Jonathan D. Blundell

Seems like everyone’s throwing their hat in on the future of newspapers. What do you envision as the future of newspapers? I hope Cuban’s right. I see his future as one the readers will want – or at least I will.

I wrote a couple posts ago that sales should be a core competency and paper and local media outlets should be selling everywhere and anywhere that their customers allow them to. That local media has a local salesforce and thats a huge differentiation that needs to be a focus.
The same applies to local newsgathering. Reporters have recorders for interviews (every one i do these days). Some interviews could easily be expanded to include video. Should the reporters be required to not only write a story, but also edit the audio and even video of an interview ? ABsolutely. I recommend that EVERY reporter or columnist spend a morning with a disc jockey in a radio station. Watch how quickly and easily they edit together audio into a package they turnaround in seconds and put on air. Take a look at how easy it is to use basic video editing equipment.
Once you have packaged the interview or story, a quick fact check, and it should be posted to the net.

CNET’s Veronica Belmont breaks down why she thinks Apple Computer’s iPod Nano is the best pick for a portable music player this holiday season.

TV Raman offers tidbits on how to stay up to date using Google’s news search.

In the information age, currency of information has high value. As someone who cannot see, I find having to skim many different news sites to stay caught up even more difficult than the average web user. As in most things, off-loading some of this work to the machine is the answer, and what better machine to offload the work to than Google News.
In addition, finding relevant news stories through Google News helps me navigate directly to the news story on the originating site. Even if the originating news site is itself visually complex, Google has done most of the hard work of surfing that site and getting me to the content I need to read. Combined with Google News finding and grouping related stories on a given topic, this is an especially effective way of staying informed.

Via Google’s official blog

Google and Teach For America announced Nov. 21, that they will work together to recruit some of the nation’s top college graduates.
In recognition of the strength of Teach For America’s recruitment effort and its mission, Google is offering two-year deferrals to individuals who receive job offers from the company and are also accepted into Teach For America, the national corps of outstanding college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders for social change in every sector. The two organizations also plan to hold joint-information sessions on several campuses this winter.
“Teach For America corps members exhibit the creativity, leadership abilities, and civic consciousness that we place such a premium on,” said Laszlo Bock, Google’s VP of People Operations. “Providing these grads with the opportunity to spend two transformative years teaching in low-income communities across the country is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do, as they will arrive at Google with an excellent skill set developed in a demanding work environment and a greater commitment to the larger world.”
In addition to being able to defer their Google employment, participants in the program will receive a Google internship for the summer between their first and second years of teaching and will be paired with a Google mentor, who will work with them throughout their teaching commitment.
“For decades, children in our lowest-income communities have not been afforded the educational opportunities that they deserve, and we appreciate Google’s commitment to changing that,” said Wendy Kopp, president and founder of Teach For America. “Google is enabling its future leaders to make a two-year investment that will have a tremendous impact in the lives of kids, while also creating a force of executive leadership who have the insight, personal strength, and conviction to not only do well for themselves, but do good.
“We’re so appreciative of their help in our effort to build a cadre of future leaders who will work together throughout their lives, from business and government and every sector, to ensure that our nation fulfills its potential.”

Ask the Readers: Get your dream job?
from Lifehacker:

Reader Francis writes:
Since the age of 10, I’ve known exactly what company I wanted to work for (incidentally, it’s the Jones Soda company). I’m not 100% sure what I want to do, but I would like to have my foot in the door, have them know that I am out there ready for anything they might need. I am even willing to start at the bottom, working as a temp or whatever need may arise. So my question for readers is this: How would you go about getting your foot in the door at your dream job?

Got any suggestions? What is your dream job? Are you doing it now?

Use – WeJustGotBack to plan our next trip and then get online after your next trip and help others plan their future trips. The site is a great way to get the lowdown on how to get around in a strange place, best local tours, where to soak up the scenery, etc. – all from typically a family-oriented point of view.
via: Lifehacker.com