“404 Not Found.” These three little words can make any Internet explorer an unhappy camper. After all, who hopes to click on a broken link or stumble upon a moved or deleted page while cruising around the web?

Luckily, some web designers have chosen to end the misery of encountering a 404 error page. Instead of letting their site readers bump heads with a nasty dead-end error message, they’ve managed to squeeze a little entertainment out of it.

Below you’ll find some of the most entertaining 404 error pages on the web. We’ve listed them alphabetically to avoid playing favorites, but they’re all worth a look. Share your favorite 404 error page designs in the comments below!

1. 501st Legion

501st Legion is a Star Wars costume organization. It only makes sense that its 404 page would play on Obiwan's famous jedi mind trick with a "weak-minded" stormtrooper.

2. Abduzeedo

Yes, Houston, a 404 is definitely a problem.

3. Apartment Home Living

A nice ol' chap comes to your assistance on ApartmentHomeLiving.com if you run across a 404 error page. Click the lovely lady peering from behind the frame for proper navigation suggestions.

4. Astuteo

"Uh-Oh! SpaghettiOs!" You know you're a part of pop culture if your jingle makes it into a 404 error page. The popular SpaghettiOs marketing jingle is here to stay.

5. Blippy

Head over to Blippy's 404 page for an adventure. Keep clicking on the boy dressed in a unicorn outfit to discover a triple rainbow! Who knew a 404 page could be so fun?

6. Factor D

In an ode to early horror films, Factor D features an appropriately horrific 404 error accompanied by a beautiful, yet terrified scream queen.

7. SureDev

Many 404 error pages apologize for the error. Not this one. It's obviously your fault.

8. Blue Daniel

This 404 error page is a beautiful depiction of "Track 404," a fictitious NYC subway line. Check it out to experience the full animation.

9. Brandstack

"You can click anywhere else, but you can't click here." Love it.

10. Center'd

Bottom line: You can't go wrong with cute kittens.

11. Chris Jennings

Most of us would like to run into a 404 error page just as much as we'd like to run into the Grim Reaper.

12. Colour Marketing & Design

When you're facing "sharks with laser beams attached to their frickin' heads," what do you expect? Definitely a 404 error.

13. CSS-Tricks

Well, that can't be good.

14. CSSscoop

Picking a 404 error page design that is consistent with your name is an appropriate move. CSSscoop chose a melting ice cream cone, with a scoop of ice cream, of course.

15. Digitalmash

Sarcasm in dire situations is always appreciated, right?

16. Good Old Games (GOG)

Try not to make any missteps on GOG, or you'll end up lost in the cosmos.

17. HomeStarRunner.com

Insulting your readers doesn't usually help, but this 404 made me chuckle.

18 Hoppermagic

Hoppermagic chose to stick to its brand imagery when creating its 404 page.

19. iFolderLinks

There's just something about a really frustrated baby that catches your attention. And if you've made it to this 404 page, you probably feel his pain.

20. Itchy Robot

If you can't think of something clever to say on your 404 page, just write exactly what your users are thinking.

21. Jackfig

Jackfig added a creative touch to its 404 error page, with an inspirational haiku.

22. Jolie Poupée

Jolie Poupée, creator of eco-friendly children's clothes, serves up an audience-appropriate 404 on its site.

23. Mark Dijkstra

This 404 error page is reminiscent of the kitschy tourist shirts that your lousy friends and relatives buy you when they visit amazing places.

24. Merge

Prithee, go medieval on your site's visitors if need be.

25. Milrayas

Imagery always makes a 404 more entertaining.

26. OrangeCoat

Some 404 error pages do a wonderful job of explaining to users exactly what caused the 404 error. OrangeCoat provides a fun decision tree for lost web surfers that is sure to help them along their merry ways.

27. Oroza

Have fun with colors, shapes and exclamations.

28. Sick Designer

Sick Designer captures the depression that a 404 can cause on its error page.

29. Student Market

How fitting that a student-centric site would feature an addition problem on its 404 page.

30. The Brand Surgery

This page just pops. We like it.

31. The North Face

For true entertainment value, why not just tell a story? The North Face does just that by creating a tale about link-eating mountain goats.

32. Tinsanity

You might have been pwned, burned, punk'd or rickrolled recently, but have you been 404'd? Click here to join the party.

33. TK Designs

Excitement! Adventure! Ahhhhh, where I am?!

34. Urban Outfitters

Our sentiments exactly.

35. Urban Pill

If, after searching for hours, you still can't find the page you were seeking, Chuck Norris probably has it.

More Web Design Resources from Mashable:

- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop
- Use Adobe Fonts in Your Own Web Designs
- 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers
- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started with Adobe Illustrator
- 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers

More About: 404, 404 error pages, error page, web design, Web Development

For more Dev & Design coverage:

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• Subscribe to the Dev & Design channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

For much of the world, the beginning of fall means that warm, comfortable hiking weather is coming to an end. In other words, it’s time to start saving up fresh air for a winter of avoiding the outdoors.

There are people who consider their outdoor excursions a refreshing escape from technology. And then there are iPhone users, who consider the outdoors yet another perfect venue to show off their mobile tech.

If you’re with us, here are 12 great hiking apps to download before you hit the trail.

1. AccuTerra

This map comes with GPS coordinates and doesn’t need to be folded. Download your neck of the woods for $1.99 or get unlimited access to all maps for $4.99. The app tracks your trail as you hike, allowing you to place markers at significant points along the way and review your hike duration, distance, pace, and elevation gain at any point. All maps are stored in your phone’s memory, so no reception is no problem.

2. Star Walk

Scroll through a virtual copy of the sky so that you can better appreciate the real one. Star Walk maps the sky from your viewpoint. If you’re facing south, for instance, you can find the map for the constellations and planets in front of you by scrolling to the south arrow on the Star Walk map. Clicking on stars provides coordinates and more information. It’s an easy way to start learning about astronomy for $2.99.

A night mode tints the screen red and makes it easier to read on an otherwise jarringly bright screen in the dark.

3. Scats and Tracks

Some people yell, “Hey, I found a footprint!” You can be the person who yells, “Hey, I found an eastern chipmunk footprint … or maybe it’s an eastern gray squirrel!” Scats and Tracks provides everything you need to decode what animals leave behind on the trail. It includes illustrations of all footprints, animals, and yes … scat types. The backyard version is free. Guides to specific regions cost $3.99.

4. Elevation Pro

This $0.99 app is pretty simple. It tells you what your current elevation is. Of course it’s an essential component of any decent bragging tales you plan to tell after your hike. Elevation includes two different calculations. One is the ground elevation using USGS data at your current location. The other is a calculation using the GPS on your phone.

There’s also a tweet button, so you don’t need to waste any time with that bragging.

5. Park Maps

Imagine that you drove to every notable U.S. State Park and picked up a map at the entrance. And then you carried all of those maps around with you wherever you went. This app would be the paperless version of that. No bells or whistles, just every hiking map you need for $.99.

6. Army Survival

There is always a chance that you will become hopelessly and desperately lost for days. If you have the Army Survival Guide on your phone (and a bit of battery life left), you could potentially avoid the embarrassment of perishing in the wilderness alone.

More likely, you’ll find the $1.99 guide to be appropriate entertainment and conversation kindling.

7. Coleman Lantern

This free lantern is shameless advertising, but it’s also pretty cool. Choose from a selection of classic and modern-style lanterns and adjust the light for your needs. At full blast, the lantern throws out a decent amount of light. Like other flashlight-type apps, it does use a lot of battery and is probably best used as an entertaining addition to your primary light source.

8. iBird

Bird guidebooks are probably most useful when taken into the woods, but its hard to justify carrying around a huge tome when you plan to walk all day. The iBird guides are just as good as hardcovers, but much lighter.

iBird apps include detailed bird portraits, range maps, taxonomies, key factors for identification, and song and call recordings from the Macaulay Library at the Lab of Ornithology. Fifteen common birds of North America are free, but more extensive guides by region cost $9.99. The true bird fanatic can opt for the $29.99 pro version, which has info on more than 900 birds.

9. Audubon Trees

Conservation organization The National Audubon Society knows its trees. And you can too, with its tree reference app. Browse trees by family (like Maple or Beech) or by name. If you’re not sure what kind of tree you’re looking at, there’s also a quick guide that helps you identify the tree based on its shape or leaves. GPS allows you to plot your sightings, and you can use the app to file your tree photos (or enjoy the 2,000 color photographs included in the app). At $9.99, this is probably an app reserved for avid tree enthusiasts.

10. Butterfly Collection

This $1.99 app is as beautiful as it is useful. An elegant index of butterflies fills the home screen. Scroll for more index pages or tap the butterfly that you want to identify. You’ll get an animated close up of the illustrated butterfly and learn its name.

11. Wild Mushrooms of North America and Europe

When you spot something on the trail that looks like the tasty (but expensive!) Morel from last weekend’s farmer’s market, it can be tempting to snag it for your dinner. But amateur mushroom hunting can be a dangerous sport.

So dangerous, in fact, that the user agreement for this app guide to mushrooms includes an “important poisoning disclaimer.” In other words, it can’t hurt to double-check.

Roger Phillip’s guide includes a searchable database of mushrooms with photos and important details like each fungus’s location, normal size, and edibility. You can also locate the unknown mushrooms you encounter with a visual key or filtered search. The lite version is free, but considering the possible consequences of eating an unknown mushroom, it might be worth springing for the $1.99 full version, which includes more listings.

12. Chirp! USA Lite

Tune in to bird songs by training yourself with this free app. Select your region to see the birds that are commonly heard there. You can sort the birds by name, how commonly they are seen, or their song style and listen to each bird’s unique tweets. The app also provides a picture of each bird to make spotting nearby tweeters easier.

Once you’re learned the calls in your area, you can test your knowledge in a challenge that asks you to match each song with the appropriate bird.

More Mobile Resources from Mashable:

- 8 Free BlackBerry Games Worth Downloading
- Why Smartphone Adoption May Not Be as Big as You Think
- 10 iPhone Apps to Get You Back to School
- Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch
- How Mobile is Affecting the Way We E-Mail

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Saturated

Reviews: iPhone, iStockphoto

More About: Army, Army Survival Guide, Audubon, Audubon Trees, backpacking, Butterflies, butterfly collection, camping, coleman lantern, elevation pro, hiking, iChirp, Lantern, Mushrooms, national parks, Outdoors, park maps, Scats and Tracks, trees, woods

For more Mobile coverage:

• Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter
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By now, seven years into the "Wicked'' phenomenon, it is clear that this revisionist take on "The Wizard of Oz,'' one of the most potent myths of the 20th century, has established a pretty potent 21st-century myth of its own.



Wizard of Oz - Wicked - 20th century - 21st century - Entertainment(author unknown)

Ekaterina Walter is a social media strategist at Intel. She is a part of Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence and is responsible for company-wide social media enablement and corporate social networking strategy.

You have created a Facebook Fan Page. Now what? I bet these questions come to mind: “Is my page a success?” “Who is engaging with us?” “Is our engagement effective?” “Does our content strategy work?”

The Facebook Insights dashboard will help you answer some of these questions. As defined by Facebook, “Insights provides Facebook Page owners … with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners … are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook.”

So what’s the best way to use this relatively new tool? We’ve outlined some steps below that should have you measuring Facebook engagement in no time.

Note that only page administrators can view Insights data for the properties they own or administer.

Examine a Wide Range of Data

There are two types of Facebook insights:

• User Insights: Total page Likes, or a number of fans, daily active users, new Likes/Unlikes, Like sources, demographics, page views and unique page views, tab views, external referrers, media consumption.
• Interactions Insights: Daily story feedback (post Likes, post comments, per post impressions), daily page activity (mentions, discussions, reviews, wall posts, video posts).

The question then becomes: “What do you want to track and measure?” There is a lot of data offered, but you want to sort through it and identify what information is meaningful and will help you make decisions about your engagement and content strategy. If that data is not readily available, you might want to do some manual calculations to derive the numbers you’re looking for.

Below are the insights I recommend you pay attention to and track.

• Monthly fan size growth: Record the number of fans (or “Likers”) you have on the first of every month to see what your growth looks like. I’d say if you are growing organically and you have 10 to 13% monthly growth, you are doing extremely well. That is probably the highest organic growth number anyone can achieve. You can even go more granular and calculate weekly growth. Whatever you decide to do, make sure to watch for the spikes in fan growth and try to identify what contributes to those spikes.
• The average number of Likes or comments: These are your engagement measures. If you know the average number of times fans interacted with you for every single post, you will be able to identify which discussions are of more interest to your fans. Watch for unusual spikes or drops in this number. I love this metric because it is extremely helpful in making immediate decisions in your content strategy and changes to your editorial calendar. Increase the number of posts around the topic your fans are more engaged with and decrease the number of posts around topics they are not interested in.

• Unlikes and attrition rate: The fact is that you will always have some unsubscribes, no mater how great your engagement is, but hopefully it is just a small number. I usually just watch for spikes in the unlike numbers. You want to try and correlate them with the activity on your page and understand why people are leaving your page. It is rather hard to nail down the exact reason, but if there is an unusual spike, you will usually have a pretty good idea.

  The simple attrition rate formula is:

  Daily Unlikes / Daily Fan Count

  This metric will tell you how many of your fans are leaving your site. It is normal to have small constant attrition over time.

• Demographics: No matter what your objectives are, you can always find the demographics data useful: the gender of your fans, their ages and where they are from.
• Page views: I like this metric because it helps you identify the number of returned fans. If you take the number of page views and subtract the number of unique page views, you will see how many of your fans are actually coming back to your page. You can also look at the Daily Active Users metric.
• Mentions: This is the number of times someone tagged you in their post. The reason why this metric is important is because it is the easiest way for your fans’ friends to click through to your page. Every time someone tags you, the name of your Page appears as a link. It is much easier for someone to click on that link and learn more than to search for your Page manually. One of your goals should be to increase the number of mentions by your fans.
• Tab views: This is the new metric Facebook implemented a couple of months ago. If you have multiple tabs on your page, it will tell you which tab gets what percentage of traffic. This metric will help you decide on whether you would want to keep or maybe get rid of some of your tabs. This is especially helpful as you can only have six tabs visible on your page at one time, and this data will help you prioritize accordingly.
• Referrers: Another new metric that tells you where the traffic to your page comes from. You want to increase exposure to your page on the sites that bring you the most traffic.
• Impressions: If your page is over 10,000 fans, you will see the number of times your post was viewed –- impressions. This metric is not exact since every time someone’s page refreshes, it counts as an impression. This number is usually a little overblown, but can show you how many times your post has been seen.

Some of these metrics require constant manual tracking and analysis, which is a big downside. However, the above metrics will help you make decisions about your engagement and content strategy that would allow more effective interactions with your customers.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Your Business Facebook Page
- 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now
- The WikiLeaks Debate: Journalists Weigh In
- A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places
- 5 Useful Facebook Trend and Search Services

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl

Reviews: Facebook, iStockphoto

More About: analytics, beginner, brand, business, comments, demographics, facebook, facebook insights, facebook page, likes, List, Lists, measurements, metrics, monitor, small business, social media monitoring

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• Subscribe to the Business channel
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A member of the TBD Community Network recently emailed me with this subject line: “Yikes! Patch is moving in on my territory.”

Hundreds of local bloggers, news sites and newspapers are no doubt having the same reaction. Patch, the local news project of AOL, has launched nine sites recently in the Washington area: Wheaton (the site that first reported the police search Thursday of a home where they believe James J. Lee lived), College Park, Hyattsville, Riverdale Park, Silver Spring and Takoma Park in Maryland and Burke, Reston and Woodbridge in Virginia.

By the end of the year, Patch plans to launch sites in 500 communities in more than 20 states. The main Patch website lists about 20 more in Maryland and Virginia and one in Georgetown, but Patch’s Beth Lawton tweets that the the Baltimore and Washington areas combined will have about 75 Patches total.

What’s the small local blogger to do? “I’m trying to build page views and won’t be able to compete against a major corporation,” our network member wrote. “What do you think I should do differently?”

My response (edited and expanded, mostly to remove references to the actual community):

I don’t know that Patch being in your community is necessarily a bad thing because I don’t see the news business as a zero-sum game. In the same way that competing stores in a mall or a historic shopping district actually benefit from each other’s presence because together they attract more business, a more robust news and advertising ecosystem in your community might be better for everyone.

I hope you’re already seeing a bump in your traffic from TBD’s links, and you might be able to find a way for Patch’s entry into the market to help you as well. I don’t know whether you have another job or whether your blog is a part-time passion or a full-time business. Some of the details of my response might vary depending on those answers, but I will answer from the standpoint of regarding your blog as a business, because I think your questions reflect a clear business orientation, whether it’s full- or part-time.

I don’t mean to minimize the threats and possibilities of competition, but I do see every potential competitor as a potential collaborator and/or customer. I would invite the Patch editor to lunch and discuss whether any of these might be a possibility:

• Would Patch link to your site the same way TBD does, giving your traffic a further boost and giving its audience the excellent local content you are already providing?
• Could you do some freelance writing for Patch? (Perhaps if they don’t link to you, they would buy non-exclusive rights to post on their site the content you are writing anyway)?
• Would they buy an ad on your blog (what better way to get word of their new site to local readers?)?
• Could you sell ads for Patch while you’re calling on local merchants for your blog? That way you have more advertising inventory to sell and earn extra commissions.

I don’t know what the answers to any of those questions are, but you should ask. If the answers to all of those questions are “no,” then you are probably in direct competition. And if some of the answers are “yes,” you still may be in a blend of competition and cooperation. So, though my first response is that the situation may not be as competitive as you think, I will share some thoughts on competition:

• Unique, compelling, useful local content is the core of any competitive strategy. If you are the place to turn for information about your community, you set the bar high for any competitor.
• Being local is an advantage. You live in your community, know the community and have a longstanding commitment to it. Patch is based in New York and is a branch of AOL, an international company. The local Patch editor will live in or near your community, but may not have been there as long as you have. In your about-us page, on sales calls, in appearances around the community and in promotional material on your site, you need to hammer that you are the truly local source of news. (Obviously, you tailor the approach to the facts; if they hire someone with deep roots in the community, or if you’re fairly new yourself, this pitch is somewhat different.)
• You might want to do some marketing. I think you can count on Patch spending some marketing money, but you can do some free marketing. You could swap ads with any other local bloggers (or bloggers covering neighboring communities). You could attend some community events, passing out business cards or fliers promoting your blog. Or you could spend some money, advertising in a community newspaper, buying some t-shirts or other swag promoting your blog, etc. (A good idea, with or without new competition.)
• You need to help search engines find you. Study SEO techniques (TBD will probably offer an SEO workshop for network members this fall). You could buy some ads (when I Google “[community name] news,” I don’t see you on the first page of results; a Google ad would ensure your place in those results).
• Link lots. I see that you are linking, but you could link more. Linking boosts your SEO, but it also helps people find you and link to you, which helps more people find you. Scott Rosenberg explains the value of links better than I’ve ever seen anyone explain it.
• Comment on other blogs. If you see stories and blog posts elsewhere (such as on Patch) on topics that you have written about, comment on those blogs, with links to your related blog posts (but not spam links; sometimes you should comment on community issues without linking, if you haven’t written on the topic). This way the competition helps feed you traffic and you become part of the community conversation, wherever that conversation is taking place. This will build your brand.
• Use social media aggressively. I see that you are posting links to your blog on the community’s Facebook page. Very smart. You also should consider using Twitter more. Follow people from the community that you find on Twitter (most will follow you back). Then check out those people’s followers and follow them if they’re local. If someone retweets you on a local issue, check their Twitter stream and see if they are interacting with some more local people you should follow. And don’t just tweet links to your blog. Engage in the Twitter conversation about your community. Be fun to follow and more people will follow you (and retweet links to your blog posts).
• I saw you on the list of people working with GrowthSpur on local advertising. I think they will be a valuable partner in helping you develop relationships with local advertisers.

I shared a draft of this post with Tim Windsor, editorial director — South for Patch. His response: “Your words should be burned into rawhide and gifted to every person hoping to cover news at the local level. Great advice.”

Competition is a fact of life in the news business. Gannett also is intensifying local competition, with its plans for more than 100 local high school sports sites and community-focused sites in 10 markets in a local-news project with DataSphere (both projects will cover Washington-area communities). Since TBD was announced and launched, much has been made of the competition between us and the Washington Post. We do feel competitive and enjoy competition. We basked in the praise we received from people who noticed that we excelled in coverage of this week’s hostage crisis in Silver Spring.

But here are some facts about the Post/TBD competition: We link to them every day, sending traffic their way; their coverage of our launch has helped build our traffic and our brand recognition; their reporters appear regularly on TBD on TV; we have an agreement for them to use our video feed on their website, displaying our branding.

Don’t let competition blind you to the possibilities of collaboration.

Filed under: Innovation in the media, TBD Tagged: Aol, Patch, TBD Community Network

Josh Duck has put together a fun and useful list of the 104 elements currently in the HTML5 working draft but organized like a periodic table of elements:

When you click on one of the tags more information appears:

Who says chemistry can't be fun?

[via Jackson Harper]

I will be leading a webinar this afternoon for the Online Media Campus, Developing a Mobile-First Strategy. My slides are below. Here are some previous mobile-first posts that may help participants in the webinar:

• News organizations need mobile-first strategy
• News companies need to help local businesses pursue mobile opportunities
• How news organizations need to change to pursue a mobile-first strategy
• A mobile-first project for your community on the go
• Students’ media use shows journalism’s future
• Tomi T. Ahonen’s view of the present and future of mobile
• Experts’ view of mobile: the opportunity of our lifetime
• 4 ways to measure the local mobile advertising opportunity
• Mobile-first strategy questions and answers

Filed under: Mobile opportunities Tagged: mobile first, Online Media Campus

Increasingly I believe that we in the media business doom ourselves by our devotion to quality. Before you get out the gunpowder, let me explain myself. I love excellence. Awesomeness is, well, awesome. But the premature pursuit of excellence can kill you.

I'm going to pick on my friend Howard Owens as an example, and I hope he won't mind. Howard is a multi-talented guy, but he is no Roger Black or Mario Garcia. He runs a website called The Batavian in upstate New York.

The site's design is adequate. It's not beautiful. It's not stunning. It could easily be both beautiful and stunning, because both Roger and Mario do beautiful and sometimes stunning design work, and they can be hired.

So Howard could run to his bank, take out a big loan, hire somebody like Roger or Mario to do the design, then hire some contract programmers to convert the design into a website theme, and make his website presentationally excellent.

So why doesn't he do this? Because there's no ROI. No return on that investment. In fact, that investment would likely crush his business.

The unpleasant reality of business is that it's all about money. If you're going to try to build a new business, you'd better obsess about your pennies. And here's the thing: If you divert energy, time and money away from the things that count and into things that please you but don't count very much, you will fail.

If the typical media company sets out to do something new, the process usually follows this pattern:

1. A committee is formed.
2. The committee looks at a lot of work other people have done (benchmarking).
3. Many lists of features and functions are made.
4. Committee members attempt to draw examples.
5. Someone comes to their senses and brings in an actual designer.
6. The designer creates sample designs.
7. The committee critiques the designs.
8. The committee debates at length and demands changes in pursuit of conflicting visions of excellence.
9. If not totally fatigued, GOTO line 6.
10. Now that the design process has been halted by fatigue, the implementors are brought in.
11. It is discovered that the arbitrary design doesn't respect the realities of implementation.
12. Much time and energy disappears into the implementation work.
13. The committee continues to invent new ways to make the product better and interrupts the implementation with the new really-great ideas.
14. If not totally fatigued, GOTO line 12.
15. Key features and functions are cut because the project has taken far too long and is way over budget -- if there was a budget.
16. The new product is pushed into production.
17. The company begins to discover whether the whole idea was brilliant, disastrous or somewhere in between.
18. It's somewhere in between -- but it has no chance of covering its development costs.

The guys from Harvard Business School, which of course is devoted to excellence, will tell you this is a path to your doom. In fact, they have already told you that. And it's not exactly a new concept in the world of software development, either.

So why do we keep doing it?

Because we care, and because we want to do the right thing, and because "good enough" just seems wrong. We're motivated by what Daniel Pink calls "challenge and mastery," and mastery has to do with excellence.

The startup guy possessed by what he thinks is a Big Idea will follow a shorter path. If he has the skills, it will look like this:

1. Look at what other people have done (benchmarking).
2. Make some notes.
3. Grab cheap, free, off-the-shelf tools.
4. Put together a rough working prototype.
5. Launch.
6. Gather real-world results.
7. Modify the product.
8. If not either rich or bankrupt, GOTO line 6.

He doesn't follow this shorter path because he doesn't care about quality or excellence. He does it because he's desperate and doesn't want to starve.

If you're paying really close attention, you'll notice that lines 6 through 8 aren't in the big media company's process. That's a shame, because they're the important ones. Pre-launch business plans are always wrong. Or at least almost always. You can't argue your way to success in a committee meeting, or design your way to success on a whiteboard. You have to execute and iterate.

Quick and dirty doesn't have to mean ugly, or badly implemented, or sloppy. We have within our grasp today cheap and free tools that make it easy for a nimble developer to do work that is awesome and excellent without breaking the bank. But we have to be on guard against the seductiveness of excellence, and always keep our focus on the reality that doing the wrong thing really well won't lead us to success.

 

 

yelvington

Here’s a new, stripped-down, easy-to-follow introduction to WordPress — the free blogging platform that also works as a versatile content management system:

WordPress Basics

This short tutorial is based on the second installment in my Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency, but I have shortened it to the essentials so that I can just give it to students and say, “Now set up your blog.” Hooray!

If you need any encouragement to start blogging, Adam Westbrook recently posted Why journalists must blog and how — followed by five more posts that will give you a lot of inspiration!

Mindy McAdams104827529336249717110168532311179643283204264855710151436079

Ahoy, social sailors! Hop aboard for another round of Internet catch up, courtesy of the good ship Mashable.

The resource buffet is open 24/7 for your perusing pleasure. This week, we have a look at how far social media’s come over the last five years, a slew of juicy factoids about Facebook and Microsoft, some sweet iPad games we dare you not to drool over, and some great biz lessons from the most successful tech startups of our day.

Heading further out into open web waters? Don’t forget that this resource mondo-guide bubbles up every weekend — a real life preserver, if we do say so ourselves.

Social Media

• For Women, Social Media is More Than “Girl Talk”
  For women, social media is a chance to increase their influence, and express themselves, not just another opportunity to be “social.”
• Top 10 Funniest Old Spice Guy Responses [VIDEOS]
  We’ve collected 10 of the most hilarious Old Spice Guy video responses right here to celebrate one of the most impressive social media campaigns of all time.
• A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media
  The social sites we use and the way we use them have shifted dramatically over time. Here’s a quick look back at the last five years in social media.
• Inside Street Food’s Social Media Revolution [VIDEO]
  A new wave of street vendors, equipped with mobile kitchens and mobile broadband, are luring crowds to them via social media. We caught up with a few to chat about their strategies.
• My Facebook Story: An Inside Look at Facebook’s First Privacy Fiasco
  Since Facebook has asked its users to share their stories in celebration of passing the 500 million user mark, Mashable’s Ben Parr shares his.
• HOW TO: Deal with a Cyberstalker
  Depending on the enthusiasm level in the fevered fingers of your unwanted BFF, cyberstalking can also be, how can we say it … hella off-putting.
• 10 Fascinating Facebook Facts
  Everyone knows the basic Facebook facts about the service’s Harvard origins, so we’ve delved a little deeper to find out some more interesting tidbits.
• How CrisisCommons Is Helping the Tech Community Help Others
  Gathering last week at their first congress, CrisisCommons continues to help disaster-struck communities via social media.
• 10 Great Geek Tees For Kids
  You’re never too young to be a geek, and these cool tees will help little ones show off their inner nerd to the world.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

• 10 Fun Microsoft Facts You Might Not Know
  With such a vast presence, much has already been written about Microsoft. For those itching to know even more, we’ve dug up 10 great Microsoft facts.
• HOW TO: Give Your Photos a Vintage Look
  Check out these five free ways to send your digital snaps through a time warp for that old-school look and feel.
• 10 Vintage Apple Ads That Time Forgot [VIDEOS]
  We step back in time and bring you 10 vintage commercials from Apple that time forgot — and in many cases, for good reason.
• 10 Cool Cable Management Solutions [PICS]
  If you’ve got more than a few wires crossed under your desk, then we’ve found 10 great solutions to help you manage your cables in style.
• 10 Awesome Apple-Inspired iPad Wallpapers
  We’ve rounded up 10 of the best iPad wallpapers around, offering you a gallery of Apple-themed gorgeousness.
• 11 Ways to Speed Up WordPress
  Don’t wait until your blog is so popular that it can’t handle large amounts of traffic. These 11 tips will help you speed up WordPress so you won’t be caught with a crashed site.
• How Mobile Technology is a Game Changer for Developing Africa
  Texting isn’t just for killing boredom. Short bursts of instant communication are connecting some isolated African communities to vital information.
• Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream
  Stickybits and SCVNGR are startups that integrate barcode scanning in intelligent and fun ways, and they’re poised to propel the trend into mainstream hands. Here’s why.
• HOW TO: Develop iPhone Apps With Staying Power
  If you’re trying to create a long-term relationship with your audience, your app has to keep giving. Here are some tips on how to increase your iPhone app’s shelf-life.
• 10 Terrific New Tumblr Themes
  Tumblr theming has really been taken up a notch in recent months. Here are 10 of our favorite themes that you can install on your own Tumblr blog.
• Top 5 Mobile Commerce Trends for 2010
  Mobile commerce has hit the big time in recent years, and is poised for further growth. Here are five mobile commerce trends to keep an eye on for the remainder of 2010.
• 10 Tools for Getting Web Design Feedback
  Apple is known just as much for its veil of secrecy and Internet rumor buzz as it is for the actual products. Here are a few things you may not have known about the company.
• 10 iPad Games Worth Paying For
  We went hands-on with a number of popular paid iPad games to cull this list of worthwhile App Store buys.
• 40+ Web Design and Development Resources for Beginners
  Breaking into web design can be a daunting task. Here’s an overview and list of resources that are essential to a well-rounded knowledge of web development.
• 10 Great Behind-the-Scenes Glimpses of Google [VIDEOS]
  If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like to be a Googler, these cool clips should give you a little taste of the “Goog life.”

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

• HOW TO: Score a Design Job
  Getting a design job can be a daunting experience. To help, we got some great tips from three seasoned designers that have had success.
• 11 Essential Online Resources for Consultants
  One of the keys to being a successful consultant is information at your fingertips the moment you need it. Here are 11 online resources that cater to you.
• 5 Lessons to Learn from Web Startups
  Here are five ways to grow your business from observing and emulating web startup culture.
• How the Fashion Magazine Industry Plans to Profit from Digital This Fall
  Publishers of major U.S. fashion magazines are ramping up their digital and mobile offerings to meet advertisers’ increasing demands to reach consumers on those platforms.
• 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging
  There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we’ve narrowed it down to 10 tips that companies should work on.
• Growing Your Business: 5 Tips From the Founder of Blip.tv
  In five years, Blip.tv has grown from a small niche of vloggers to thousands of users. Co-founder Dina Kaplan shares some insights on the company’s success.
• How Coca-Cola Created Its “Happiness Machine” [INTERVIEW]
  For the first time ever, Coke executives and leaders at Definition 6 reveal the secret ingredients that made their “Happiness Machine” web video such a success.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Within the past few years, it seems that social media positions are popping up everywhere, in all types of organizations, from The New York Times, to Pizza Hut, and even in the White House. Businesses of all types are identifying the need to stay connected with their communities because they recognize the benefits.

Social media marketing is just a slice of the social media industry, but it’s a very important piece of the story. Businesses see social media as a platform for engaging with consumers and informing them of the latest company news and products. Marketers are blazing trails in the social media marketing sector, creating campaigns that are interactive, shareable and inclusive of the online community. For the most innovative of marketers, the focus isn’t on campaigns, but on letting consumers take the reigns in guiding a brand’s social presence.

For aspiring social media marketers, there are no strict rules for becoming successful. But we’ve gathered eight of the brightest minds in the social media industry to elaborate on five helpful tips for landing a job in social media marketing.

1. Join Social Media Meetups and Networks

In talking with a number of digital entrepreneurs, one tip stood out as the first step towards online success: step away from your computer, meet with professionals in the field you want to work with and join groups of others interested in social media and technology. Damien Basile, communication strategist and founder of Digital Somethings, a monthly digital influencer event series, said it loud and clear, “The old axiom still rings true: It’s who you know, what you know and how much money you have access to.”

Digital Strategist and Co-Founder of Foodspotting, Soraya Darabi, recommends that job seekers looking to break into the social media world get out and meet people in the industry:

“Most careers depend a lot on networks, but the beauty of social media is that you can “meet” most of the people you need to know online. Having said that, I truly appreciate real life conversations, and get great value from the New York Tech Meetup after-events, where like-minded entrepreneurs and digital strategists roam. Create your own networking event if you can’t find a nearby group to suit your interests.”

Joining groups like the New York Tech Meetup and Social Media Club are a great start to getting to know professionals in the industry. Make sure you’re not just attending events, sitting in the back and leaving after the speeches end. Be proactive about meeting new people, learning about what they do and having meaningful conversations.

If you can’t find a fitting group of interesting people nearby, start your own Meetup. Organizing a group of specialized experts is one way to sky-rocket your name to the top.

2. Make Relationships, Not Pitches

Joining specialized groups is just the beginning; don’t stop there. When you meet people with interesting stories, get to know them and build a true relationship. Forget the marketing pitches and the elevator speech and leave your resume at home. People can instinctively identify a fraud; be genuine in your mission to understand the industry and what your acquaintances are working on. I like the way Soundcloud Evangelist David Noël puts it, “Don’t be spammy, pushy, sales-y, douchey, or scary.”

The best thing about the social space is that you can continue your relationships online. As Basile puts it, “Comment, interact, blog and re-blog. The more you make yourself heard, the more you will be heard.” Make sure you’re staying active within your network, and don’t forget to listen.

Pedro Sorrentino, MediaMind’s marketing and PR coordinator in Brazil, says to remember that “it’s not only about the people you know, it’s about the way you treat them as well. Technology is just a platform and social media is all about sociology, human behavior and status.” He points out that technology can lead way to short, crass communications. Learn how to engage your network in a “clever and polite way.”

Sophia Aladenoye, a digital strategist at Ogilvy Public Relations, stresses the important of embracing the extrovert in you while on your mission to make your connections count:

“My top tip would be to always engage with people. I have seen this, time and time again, that those who are in the social media industry and who wish to break in are individuals who actually like people and like talking to people. Those are the ones who I see thriving in this industry — it is called “social” for a reason. Even if you consider yourself an introvert, there should be a part of yourself that still reaches out to people.”

3. Stay Informed of Trends, Tools and News

Training, experience and knowledge are all very important for any career choice. Since social media is such a new industry, there aren’t very many standards on what type of training you should have or which tools you should be utilizing to measure success. Because the landscape changes so quickly, it is therefore very important that you are constantly learning. Keep yourself updated on the latest technologies, trends and news by reading up. Walter Junior, social media strategist at Riot, points out that being in the know is key:

“Keep up-to-date with tools, applications, studies and reports. In my opinion, it’s essential to monitor and be familiar with a wide range of Internet materials, such as social media usage research, in order not only to comprehend market and users’ consumption habits, but also to know how they are changing each day.”

Darabi believes that industry awareness and a passion for new things keeps aspiring social media marketers on top of their game. “The magic word in our industry is beta. Get on the beta list for every product that intrigues you, try it for yourself before you recommend the product or platform to your brand or organization. Early-adoption and the ability to be first-to-market is an easy gateway to success.”

A background or knowledge in marketing or PR doesn’t hurt, either. Jakub Svoboda, publisher of Tyinternety.cz, a Czech blog specialized in digital marketing and social media, says that “you have to understand, at least on a basic level, how companies are communicating, what brand marketing is, how to deal with reputation, how to manage a PR crisis, and how to write copy for social advertisements.” If you have a passion for social media, but don’t have the marketing experience, don’t be discouraged. Pick up a marketing book, take a course, or get a mentor.

When you’re on top of the latest news, you’ll never have to worry about fudging up on the facts in an interview. Kimberly Aguilera, planning and new media recruiter at Tangerine Talent Management, advises that, “at an interview you should be prepared with your own ideas for the company or agency [you are interviewing with]. Have relevant examples of who is doing what right.” Aguilera also advises that you cut out the jargon and start at the basics while interviewing. “Being able to teach is a big part of the roles. Not everyone knows as much as you do all of the time. You have to make it all understandable for non-social media experts.”

To stay on top of the latest news, fill your RSS reader with the sources that cover that news. Our experts recommend AdAge, PSFK, Creativity Magazine, eMarketer, and of course, Mashable. We also recommend following or creating a Twitter List of social media of great thinkers in the industry, and interacting with individual tweeters on the list when they post something that’s of interest to you.

4. Find an Online Balance Between Personal & Professional

Noël will tell you that “the lines between your personal and work online presences are blurred.” There isn’t an invisible line between the two, and there is no way of keeping them separate, no matter how you may try. Noël looks at this truth as an opportunity to showcase your expertise. He elaborates, “Don’t be afraid though, and use this to position yourself as an expert in your field and beyond, by blogging about things that are tangent to what your work life is about, but not necessarily cover it as a whole.”

Darabi advises, “Develop your own ‘personal-professional hybrid,’ a version of yourself online that you’re comfortable sharing with the CEO of a Fortune 100 company and your grandmother alike.”

Finally, don’t forget that anything you contribute to the Internet stays there. Basile puts it into perspective, “Everything is Googleable. Anything you put online is fair game, even if your privacy settings are strict. All it takes is one person to copy-paste something you said. Take 10 seconds to think about what you’re saying before you post anything. Someone is ALWAYS paying attention.”

5. Make Your Resume Stand Out

We asked our eight social media, communications, and digital strategy experts for their top resume tips for aspiring social media marketers. They had so many great ideas that we decided to leave you with these notes on sprucing up your resume:

• “Aspiring social media marketers must include their professional and personal social networking links on their resume. A potential employer will find them anyway, so including them shows savvy and initiative. Don’t include your follower numbers, ratio or “influence” score. A potential employer will find that out when they search your social profiles”. -Damien Basile
• “What you emphasize on your resume should also reflect what companies or positions you are applying for. No one likes a resume that doesn’t feel somewhat personalized.” -Sophia Aladenoye
• “It’s essential to emphasize your social presences by including your links to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and personal blog on your resume. In that way, interviewers can analyze your writing and publishing skills, the way you interact with other people and your ability to build a consistent personal image.” -Walter Junior
• “Emphasize your writing and photography abilities, as this industry is largely about making content interesting through basic blogging techniques. You should also highlight projects you’ve self-started. My friend Mike Hudack, [co-founder] of blip.tv, often says he only hires people if they have a side project they feel passionately about. He wants all hires to be innovative and entrepreneurial. I like that approach.” -Soraya Darabi
• “I consider owning some information channel that seems to be interesting a “must have”. Even if it’s your Twitter, a forum, or maybe a very good blog. And don’t forget to show that you are always learning, don’t try to be a know-it-all. Information changes really fast. If you want to show that you know something interesting and add some character, include something like, ‘My friends love my risotto!’” -Pedro Sorrentino
• “Emphasize your own social media presence and successes. Present your great communication and language skills, and don’t forget social links to your blog, Twitter, and other sites you’re active on. Have your resume online, on sites such as on LinkedIn.” -Jakub Svoboda
• “Include your passion projects. This is what sets you apart and tells your story. I recommend to leave off irrelevant experience.” -Kimberly Aguilera
• “Get out there and do, write and say smart things. If you can back this up by [having] a strong web presence and point a recruiter to the things that best describe who you are as a person, you basically don’t need a resume. A cover letter leaves too much room for BS anyway, and a CV can be constructed. Bottom line: link to your online presences that prove that you’re awesome, and you have one foot in the door. Bonus if a company finds you before you find it.” -David Noël

Social Media Job Listings

Every week we put out a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we post a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the best social media jobs from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

• Mid-Level Social Media Communications Specialist at The Cadmus Group in Arlington, VA.
• Social Media Sales Consultant at Meltwater in Mountain View, CA.
• Freelance Senior Social Media Strategist at MWW Group in New York, NY.
• Social Media Coordinator at Playboy Enterprises in Chicago, IL.
• Manager, Social Networking and Online Communities at Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, VA.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Tips for Managing Your Company’s Brand on the Web
- 10 Fascinating Facebook Facts
- 25+ Upcoming Social Media & Tech Events
- 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging
- Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?

Reviews: AdAge, Facebook, Internet, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter, society

More About: Damien Basile, David Noël, Jakub Svoboda, job search, jobs, Kimberly Aguilera, meetup, new york tech meetup, Pedro Sorrentino, social media club, social media jobs, social media marketing, Sophia Aladenoye, Soraya Darabi, trending, Walter Junior

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TBD is pleased to be working with GrowthSpur to help bloggers in the TBD Community Network develop a new model for local new and advertising.

Our friends at GrowthSpur announced their partnerships with TBD and Journal Register Co. on their blog today. The post describes well how we will be working:

GrowthSpur’s role will be to help the TBD network bloggers with ad sales, by providing them tools and training and assembling them into a local network in which they can sell each others’ ads. The first of the TBD bloggers are already on the GrowthSpur ad server and out selling ads to businesses in their communities. It’s been awesome meeting and working with dozens of cool, passionate bloggers in the D.C. area … We can’t wait to see it launch in the next few weeks. We think TBD is going to be a model for the future of modern metro news sites, and we’re honored to be able to help the bloggers make some money for their efforts.

We share the excitement. As we described in this blog earlier in the week, our relationship with GrowthSpur is a critical part of the TBD Community Network strategy.

GrowthSpur CEO Mark Potts has been a pioneer of digital journalism and a leading voice for innovation in the news business. We are pleased to be on the same team.

TBD is pleased to be working with GrowthSpur to help bloggers in the TBD Community Network develop a new model for local new and advertising.

Our friends at GrowthSpur announced their partnerships with TBD and Journal Register Co. on their blog today. The post describes well how we will be working:

GrowthSpur’s role will be to help the TBD network bloggers with ad sales, by providing them tools and training and assembling them into a local network in which they can sell each others’ ads. The first of the TBD bloggers are already on the GrowthSpur ad server and out selling ads to businesses in their communities. It’s been awesome meeting and working with dozens of cool, passionate bloggers in the D.C. area … We can’t wait to see it launch in the next few weeks. We think TBD is going to be a model for the future of modern metro news sites, and we’re honored to be able to help the bloggers make some money for their efforts.

We share the excitement. As we described in this blog earlier in the week, our relationship with GrowthSpur is a critical part of the TBD Community Network strategy.

GrowthSpur CEO Mark Potts has been a pioneer of digital journalism and a leading voice for innovation in the news business. We are pleased to be on the same team.

One wall of my office is covered with notes and diagrams trying to divine the future. Nobody can get it right, so I'm actually not worried about that. What's important is to generate views that are useful and helpful in planning. In that spirit, I thought I should share a few "predictions" and see what you all think. I'm thinking of the period 2015-2018. It's close enough to be real, but far enough to give the imagination some running room.

1. Tablet-like experiences will achieve parity with computer-like experiences. I'm counting future "smartphones" as tablet-like, not just the note/slate size, and referring to usage on the network, not simply having one in your pocket or bag. Computers with keyboards are not going away, certainly not anytime in the near future, but designing for the tactile experience of tablets and touchscreens will be at least as important as any other form of information presentation design.
2. Voice interfaces -- recognition and synthesis -- won't dominate but they will become a serious part of the mainstream. Piping that data through realtime translators will begin to make the Star Trek Universal Translator real. And it'll keep the gang down at the NSA amused.
3. Computer chips won't get much faster in clock speed. Instead, the multicore processors that emerged over the last decade will sprout more cores, shrink in size and power consumption, and push their way from the desktop down into tiny devices.
4. Networking costs will drop and mobile usage will soar. If you thought we had an information surplus and a lack of scarcity in 2010, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Everything really will be everywhere. McLuhan would recognize the network as an extension of the mind. Old fogeys will continue to complain about a loss of quality, how the world has gone to hell, and how you kids should get off the lawn.
5. Apple, Google and Amazon will be big winners. Microsoft, Yahoo and any company that behaves like a newspaper will be big losers.
6. Your media experience won't be tied to a device -- it'll be tied to your identity. Current state will live in the cloud and you won't know or care where the data is stored. Quit reading or listening on one device, switch to another, and pick up where you left off. Your pocket screen, tablet, 28-inch desktop display and 55-inch wall "television" are all portals into a single experience.
7. Radio, television and print won't go away, but they'll be pushed to the margins. Real-time "channels" will still exist and be significant as discovery venues, but they'll be in the minority in terms of usage.
8. All your devices will be location-aware. All your devices will recognize and network with each other without configuration hassles. All your experiences will become personalizable based on your preferences, your behaviors, your location and your current activities.
9. Having lost their role as discovery media, any print or print-like "newspapers" that survive will have adapted to focus on other roles, such as explanation, briefing, and entertainment.
10. "News" will no longer be a good label for the work done by any surviving "newsrooms," as networked word-of-mouth will have stolen nearly all of the "breaking news" function from professional journalism. Smart "editors" will focus on understanding, which they will support through facilitating and providing context, analysis, explanation and debate, and perhaps re-embrace civic action.

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When I posted Newspaper charges for reading obits online: double-dipping on death, I invited Ernie Schreiber, editor of the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era, to respond. I posted his response as a separate post, because I think it’s fair to give him his say uninterrupted. But he raised points that demand or merit a response on my part. So I respond here, republishing his email to me again in full, this time with my commentary interspersed:

Steve,

It’s disappointing to learn that when you left the newsroom, you left behind fairness, the bedrock of credibility in our profession.    As you well know, an ethical journalist reaches out to the subject of a story before publication of that story, not afterwards.  And an ethical journalist does not engage in silly name calling.

Such cheap-shot reporting is not what I would have expected from a respected former editor who led the Newspaper Next movement.

That was commentary, not reporting. I doubt that your newspaper reaches out to people you criticize in columns or editorials prior to publication. You do that for news stories. Commentary can include cheap shots and silly name-calling. Read the SPJ Code of Ethics and Bob Steele’s Guiding Principles for the Journalist. If you find anything in either of them that says name-calling or one-sided commentary is unethical, I will apologize.

Actually, silly name-calling is kind of petty, even if it’s not unethical. I do apologize for that. I should have simply noted the irony of your name and left it at that. Sometimes even with sarcasm, understatement is better writing.

Here are some facts, though: Your move was newsy Monday when you started charging to read online obituaries. I finished writing Monday night and posted while it was timely. My post linked to two very friendly blog posts that gave extensive coverage, quoting you heavily. Minutes after I posted, I emailed you, inviting response. As quickly as possible after I received your response, I posted it online uninterrupted, even though it wrongly accused me of being unethical. That is more than fair. And that is how I operate. (I didn’t do it just for show because you accused me of being unethical; note the similar handling last year of responses from Michael Schudson.)

Nonetheless, you raise valid points about our experiment with paid content in Lancaster, and I am quite willing to respond to them.

Thank you. However contentious this exchange might be, I welcome and appreciate your response.

First, you label Journalism Online “a profiteer” and LancasterOnline “a sucker,” suggesting that somehow it fooled us into this “fantasy-based” experiment.  That’s wrong.  We proposed the experiment of a metered paywall for out-of-market non-subscribers.  Journalism Online supplied the software for that payment plan.

Thank you for clarifying your relationship with Journalism Online. I stand by my descriptions, though. Whoever initiated this transaction, I believe you have been a sucker in believing the notion, peddled by JO and others, that charging for online content is a meaningful solution to any problems you face. And I am quite sure that Journalism Online will benefit more from its paywall schemes than the newspapers it purports to serve.

Second, you and Mark Potts have ridiculed the numbers on which we built our experiment, saying the volume of readers shown in our analytics cannot possibly be there.   You most likely are correct; I am skeptical of the numbers as well.  That’s why I cut the number s by 90% — to arrive at levels of revenue that would seem more in line with common sense.

As noted in the original post, I wasn’t going to get into the numbers. I just linked to Mark, who analyzed them well. Please update us on how this goes. Even though I didn’t analyze the numbers, I will update with actual performance if you will share those numbers.

The fact is we don’t know for a certainty how many frequent out-of-market obituary readers exist. We don’t know their ages. We don’t know their reason for reading.  That’s what this experiment is all about. We’re trying to learn the real dimensions of this audience.

I think a little research was in order here.

Third, you accuse us of charging twice for obituaries, double-dipping you call it.  It’s no more double-dipping than charging to place a display ad in a newspaper, then charging a reader a subscription to read it.

No, that is where you are wrong. You charge readers for reading (buying, actually) the whole newspaper. Online you are singling out obituaries. That’s where the double-dip comes in.

Subscribers pay for the journalism that our news organization produces.

If that’s true, your organization is unique, or at least highly rare, among American newspapers. Subscribers rarely cover the cost of paper, ink, gasoline and labor to produce and distribute the newspaper. Advertising pays for the journalism.

Online readers support us indirectly by seeing and acting on advertisements.  But out-of-market nonsubscribers do not contribute either way.  We’re asking them to support us as well.

If you offered out-of-market subscribers a way to send flowers or make reservations to stay in Lancaster when they come for the funeral (as I suggested last year), they most certainly would contribute. I bet you’d make notably more money that way.

Fourth, you suggest that our plan is squeezing money from grieving people.  In fact, the person who comes to our site solely to see the obituary of an old friend or loved one will not be charged.  That’s one of the reasons why we set the meter high, at seven obituary views.  We hope to avoid the circumstance in which a one-time reader, or a casual browser, is asked for payment.

You already told me that you don’t know who’s reading your online obits and why. But now you know they aren’t grieving? I think it’s highly likely that your regular obituary readers are people with a large number of aging friends in your community. So no, they aren’t grieving every time they visit. But I feel confident in my description. These are people who grieve the loss of friends frequently and watch the obits carefully so they can send condolences.

Fifth, you suggest that people can find obituaries elsewhere.  True. If people are willing to search through eight or nine funeral home websites daily, they might find most of the obituaries for their communities, although not those placed by out-of-town funeral homes.  What we and every newspaper-based news organization offer is ease of access – a one-stop place to read all a community’s obituaries.

Here’s my prediction: Someone else will offer such a one-stop place in your community before the end is out.

Sixth, you suggest that our experiment will push “older people, the most loyal group of newspaper readers” to find news elsewhere.  How do you know that about our out-of-market online readers?  How do you know their ages? How do you know they are newspaper readers? How do you know they will be unhappy and go elsewhere?  For me, these are all open questions to be tested in this experiment.

I’ve been a newspaper editor. I know your demographics because they used to be my demographics. I have fielded the complaints about problems in online obits from snowbirds reading them. The only part of that I am unsure about is how many of them you would push to find news elsewhere. I was only asking if you really wanted to push them. Newspaper readers have put up with a lot. Maybe they’ll put up with this. But don’t bet on it.

For all I know, these are people in their 40s, 50s and older who have been transferred recently to jobs at a distance, or spend time at a vacation home, or moved away decades ago but still stay in touch with their hometown friends.  This first test will help us define that audience.

Oh, yeah, people in their 40s check the obits of their old hometown online repeatedly. I wouldn’t bet your franchise on that being what this “first test” will find.

Seventh, you suggest that distant readers will erupt in anger at the notion that we charge them to read the obituaries of aged friends, giving us a black eye in the community.

Your experiences with readers must be different than mine.   When I take the time to explain why newsrooms need new sources of revenue, most readers – especially older readers who appreciate the quality of newspaper journalism – respond positively.  They may not be giddy about paying, but they understand the reason.

I’d like to sit in on that discussion, when you explain that even though you already charged the family for the obituary (which the funeral home probably marked up) that you’re charging their distant friends and relatives again to read the obits (but not the quality journalism). My experience is that newspaper readers are smart and they have really strong BS detectors.

Finally, I ask you to examine the bitterness and anger that infuses your writing about “old” media. It’s unbecoming. While you sarcastically trash efforts to earn new revenue for the print-based newsrooms you left behind, many of us are determined to find new ways to bring in the dollars that support America’s highest-quality journalism.

I have no bitterness toward old media. I spent more than 38 years working in the newspaper business and have hundreds of friends working for newspapers. I don’t think you will find many people who have fought harder than I have to help newspapers change. As you noted, I worked in the Newspaper Next project, taking the message of change to thousands of journalists and newspaper executives around the world (who responded mostly with timid baby steps rather than bold transformation). While I still worked for a newspaper, I proposed and worked to achieve a new business model, the Complete Community Connection. C3 was an effort to push newspapers to pursue genuine new revenue streams, rather than trying to squeeze the last drops of blood from the paid-content turnip. I encouraged newspapers to pursue a mobile-first strategy before others beat them to that opportunity (which slips away as you waste time and energy on this obituary double-dip). You might find someone who has proposed more “new ways to bring in the dollars” than me, but I doubt it.

You say that I left newsrooms behind. But since leaving the employ of a print-based company, I have done presentations on C3, mobile-first strategy and social media for the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, Inland Press Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, American Society of News Editors (still a print-oriented group, despite dropping “paper” from its name), Iowa Newspaper Foundation and Alliance of Area Business Publications. I will be doing presentations this fall for the National Newspaper Association and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association. I changed jobs, but I did not leave newspapers behind. I am still working to help newspapers succeed.

I have loudly and openly cheered the innovation that John Paton and his Journal Register colleagues are trying with the Ben Franklin Project. I don’t know how successful they will be, but I am delighted to see a newspaper company truly trying to move forward.

I will agree, though, that I am angry about the shortsighted decisions that newspapers keep making. And the obsession with paywalls is one of the things that makes me most angry. Executives who cling to paywalls rather than pursuing truly innovative opportunities are costing my good friends their jobs. Each time I examine that anger, I renew my commitment to help newspapers succeed, even if they are now, in some ways, my competition.

I hear people (some of them still working for newspapers) who bitterly wish that newspapers would just die, hoping that might accelerate the development of the next generations of journalism-based businesses. I don’t wish for that. And I get angry that newspaper executives seem bent on letting (and even making) that happen.

If this experiment fails, you can gloat and chortle with delight.

I don’t gloat, chortle or delight when newspapers fail. I mourn. I wish I were wrong about this. I wish innovation were as easy as newspaper executives too often think it is. When this experiment fails, I will be sorry for the hard-working journalists at your newspaper and any others who follow you down this dead end (pun intended). Because we all know that when newspapers fail at developing new revenue streams, they protect their bottom lines (for the short term) by cutting staff.

I’ll move on to the next idea. And the next. And the next.

Better get moving.

Filed under: Complete Community Connection, Mobile opportunities, Obituaries, paid content Tagged: Ben Franklin Project, C3, Ernie Schreiber, Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era, John Paton, Journal Register Co., Journalism Online, LancasterOnline, Newspaper Next, obituaries

We believe we are trying something unique among news organizations with our TBD Community Network.

TBD will not be the first news organization with a blogger network. But we aren’t aware of another organization taking the same approach to community blogs. We believe the TBD Community Network will be a key reason people will turn to us for news of their neighborhoods as well as news of the Washington metro area.

In a series of recent announcements, we have introduced more than 90 local blogs and sites that have agreed to join the network. We expect to top 100 shortly. When you come to TBD’s home page or one of our topical pages, you will see content from across the region from a variety of sources. We will present the biggest stories that we think will be important and interesting to people throughout the metro area. And we will sort news by location, offering you news that’s important to you because it’s close to where you live, work, play or shop. When you click the links, some headlines will take you into the TBD site to content produced by our staff. Other links will take you away to content from our network members or other news sources in the community.

As noted in an earlier post, the network members are an active group, producing newsy and varied content that we believe will give us a lively, informative report about news and community life (and the network has more than doubled in size since that post).

We won’t restrict our network members by traditional journalism standards. Some bloggers practice pretty traditional journalism, maintaining independence from the sources and institutions they write about. Others write about their personal passions and their own communities, openly acknowledging them. We welcome that variety in the network. We probably at some point will provide a place on our site where the bloggers will tell more about themselves. But for now, we think discerning readers and viewers can judge the perspective and expertise that bloggers bring to their work.

We believe we have worked out a mutually beneficial relationship with members of our network, where they will provide valuable content for our audience and we will provide traffic to their blogs and sites, and we all have an opportunity to make some money based on that traffic.

Here’s how the network will work:

• We will provide headlines and links, sending TBD visitors to the network members’ sites if they want to read the full story. The network members will not write or work for TBD. They are fully independent sites and blogs.
• When a network member posts an article, photo, graphic, video or any type of content worthy of top-story play on our home page, we will feature that contribution as a top story, just as we would if a TBD staff member had produced it.
• When network members produce content affecting a particular location in the Washington area, we will feature that in a home-page feed of local news for TBD visitors who have identified that area as one of the locations they care about. (You will be able to enter multiple locations, so you might be able to enter your home and work locations, plus a spouse’s work location, for instance.)
• When network members produce content on topics we will be highlighting, such as dining or sports, we will feature their contributions on those pages.
• We will promote content of network members in social media, such as our main Twitter account, geographic or topical Twitter feeds and our Facebook page.
• For interested network members, TBD sales staff will sell advertising, sharing revenue with them. We are pleased that we have received such a strong response from network members while we have still been working out the advertising details. We expect those to go out to network members and prospective members this week.
• We also are encouraging network members to work with GrowthSpur, another digital startup, which is helping develop and serve local advertising networks. GrowthSpur will provide training and tools for our network members to make more money selling ads on their blogs and on each others’ blogs.
• We will feature all the network members in a directory, where you can search for them by name or category or browse them all.
• We will involve interested network members in other community engagement efforts as well as social events and workshops.

We continue to recruit area blogs and sites to our network. We are interested in blogs and sites that cover the local community. If you blog about your neighborhood in Washington or in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs or if you have a favorite local blog, we would love to hear from you. If you cover specific local topics such as sports, education or business, we would love to hear from you. For instance, local blogger David Rothman correctly noted in three recent posts that the bloggers we have signed up so far don’t provide a lot of education coverage. If you know of some good local blogs and sites that keep an eye on local schools and/or universities (or other areas our network doesn’t cover yet), we would love to hear about them and include them in the network.

We’re not interested in national or international affairs. And, for now at least, we’re not signing up blogs that are mostly personal in nature. But if you’re partly local, let’s talk. Our initial response to D.C. Foreign Policy Beat was that we don’t cover foreign policy, so the blog wouldn’t fit. Blogger Ladan Nekoomaram said she was planning to do more blogging about issues and events in Washington’s local international communities. That sounded like local news to us. So we’ll link to those local stories but pass on the strictly international content. Other blogs and sites, we know, will also overlap with our mission. And some heavily local sites will on occasion veer into national or personal matters. For instance, a Nationals blogger might report on a development with the Cubs or any of the bloggers might write about big developments in their lives. Because TBD staff will be watching these blogs and making editorial decisions, we will highlight the content that is most relevant to our local audience.

We welcome your feedback as our network takes shape. We were always planning a blog post like this, but were spurred to write sooner by questions, such as this one from Twitter:

1. pwthornton @stevebuttry – Do you have a post that explains what the community network is? 07 Jul 2010 from web in reply to stevebuttry

Soon you’ll see our network’s contributions to TBD. We hope you’ll let us know what you think and let us know if you or a favorite blog of yours can add a perspective we’re lacking. To inquire about joining the network, just tell us about your blog in the comments here or email me at sbuttry (at) tbd.com.

UPDATE: So, hey! We won! APME gave us the inaugural Gannett Foundation Award for Digital Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. Woot! Thanks!

I recently wrote up a ‘body-of-work’ awards application, for which the date restrictions coincided with our team’s first year on the job. It seemed like it would make a good blog post, except for the self-aggrandizing tone. Unfortunately, I’m kinda short on time, so I’m posting it unedited. Please forgive me. A boast post is better than no post at all, right? — Brian

The news applications team has had one hell of a year. Founded last June, we’ve created new ways to tell watchdog stories online, and along the way, dug up and munged, massaged and mapped a mountain of data. And at every step, we’ve given away the data and documented our processes here so that other teams may follow in our footsteps.

Here’s the highlight reel:

Burr Oak Memorial — July 30, 2009

On July 29, 2009, the Cook County Sheriff’s office released a database of headstones — they were documenting the graves left undisturbed by a group of crooks worthy of a Coen brothers biopic. To help family members learn if their loved ones remains had not been exhumed and their plots resold, we built this simple searchable database in a day’s work.

City Council’s $3.7 million allowance — August 16, 2009 and April 7, 2010

To accompany a piece written about excessive and sometimes silly aldermanic spending, we built the city council expenses application. The original story was good, if predictable: Your alderman spends city money on a fancy car. But, since we published all the data online, many of our readers sent in tips of unusual-looking expenses from their ward — and one hit paydirt. It turns out that one alderman was renting office space from himself. The day one story was about unethical behavior, the day two was about potentially illegal acts. A big win for giving away the data.

We brought the app back for an encore with 2009 data.

Illinois Nursing Home Safety Reports — September 29, 2009

Nursing facilities in Illinois aren’t just home to the infirm and elderly. They also house angry gang members, convicted sex offenders and volatile psychiatric patients, creating a hidden world of fear and violence. As an accompaniment to more than a dozen hard-hitting investigative reports, our unprecedented Web application answered readers’ questions — “Is my father in danger?” “How can I find a safe home for my mother?” — in the most simple fashion possible: a searchable collection of safety reports.

The response -— from government authorities, industry leaders and citizens —- was swift and powerful. On the third day of the series, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn appointed a Nursing Home Safety Task Force, and within weeks, sweeping reforms were proposed. And now, a nursing home safety bill is now on the governor’s desk. It will, among many other reforms, require the creation of similar web tools to what we demonstrated with our application. Better software is about to become Illinois law.

Election Center — December 2009, Ongoing

Tasked with better informing Illinois voters (they’ve made some questionable choices lately), we built the Election Center: a one-stop-shopping site for Chicagoland and State-wide elections news, polls, Q & A, endorsements and election-day resources. Among the highlights was an online ballot-builder that would guide you from discovering your candidates based on your address, through making a list of your picks to share via Email, Facebook or Twitter. The site changes with the conditions of the day and it’s currently not in full-bloom. Check our our archived primaries site for a glimpse into the past.

Tracking homicides in Chicago — February 24, 2010

Fifty Chicagoans were murdered in June 2010, and a record of each homicide: the name, cause, location, and a story about what happened, can be found on RedEye’s homicide application. (The RedEye is a sister publication to the Tribune.) So far, we’ve collected the data back to 2008, and made all of it available for download — which we have recently learned has been of great service to local anti-killing organizations.

Take Action! — May 2, 2010

A reader wrote a letter to our editorial board, asking for an easy way to express concern to their elected officials. So, we built one. Take Action! is a context-sensitive elected official lookup tool — when you’re reading an editorial about a city issue, it will direct you to how to connect with the mayor and your alderman. So simple, it’s not really even an app, but a high-powered widget.

Blagojevich trial coverage — June 2010, Ongoing

Rod Blagojevich makes our jobs easy. To bring readers up to speed on his epic governorship, we worked with reporters to dig up stories from our archives — seven years of scandal and dirty dealing — and rolled them up for easy consumption into a photo-driven chronology. But as much as we’d prefer the journalism to be our most popular feature, Rod’s upstaged us. Our second piece for the series presents documents from the courtroom, including transcripts plus audio of such memorable moments as “You Russian motherfuckers” and “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking… golden.” And the readers have spoken, the numbers are ridiculous — it’s our most popular work yet.

Thanks, Rod.

Team blog — Sept. 2009, Ongoing

We, as a matter of principle, like to show our work. On the news apps team blog, we’ve written tutorials on how to use our data, released our production-grade server stack for free for the world to use, and shared the best practices we’ve discovered. Why? Because we feel lucky to be doing what we love, and want to help other newsrooms who may not be lucky enough to have a team of hackers at their disposal.

Special thanks to Bill for bringing us on, and to Chris, Joe and Ryan, who’ve slayed many dragons on our quest. Kick-ass work, gang. Next year is gonna be even better.

Bloggers, including this one obviously, are abuzz about Google Me, the Facebook-killer-wannabe rumored to be under development in the Googleplex.

Of course, the naysayers are pointing out that Google has flopped with two ballyhooed social tools in the past year: Wave, which was launched with lots of hype and anticipation, and Buzz, which snuck up on the market, generated a lot of brief (yeah) buzz, then virtually vanished from the social conversation.

I kind of enjoyed Wave and saw considerable potential in it. But most of the Waves I rode turned fairly quickly into conversations about how Wave worked and how we might use it. Continuing curiosity about a product is certainly not a sustainable business model.

Wave had some flaws, but they were less annoying than the frequent and continuing appearances of Twitter’s Fail Whale, and Twitter is thriving despite the whale. And when Wave worked, it was exciting. I participated in a cool group interview that Vadim Lavrusik used for a few Mashable posts. And, more notably, the Seattle Times used Wave in its Pulitzer-winning coverage of the manhunt for the suspect in the shootings of four Lakewood, Wash., police officers.

Wave may yet launch a comeback. But more important, Google probably learned some lessons (including how hype can backfire) from the experience.

Buzz was an almost immediate bust. My initial criticism was the posting of tweets in bunches a couple times a day, most of them several hours old. A social tool needs to be immediate. (They fixed that, but by the time they did, I had lost interest. I can’t remember the last time someone buzzed me.) And certainly that buzzt taught Google a lesson about privacy, trust and giving users control of how they use social tools. I’m transparent enough in my digital communication that the privacy flaws were not a huge issue for me. But Buzz never made itself useful or fun to me, and a social tool’s value proposition usually rests in one or both of those factors.

Twittown’s Facebook Blog says Google Me can’t possibly take on Facebook because a social tool needs critical mass to succeed, and everyone’s friends are already on Facebook:

If I have to choose between two social networks (let’s say, for the sake of argument, Google Me or Facebook), chances are slim that I’m going to choose to use a social network that none of my friends belong to.

That reasoning is flawed, though. No one has to choose between two social networks. I didn’t have to stop using Facebook or Twitter when Cliqset or Foursquare came along. I joined them because they were interesting, not because I chose them over something else. I don’t use Cliqset because my friends didn’t join. Lots of my friends did join Foursquare and I check in somewhere almost every day (and I probably use it more than Facebook, even though more friends are on Facebook). I didn’t even have to choose between Foursquare and Gowalla, which are similar location services, or Dopplr and TripIt, which are similar travel social tools. I joined them all and I used the ones that were most useful and fun to me (the number of friends wasn’t the only factor; I don’t  have a lot of friends on TripIt, but I use it every time I travel). And I have almost twice as many contacts on LinkedIn as I do Facebook friends, but I don’t use LinkedIn a lot.

Facebook didn’t muscle MySpace aside because people immediately chose between them. Lots of Facebook users already had a MySpace account with more friends there than on Facebook. So they used both for a while, giving Facebook time to grow. And eventually, people who had accounts on both started ignoring their MySpace accounts. Don’t bet that Google Me (or someone else) couldn’t do that someday to Facebook, which has dealt with privacy issues itself.

Here’s why I would not be so fast to predict doom for Google Me (Google hasn’t even confirmed the project’s existence, let alone the name, but it’s a great name): Google demonstrated its willingness to fail in the Wave and Buzz projects, and a willingness to fail is essential for success.

Also, Google has a wealth of experience and success in social media, beyond the hard lessons learned from Wave and Buzz.

Google search is based on social experience. While the search algorithms are secret, they clearly are based in large part on traffic and links. And what’s more social that popularity contests and attribution? (I should add I used Google several times in searching for links for this post and never searched past the first screen, so my selection of links was guided by social experience.)

I use Gmail every day to communicate with friends and family, gchat occasionally when a friend notices I’m logged in and share dozens of documents with colleagues, friends and family using Google Docs. I used Google translations when I was training in Siberia last year to post my handouts in Russian, and I use it to check the context when international blogs link to my blog.

And don’t forget that YouTube, one of the most successful social media platforms, is a Google property. (OK, they bought it, rather than launching it, but they have a lot of successful social media experience in the company.) Google also bought Aardvark, an intriguing social tool that I think has considerable potential. Orkut has not been a big social platform in the United States but is more successful in other countries.

Social media is not a zero-sum competition. The amount of time we spend with social tools has been growing rapidly as they grow more plentiful and more useful. I wouldn’t bet against Google succeeding again in social media.

Filed under: Google, Social media Tagged: Cliqset, Dopplr, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Google Buzz, Google Me, Google Wave, Gowalla, MySpace, Orkut, Seattle Times, TripIt, Twittown, Vadim Lavrusik