Turns out there was the time; there just, as every day passed, was less and less interest in blogging about online news, in general, and the entire upheaved and upheaving media space, in particular.

Sporadic blather and half-hearted fits and starts aren’t good enough for you guys. So let’s officially call it a day and, nearly five years after we began chronicling the online news space, pop the freeze frame button. At least  for now.  And move on to other things and other ways of communicating those things.

(And no, Squared didn’t decide this because Wired has officially declared blogging  to be washed up , altho he thought many valid points were made. That Squared found that Wired link on what has become a rare Romenesko  visit was more telling. In the old days, Romenesko or his feed were a multiple-times-a-day must. Now? Twice a week, maybe.) 

There are plenty of other very smart and helpful folks writing and blogging and tweeting and whatevering about the online news space; many of them are in Squared’s blogroll (which hasn’t been updated in months; problem personified). You know who they are and where they are. And you’ve got all the tools to find ‘em and use ‘em. (And a neat brand new one you should check out, Twine. Squared may actually reappear in a setting  like that at some point). 

Squared hoped attending ONA 2008 last month in DC would get him recharged and back to blogging about the space. It was a great conference, but no dice on the inspiration front.

Frankly, some of what’s going on now in the space has become just turn of the screw stuff and variations on a theme. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. That’s in no way to be dismissive about the new and interesting things still being done out there; Squared just doesn’t have that much interest for now in tracking and chewing on them to the degree that he once did.

Facebook and LinkedIn are where Squared’s alter ego spends almost all of his networking time now. Twitter was indeed something that Squared and SBAnderson and even MistyBeagle got more juiced about at ONA, but prattle-on-ers that we are, we’ve had a hard time getting our paws and minds around that puny character limit. But we’re going to work at it.

So SBAnderson and sometimes Squared will catch you in the other places. Just not here — for now. 

So long. Keep in touch.

Sit Ubu. Sit.Good dog!

Free Range archives

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you ever going to post to this freakin’ blog again, Squaredster?

Chicago Tribune Magazine on “Holovaty’s twin passions – reporting and problem-solving – the unexpected intersection of journalism and computer code.” Here.

+ Squared’s web host is pulling the plug on some history, telling subscribers it is shutting down access to FrontPage extensions and telnet in the near term. FrontPage was the WYSIWIG entree to web publishing for many of us in the earliest days while telnet, before that, was one of the geeky ways we crawled around the pre-HTML Internet. Eclipsed they are now, both. Onward, to WordPress, SSH et al. For now.

Maggie masterfully practiced her hyperlocal skills for more than half a century in another medium — print — in Squared’s hometown and was one of the inspirations for Squared to get into, and stay in, journalism.

Maggie Mills died a few days ago at 91, only four years out of the newsroom.  Nobody before, or since, so  lovingly, passionately and devotedly chronicled the comings, goings, doings and, now and again, shenanigans in close-knit little Plymouth, Mass.

“Community journalism, itself, is stronger for her participation,” Tamson Burgess, now the editor of Maggie’s Old Colony Memorial, wrote in a masterful column this week.  “[W]hen she became the eyes and ears and voice of the community, she stood tall before the powerful and still bent to offer a hand to the powerless. She could command the attention and respect of paupers and princes, not to mention all of those she mentored.”

A few more grafs from Burgess give you the feel for what an amazing practitioner of local journalism Maggie was.

If you lived in Plymouth or Carver from the ’50s to the ’90s, you probably knew Maggie, too. She was not just a reporter for the Old Colony Memorial, she was the Old Colony Memorial. If your Scout troop held an event to earn a badge, Maggie was there to write about it. If you made the honor roll, Maggie made sure it was printed in the paper. When your baby was born or your parent died, when your grandmother’s church guild held a tag sale, your husband got promoted – or any one of them misstepped and perhaps got into a bit of trouble – Maggie knew about it and wrote about it.

Over the years, she covered just about every beat in town. . . .  She reported on the antics of town government back in the days when the selectmen’s meeting started in town hall, but the real business was conducted after it adjourned, around the corner in the Amvets club above the old South Street fire station. And, of course, Maggie was there, too.

She was for years a central part of the landscape of downtown Plymouth, walking up and down Main Street dropping in at shops and businesses, talking to anyone and everyone on the street, piecing together the everyday news that made Plymouth Plymouth.

If it was on fire, Maggie was there. If there was a crime or a trial, Maggie shared the news. If it happened anywhere in town, she somehow knew about it. And when she told the story we listened, because her every sentence and word exuded not just information but passion.

Maggie Mills cared. She gave life to the life of her community, not just because she could turn a pretty phrase or knew where to use a comma, but because the stories mattered, information mattered, knowledge mattered, this town and its people all mattered to her and she made them matter to her readers.

Maggie, of ink and paper and grit and clacking manual typewriters and boy scout jamborees and schoolmarming selectmen and walking the beat in downtown, was precisely and perfectly what the Old Colony and its GateHouse Media sibling web sites now call themselves and want to be master of today: Wicked Local.

Thanks for what we all learned from you, Maggie. Be at peace.

-30-

Silver will “begin developing new opportunities for the Consortium across the digital media landscape, as well as to grow the Consortium’s existing relationship with Yahoo! across content and advertising,” a release today says.  “Silver will act in an advisory capacity to help member companies maximize revenue and take on the role of public spokesperson and representative for the Newspaper Consortium. Silver will also be responsible for the management and oversight of the agreements between the Newspaper Consortium’s member companies and Yahoo! and serve as the central point of contact with Yahoo! for members regarding the operation of these agreements.”

Belo, Cox, Lee, McClatchy and MediaNews are among the largest members of the consortium. The Consortium has a challenge or two, obviously, as does embattled Yahoo, the major glue holding it together.

Mike is a great pick for the role. He’s an extraordinarly well-connected, sharp strategic thinker and a great peace-maker with an innate feel for the business, particularly a knack for peering out toward the horizon to see what’s ahead.  While working for TRB corporate development in the early ’90s, he discovered — and steered senior management toward — a little Virginia company named Quantum.  It became AOL.  And the very low millions investment that resulted from Mike’s work made the old Mama T north of $1 billion over time.

Full list here, including links to entries.

Winners announced next month at the Online News Association conference in Washington.

Squared was tickled to be one of the judges this year and thinks his colleagues (look for their names in the release) did fabulous and enormously thoughtful work not only in all the prep work needed in the runup to final judging, but also in the long hours holed up together in conference rooms whittling down the actual finalists.

Favorite phrase of judgeapalooza was from Meredith Artley of LATimes.com, with “Stuck-on Syndrome,” referring to entries that clearly were just print packages for which a few multimedia gee-gaws were “stuck on”  for online.

+ Another Google wannabee (started by former Googlers) with an even more ridiculous name — cuil. Here. ( Just don’t accidentally mistype and visit culi.com, a nice little Italian. . . .porn site). 

+ NotTheLaTimes.com. (And “$@#$*& You,” for good measure).

+ Ken Doctor and the power of positive thinking: “Does McClatchy’s announcement that it has almost reached the point that 50% of online revenues are online-only provide a new foundation of hope?” Here.

+ chicagotribune.com using EveryBlock to display stories geographically (“around the clock, around the block.”) Here and here.

+ cNET: Oodle to power relauched MySpace classifieds. Here.

+ Google throws Digg deal into a hole, buries it. Here.

+ Squared predicts WashingtonPost.com will create a “Prediction Center.”

+ Neckwear you don’t need: “The custom CMS albatross.”

+ Steve Outing, sensible as usual: “We have to go beyond user comments as the sole means of interaction on news articles.” Here.

+ Squared typically nods off over print-newsroom produced web video newscast-ettes (they’re about as an effective use of the medium as would be having TV newscasts built around anchors holding up newspaper stories and pictures), but at least this one from the Star-Ledger and NJ.com that officially launched today is trying a new distribution tack, with a Facebook app. And it’s got live Springsteen video. Meantime, Jarvis likes the show, “but what I think is more important is bringing a new video culture into the newsroom.” .

+ Awesome data app: The Name Voyager.

+ Court reaffirms Fair Use of audio clips for criticism. Here.