From ITproPortal.com:

“Techcrunch and Huomah are reporting that Google is looking into launching a Do It Yourself Publishing Service for Magazines.”The patent abstract says that Google is investigating

“A method includes receiving personalized content from a plurality of content sources. The personalized content is based on user input. The method further includes receiving a personalized advertisement based on user input, and creating a customized publication including the personalized content and the personalized advertisement.”"

More here. Thanks to Richard Grimes of the NUJ New Media mailing list for the link.

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1. The Rake Today: Lambert to the Slaughter

   “Next Monday appears to be the date for former Star Tribune editor and publisher Joel Kramer to reveal his plans for the launch of a professionally edited and reported online newspaper.”

   to onlinejournalism independentjournalism

2. Newspaper offer readers ‘Riddle’
   A British indie feature is rewriting distribution rules by becoming the first to preem as a “covermount” DVD given away free with a newspaper.
   to televisioninteractivity covermounts film dailymail

3. USA Today Distributes News by ‘Widget’: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

   “USA Today is plunging into a hot new Internet technology, offering its online users the ability to install “widgets” on their blogs and personal Web pages that contain news updates and other information from the newspaper.”

   to onlinejournalism usatoday widgets blogs

4. OK! Relaunches Website with Eyes on TMZ | Folio Magazine

   “Celebrity glossy wunderkind OK! magazine relaunched its Web site today with an Escalade’s worth of features—“web exclusive, continuously updated breaking news, celebrity updates, photo galleries, videos, reviews, blogs and numerous interactive features…”

   to onlinejournalism newmediamagazines onlinevideo blogs galleries

5. Why Glossies Went Mass – Forbes.com

   “On Web sites such as Style.com, consumers can see looks from September’s shows an hour after they are premiered on the runway. Followers don’t have to have some high-ranking editor in New York to tell them what was hot or not. They can see and decide for…”

   to newmediamagazines onlinejournalism onlinevideo …

6. Blogging Without the Time Sink

   Blog your initial brainstorming. Blog your research. Blog your interactions.

   to blogs onlinejournalism … saved by 2 other people …

7. Conversational Journalism: Credibility Gained or Status Lost?
   In a sense, clinging to objectivity as an achievable goal denies our humanity. That puts us in awkward situations almost daily. And don’t think our audiences and communities don’t recognize that. Often, they’re laughing at us for it.
   to onlinejournalism ethics transparency community conversation objectivity …

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Women’s Wear Daily (not my usual breakfast reading matter) has raised the issue of magazine podcasting ethics separating advertising and editorial after Marie Claire’s Unilever-sponsored “The Masthead With Marie Claire” podcast featured repeated mentions of the company’s products.

“sponsored by Unilever with occasional chipping in by Diesel as “patron.” … Nearly every one of the eight segments so far has prominently featured Unilever beauty products in scenes with the magazine’s editors, and the most recent one included footage of the Diesel New York show, with Marie Claire fashion director Tracy Taylor explaining in the podcast, “What I love about Diesel….”

The article goes on to quote American Society of Magazine Editors board member Jacob Weisberg as saying “[Advertising] can’t include the editors and shouldn’t be produced by the editors.”

Of course fashion and women’s magazines have never been renowned for their editorial integrity or independence. And Marie Claire seem to think they can avoid the issue by claiming “ASME guidelines do not extend to podcasts and Webisodes.”

“‘The Masthead With Marie Claire’ is a podcast that is designed as a television show produced for the Web. From reality shows such as ‘The Apprentice’ to scripted shows like ‘The Office,’ brand integration is the norm.”

Nice try.

Marlene Kahan, executive director of ASME, disagrees. “The general codes do apply” to digital productions by members, she says.

“All online pages should clearly distinguish between editorial and advertising or sponsored content,” the ASME guidelines read. “A magazine’s name or logo should not be used in a way that suggests editorial endorsement of an advertiser. The site’s sponsorship policies should be clearly noted, either in text accompanying the article or on a disclosure page, to clarify that the sponsor had no input regarding the content.”

Seems pretty clear to me.

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Forbes.com has an interview with Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek from 1998 to 2006 and now vice president and editor-in-chief of new ventures for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. He makes an intelligent point about the challenges of preparing a publication for a Web-only audience (bullet points are not in the original, but I thought it made it easier to read):

“For everybody in the news business, it’s about producing something that goes beyond the headlines and offering something that other people can’t offer. There are three fundamental ways of doing that.

• One is break news that nobody else is breaking.
• Two is have writers who have a distinctive point of view that you’re not necessarily going to see someplace else.
• And the third has to do with user experience. Traditionally, one of the things that people have loved about their favorite magazine was the way it looked and felt. What everybody has to do online is try to create a user experience that makes people fall in love with their site.”

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Good news for graduates with new media journalism skills. Journalism.co.uk reports on Haymarket’s digital recruitment drive:

“Haymarket Media Group is to invest £1.3 million over the next year to recruit and hire additional experts in the field of digital media.

“The publisher, which has already invested £7 million this year to expand and strengthen its online portfolio, is seeking skilled online project managers, designers, web editors and developers to join its Teddington and Hammersmith-based teams to work on existing and new multimedia projects.”

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Here’s an example of some students trying out an online magazine idea – Such Small Portions is a ‘comedy digest’ that has some compelling content, with the showcase material probably the most interesting. Worth checking out. (Thanks to Richard Burton for the link, who deserves credit for his involvement)

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