It’s a BlackBerry Bold and, as far as I can tell, the advantages to the BlackBerry operating system have nothing to do with what the user wants or needs and everything to do with what the company can control and protect. I grant that protecting company information and property is important and it’s something Android hasn’t locked down yet.

But if we stipulate that mobile is the future of the web — we agree on that, right? — we’re going to need something better than the BlackBerry to carry us forward. Using my BlackBerry, I feel like I’m stuck in the past, using Nintendo 64 in an age of 3-D gaming. It’s easy to see why BlackBerry’s market share is plummeting (from 55 percent to 41 percent in a year). And with my Droid, I could see the future.

Boy, I sure miss my Android phone. For about eight months before moving to this job, I had a Motorola Droid from Verizon (it’s for sale, along with an attractive package of accessories, if you’re interested). I miss it badly. And it was such a good phone that I truly wanted to push how far I could use it. It was quickly becoming a third arm, it was so valuable.

It was easy. I have a Gmail account and a Google Apps account. I use different Google services on each one, for a variety of reasons. Before I left the store with my new phone, both were synced perfectly, with email, contacts and my calendar. It’s not a surprise that Google services would sync perfectly with a Google operating system. But let’s face it: Google is pretty ubiquitous; shouldn’t everything work with it? Three weeks in, I’m still trying to figure how to get everything to sync properly. I never could get the contacts to sync on my BlackBerry — not until I copied them over to my company’s Google Apps account. As my son would say, “that’s weak sauce.”

It was fast. I didn’t really appreciate how fast the Droid was until I started using the BlackBerry. I read a ton of content on my Droid. In any spare minute, I could pull out my Droid and read for a bit. The BlackBerry is too slow; a spare minute isn’t enough time to pull up anything. Apps downloaded, updated and loaded quickly. Web pages came up in a flash. Even when I had to pull the battery, the Droid would reboot in a minute or two. It easily takes my Bold a full five minutes to cycle back up.

It was beautiful. The Droid’s screen is high resolution and gigantic in comparison to my Bold. The touch screen interface is elegant. The BlackBerry…isn’t.

It was easy, part deux. Are you kidding me with this keypad, BlackBerry? Seriously? To dial the phone, it’s these tiny little buttons over on the left? Droid had a virtual touch screen keyboard and a physical keyboard that was huge, relatively speaking. I didn’t use the physical keyboard much because the touch screen was so good. Throw the Swype app on top of it and it was great. Oh, and if I didn’t want to use the keyboard at all, I could dictate a short email or text message — and it worked pretty well. Or I could speak a web search and Google would find the answer to my question. It was amazing.

It was versatile. The built-in turn-by-turn directions worked great. The built-in news/sports/weather app was very good. The camera was incredible. The social media apps — like Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook — were more elegant, intuitive and easy to use. And did I mention it’s all fast? Turn-by-turn directions on the BlackBerry will cost me extra. No thanks. The best news app I’ve found for the BlackBerry is klunky and slow. The camera is passable.

It integrated easily with Google Voice. Again, not a surprise. But I am a Google Voice user and I want my phone to work with it. With the Droid, I didn’t have to pay Verizon for texting because Voice handled it remarkably. The Droid let me use Voice effortlessly. The BlackBerry’s Google Voice App is OK, but it’s not always reliable.

If anyone with more BlackBerry experience has ideas for how I can improve the experience, I’m all ears. Like I said, I’m grateful that the company’s picking up the tab, and I can’t afford to keep two smart phones. And the Droid wasn’t perfect. I’d often have to restart it to get the GPS to kick in properly. The slide-to-open keyboard was a grime magnet. I had a few other quibbles.

But if speed, versatility and ease-of-use are the Holy Trinity of mobile computing, I’m afraid BlackBerry is the devil.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Tuesday was my last day at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where I spent eight years as online news director and, in the past couple of years, as an assistant city editor. I had eight good years there and I am am greatly appreciative of the time I spent at the P-D. The people I worked with were all professionals, who cared about journalism and their public service mission. They made me a better journalist. I have always been impressed with the standard my colleagues set for their work, and for the kinds of stories that deserved front-page play. They never settled for the best of the that day’s news; they expected front-page stories to live up to a certain standard before they were considered. It was a wonderful environment in which to work.

And, based on the feedback a number of my former colleagues have given me, I helped make them better, too. Both are enormously gratifying.

When I got there, reporters and editors were still wondering why we were giving our content away online (some in our industry are still wondering that). Photographers were dead-set against doing video. By the time I left, they were aggressively breaking news online, thinking of the web first more often than not and aggressively sharing and engaging on social networks. Photographers were jockeying for chances to do video to supplement and enhance their still photography. The online operation was well integrated into the rest of the newsroom — instead of handled by that group over in the corner. I take no credit for all of these changes; I’m only happy to have had a part in getting them started.

Now, on to a new challenge. I was excited by AOL’s commitment to growing and building Patch.com. The notion of covering municipal communities on a one-to-one basis is exciting. Thanks to the unfortunate situation the newspaper industry finds itself in, newspapers simply don’t have the resources to cover communities that closely anymore. It remains to be seen whether Patch can sustain it, but I’m encouraged by the new senior leadership of AOL, many of whom have experience selling online advertising at Google.

The journalists I’ve met with Patch are all veterans of newspapers or other serious news organizations. Some are very experienced; some are newly minted, with solid credentials from serious journalism schools. I’ve already hired a journalist out of the University of Missouri’s j-school — and I’m looking for more. My team of local editors — who will report, write and photograph, as well as manage freelancers — will cover cities in south and west St. Louis County. Their job will be to own their beat and know everything that’s going on their city, engaging aIf you’re interested, you can apply on Patch’s site.

So, I’m off to my first day at Patch before I officially inaugurate my basement office. Wish me luck. You now how nerve-wracking those first days can be…

The Post-Dispatch's Loeb award.

My St. Louis Post-Dispatch colleagues Matthew Hathaway, Elizabethe Holland and Jim Gallagher won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism this evening.  I am proud to have been associated with their work and I’m proud of the recognition they earned today.

The three reporters won for three stories they each had a hand in reporting and editing. The stories all focused on the after-market auto service-contract industry, which, as it happens, is largely centered on the St. Louis area. Matt, in particular, has been reporting extensively on the industry, documenting how the players solicit customers, how they deal with consumer complaints and how regulators and consumer advocates have been going after the companies. He’s consistently stayed ahead of other national and local media.

The task was made more challenging by the fact that none of the players are public companies, so none are compelled in any way to reveal any information. But Matt has made great use of his blog and story comments to stay connected. Though he’s not embraced Twitter (which might have helped), he’s watched the comments closely and been able to read between the lines as readers gave insights and ideas about stories he should pursue.

He also participated in the comments and made sure readers knew how to reach him. He and I also worked together to create an interactive map (powered by Google Maps and Docs) of the dozens of area service-contract companies, including nuts-and-bolts information, links to stories, websites and Better Business Bureau complaints.

Ultimately, his ability to work his sources and keep an eye on what the readers were saying helped keep him ahead on the story — so much so that he was able to accurately report on the downfall of US Fidelis, the biggest player in the industry until late last year. US Fidelis had carpet-bombed the country with direct mail and robo-calls for months before attracting the attention of regulators and consumer advocates.

Late last year, Matt was ahead with news of its massive layoffs — in which the company dropped from 1,100 employees in April 2009 to fewer than 200 in December. He knew when the company had stopped selling new contracts. US Fidelis declared bankruptcy on March 1. Matt Hathaway has been on top of the story throughout.

Matt, Elizabethe and Jim won the Loeb in its debut “personal finance” category. Here are their award-winning stories.

“From Prison to the Pinnacle,” documenting the rise of auto service-contract marketer US Fidelis and cofounder Darain Atkinson, who rose from federal prison to extraordinary wealth in fewer than 20 years.

“Pressure Tactics Used at US Fidelis,” which explained in detail the tactics used to sell the service contracts.

“Warranty Sales Skim Top Profit,” which explained the details of how the extended auto-service contract industry works — from marketing, to financing, to refunds.

Congratulations to Matt, Elizabethe and Jim.

One of Toby's dino pictures, from the Sinclair station in St. Louis at South Broadway and California, near Interstate 55.

I weary of the drama that exists sometimes between the pure “blogging community” and the so-called “mainstream media.” If we can just communicate, we can work together nicely. I think we’ve missed some opportunities to do that at the Post-Dispatch, but I think we did it right this week with a story that ran on Wednesday.

The story was a brite about the disappearance of the Sinclair Oil dinosaur mascots in St. Louis in the wake of a takeover of the company-owned gas stations. My colleague Matt Hathaway found the tip on a blog called BELTSTL.com, which writes about local preservation and architecture.

It wasn’t hard news, but it was a worthy feature, given how ubiquitous the dinosaurs are on the Sinclair logo and the toys that the stations sell.

While Matt wrote his story, I reached out to the blogger, Toby Weiss, to ask for permission to run some of her pictures of one of the dinosaurs in the paper. She granted it, asking that we credit her by name and by the name of her blog. When the story ran, Matt included this paragraph in the story.

After rebranding of the stations started early this month, a local preservation blog — beltstl.com — broke news of the dinos’ disappearance. And since then, Sinclair enthusiasts have been ramping up their searches.

Toby was also happy to have us work on the story, apparently, because she was “ultra-curious to know” what came of the statues. Toby sent us a nice follow-up after the story ran: “Great reporting makes a good story. So glad you guys did that!”

Just not that excited.

OK. Is that all there is to it?

Our newsroom got a 3G iPad this week. I got a chance to play with it yesterday afternoon. I took it home, installed some apps, did some reading and put it through as many paces as I could in 12 hours. Honestly, I’m just not that excited about it — and I love toys. Here’s my thoughts on the ups and downs in my brief encounter.

It’s slippery. OK, this might seem like a nitpick. But I really like the rubbery texture on the back of my Droid. It feels secure in my hands when I touch it. As I understand it, the Nexus One has the same sort of soft, rubber-like feel. The iPad is sleek, smooth — and it feels like I could drop it at any moment. Stephen Colbert’s salsa notwithstanding, it’s a sheet of glass. It doesn’t feel indestructable. I note that CrunchGear’s John Biggs had the same observation today.

It’s a computer screen. Which means it doesn’t hold up well in the daylight. At a traffic light that I know to be a long one (no, I wasn’t driving and reading!), I fired up the screen to peek at the iPad — and it was hard to see what was on the screen.

It’s uncomfortable. I found the edges to be a little uncomfortable to hold. The flat edge where the front and back of the iPad converge has sharp corners. It doesn’t rest comfortably in your palm.

There are some cool apps. With only a few hours to play, I found some news apps, downloaded some book samples, played with some weather apps and checked out the browser. Of the apps I tried, I thought NPR’s iPad app was very cool. It was easy to navigate, it let me read one thing and listen to another, and it remembered what I was listening to the last time I fired it up. The app store looked great.

My wife could use it. I sat quietly on the couch and watched while my wife picked it up. She’s not among the most technically adept people I know. My only coaching: Don’t be afraid of it; just try stuff. She picked it up and made it her slave within a few minutes. So it must be easy.

My son wasn’t that excited. My 15-year-old was excited when I said I’d brought home an iPad. But by the time he actually sat down to try it, it was nearly 9 p.m. He messed with it for five minutes and put it down. I was surprised. I thought he’d be messing with it for a half-hour or more. Where was the magic?

It was fun to read. When I climbed into bed and propped it on my chest, it was easy to read. I read the first (sample) chapter of “Sh*t My Dad Says.” It was great. I loved being able to change the font and the text size. Most people I’ve talked to think the iPad is a little heavy. I didn’t find it to be the case — it’s certainly no heavier than my copy of David McCullough’s “John Adams.”

It wasn’t fun to write. I reckon I could get used to the keyboard. But I wouldn’t want to depend on it for a lot of writing. Obviously, that’s not the point of the iPad.

It skeeves me out a little. I’m not normally a germophobe. But after my family and I had pawed the thing all evening, I got a look at the screen. Ick.

Maybe I’m not visionary enough, but I’m just not sure what this thing is really for yet. It seems like it’s more than a smart phone, but less than a notebook computer. But that means it doesn’t do smart phone stuff as well as a smart phone and it doesn’t do notebook stuff as well as a notebook.

Rocco Palmo (by Eric Lunsford, Post-Dispatch)

Today is the day Rocco Palmo receives his honorary doctorate from the Aquinas Institute of Theology, a Dominican seminary near Saint Louis University. Palmo, 27, runs an incredibly popular blog called Whispers in the Loggia, the go-to source for inside information from the Vatican and beyond.

His story is an interesting contract between “new” media bloggers and conventional journalists in a couple of ways.

In a story in Thursday’s Post-Dispatch, my colleague Tim Townsend profiled Palmo, who, in spite of being among the most well-sourced and thorough journalists covering the Catholic church, can’t make a living at it. He lives and works out of his parents’ Philadelphia home.

Tim quoted the Aquinas president in his story:

Rocco has shown that someone with his background — a Christian commitment, but also his abilities and background in journalism — can use the blogosphere in a very powerful way in terms of communicating the message of the church.

I thought Tim’s story turned out well. The challenge was to make sure it was broadened into a piece looking at how Catholics get their news, as well as contrast the amazing work Palmo does against his inability to make a living at it. We didn’t want the story to be naive on that point, nor did we want it to be condescending to the great work that is done throughout the blogosphere. I’d like to think we were able to hit the mark.

A lot of Palmo’s success is thanks to his respect for and protection of confidential sources — hence the name of his blog. Palmo never names his sources, and readers are apparently just fine with that. Tim and I talked a lot about the contrast of his ability to work in that way versus conventional media outlets, who tend to avoid unnamed sources as much as possible.

I theorize that readers attach any credibility they give to conventional media outlets with the brand. Any one of dozens of reporters might write for that outlet, but they all serve the brand — and we protect the brand by trying to be as transparent about our sources as possible.

In contrast, Palmo is the brand. I suspect his readers attach credibility to him personally, until he gives them a reason not to. So if Palmo says his source is good, they believe him.

The original story as of 9:45 a.m. May 4.

The New York Times breaking news alert popped into my inbox at 9:02 p.m. today and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it: “U.S. Seeks Man From Pakistan Who Bought Vehicle in Bomb Case.” The news alert linked to the home page, which included a headline for this story, with a similar headline: “U.S. Seeks Man From Pakistan Tied to S.U.V. in Bomb Case.”

All night, I have been trying to figure out why the New York Times included the nationality of the suspect in the story, which I read completely at 10:30 p.m. today. In the lede of the story, the suspect is identified as  ”a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan.”

The headline and the lede are the only place the nationality are mentioned. It mentions that the suspect recently returned from a trip there. But based on the story as it stands, the only thing this story does it set off hysteria about Muslims. I can’t imagine a headline that would ever read, “U.S. Seeks Man From Canada Tied to S.U.V. in Bomb Case.” Or Mexico. Or France. By all means, let’s let readers use their imaginations if the suspect — a U.S. citizen — happens to come from an Islamic country. It would be one thing if the story could offer a substantial reason for including that detail, but as the story stands now, it doesn’t.

UPDATE :: Nearly 12 hours later, the story that I linked to earlier eliminates the Pakistan reference in the headline and tones it down in the lede, but still doesn’t eliminate it or support its relevance. Meanwhile, the later write-through, headlined, “N.Y. Bomb Suspect Said to Implicate Self” at 9:45 a.m. May 4, offers support for the relevance of the information for the first time: The suspect “was already aboard Emirates flight 202 when he was identified” by Customs officials and the plane was called back to the airport. As I said earlier, the fact might have turned out to be relevant, and it has — but the support for that information was reported or wasn’t available when it was initially reported.

I don’t make $42 an hour.

Demand Studios — an arm of Demand Media — has been in the news a lot lately. Most notably, its business model and its ambitions to score some clients among traditional media outlets have been written up in The New York Times (Feb. 7), Vanity Fair (Feb. 3) and Folio Magazine (Feb. 4). The tenor of the recent articles about Demand ranges from bemused to hostile. Criticism of the company and its business model typically falls into three categories:

• It’s a sweatshop, undervaluing writers, videographers and editors with paltry wages.
• The content isn’t very good.
• Journalists who work for Demand Studios are sell-outs, allowing themselves to be exploited.

I wouldn’t begin to speak for Demand Media on any of those points. I can only address them as one tiny cog among 7,000 who contribute as writers, editors and other professional content-creators in a business model that has already been widely detailed elsewhere, most notably in Wired’s piece, “The Answer Factory.”

My experience has been positive since I started freelancing for Demand in October. I have been most impressed by how organized the place is. Demand easily slid me into the system with carefully written, thorough guidelines that explain how things work, the editing process and where to go for help. The online editing tools have worked largely without a glitch.

I can set my watch based on when my pay shows up in my PayPal account every Tuesday and Friday. My copy chief always gets back to me promptly with answers to my questions. I’ve gotten a couple of reviews, pointing out where I can improve and what I’m doing well.

As for the criticisms in the media:

The Pay. As I said, I don’t make $42 an hour. Some articles take longer to edit than others. As reported elsewhere, I make $3.50 per article. If I can edit five to seven an hour, on average, I’m pretty satisfied. Remember, I’d not breaking rocks here. I sit on the couch in the living room with a laptop, a beverage and, sometimes, the TV in the background.

I have had no problem averaging $20 to $25 an hour. And even if I don’t finish more than four articles in an hour, I’ve usually sent a couple back to the writers for a rewrite. That’s basically money in the bank. Writers have one chance to address questions in a rewrite; after that, I can approve or reject them — and I get paid either way.

I’m not doing this to get rich; I’m doing it to help with expenses and with some extras — like the $300 visit from the plumber last week. And, as others said in the Times’ story, I’m doing it as a safety net. The safety net just got slightly safer, by the way: Demand just notified me last week that I’ve become eligible for health insurance through the company if I want it.

The Quality of the Content. None of the articles I’ve read are going to win Pulitzer Prizes. On the other hand, I get a kick out of reading them. I’ve learned something from them. Because I’ve been editing mostly tech-related articles, I’ve learned a lot more about how to use my computer, how to troubleshoot computer problems, cell phone tips and tricks, how to find handy tools and utilities online and built-in tricks in common software programs (like Microsoft Word and Excel).

Demand Media executives have acknowledged that there are some clunkers out there. I have read some dreadful material. And when I couldn’t improve it, I have been empowered to reject it. The message is loud and clear from the people I interact with: Demand wants useful content and clear writing.

Whether Journalists Are Exploited. This dovetails with the issue of pay. I wasn’t forced to apply for this job and if I weren’t feeling rewarded in some way, I wouldn’t do it. When I run into a string of badly written articles, I can put the computer down and find something else to do. I can put in an hour in the morning, an hour at night and satisfy my needs and Demand’s needs. If I don’t have time tonight, I don’t edit; if I have extra time on the weekend, I can edit more. There’s always work.

If I averaged $20 an hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that’s $41,600 a year. And that’s not bad for the kind of work it is.

And the funny thing is, as dumb as some of the articles might sound — yesterday I edited, “How to Turn on Your Zune” — someone must have searched for that information online, or the article wouldn’t exist.

That anecdote, whether or not it’s apocryphal, came to mind when I read USA Today’s story, “Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy.” The headline pretty much captures the point of the story.

Their reasons run the gamut from being besieged by online “friends” who aren’t really friends to lingering concerns over where their messages and photos might materialize. If there’s a common theme to their exodus, it’s the nagging sense that a time-sucking habit was taking the “real” out of life.

Now people are joking (online, of course, via Twitter, Facebook and other tools) about Google Buzz. “Just got Google Buzz access. Thank God, I needed yet another place to post status updates,” buzzed Jim Brady, with tongue firmly in cheek.

The USA Today spends a lot of time on the trend of some people deleting online profiles or using software to handle the task for them. I favor clicking the “sign out” button when the connections get too much or they get in the way of real life. Accounts on social networking sites are for my convenience.

Post-Medium Publishing
An excellent analysis of whether people actually pay for content. I agree with a lot of this post; some of my colleagues look at me like I’m crazy.

Etaoin Shrdlu: Seminal work or sloppy thinking?
Jeff Jarvis has already anointed it as “seminal” and reprinted more than 350 words of Paul Graham’s Post Medium Publishing, so let me try and bring something different to the party: some examples of sloppy thinking and errors in the piece.

Clay Shirky: Let a thousand flowers bloom to replace newspapers; don’t build a paywall around a public good
Nieman Journalism Lab
Full transcript and audio from Shirky’s remarks.

The Beginner’s Guide to Tricking Out Your WordPress Blog
Lifehacker
Great tips for setting up your WP blog and for deciding which plugins to grab.

Austin police fed up with bogus online comments
www.policeone.com
Perhaps not the best way to deal with attacks on you in social media sites? Perhaps engage instead of litigate?