers

Time Magazine’s former managing editor, Walter Isaacson wrote a heroic hail-mary cover story a week or two ago (here) endorsing a system of micro payments for journalism in an attempt to bridge that fast approaching cliff.
I like a couple of the ideas he brings up, namely clicking buttons to make payments instead of entering credit [...]

The Next Great Hunk Of Crap Technology
You Absolutely Can’t Live Without

Thx Caz.

Rodale Publishes Nearly Up To Date Back Issues on Google

Looks like Rodale has some sort of partnership going with google or maybe they’re just giving in to the inevitable and allowing the scanning of all but the latest issues of the magazine. I found all these titles with the last 3 years of back issues available up to the November or December 2008 issue: [...]

Newspapers By Computer Still A Few Years Off In 1981

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry… can’t you see it man, that thing, it’s trying to destroy you, smash it.

Thanks Nathan.

Best Photobooks of 2008

Photo-eye has a cool interactive list where you can checkout top 10 lists from 17 different people (here) which I discovered on the blog MAO (Modern Art Obsession) and that’s where I discovered the best name I’ve ever seen for a book: “God Spoiled a Perfect Asshole When He Put Teeth in Yer Mouth.” by [...]

Just Slap Something Between The Ads

“The daily newspaper was a centerpiece of the community; it was how community information was distributed.
Eventually the newspaper was sold. It was no longer a point of civic pride for its owners or a cohesive center point of happenings, involvement and community. It was now an investment.
Along with the other media outlets bought and [...]

Journalism Will Survive The Death Of Its Institutions

I got that headline from a MediaShift story written by Lisa Williams (here) and it was mentioned in the This Week in Media podcast I was listening to yesterday. It was a special edition of the show devoted entirely to journalism and some excellent point were made so I thought I’d share it with you.
You [...]

Take our business, please! We’re throwing in the towel!

Simon Dumenco of AdAge delivers the keynote this holiday season:
“That big publishers can’t manage to sell enough print ads, in a post-print media economy shadowed by a larger economic meltdown, is not exactly shocking. What is shocking, though, is that they’re essentially saying to scrappier, upstart online competitors: Take our business, please! We’re throwing in [...]

Why A Magazine Is Like A Record

I know some people can’t stand the comparison between the media industry and the music industry and it’s been pointed out that the history of the recording industry and the way consumers use music prevent direct comparisons but follow me for a second on this one.
There used to be two basic types of buyers for [...]