Richard [Gringras, head of news at Google] doesn't believe the vertical model of a newspaper makes sense going forward. He compares the metropolitan newspapers' all-things to all-people product to content portals for specific communities. This strategy doesn't make sense given the possibilities. Yahoo!'s initial success was as a portal. But portals have disappeared online as consumers have learned to navigate the web on their own and found the niche sites they love.</p><p>

Paywalls are not a panacea. Richard's not against experimentation with paywall models. The New York Times was smart, he says, in designing its paywall with many levers to adjust revenue vs. traffic flow. It's not there yet, but they can experiment and find what works. He appreciates those who are looking at paywalls in a more nuanced way. Some publishers say, "They bought it before, they'll buy it again," or "We need to get people back into the habit of paying for news." But consumers never did pay the true costs.

Gringras essentially goes around giving much the same talk. This doesn't make it wrong.

Lyons weaves together the Silicon Valley tech journalism imbroglio. Must read.

Sarah Lacy, former TechCruncher and author, launches the newest technology news site on the blog. It already has its accusers. (Hello, Gawker.)

"I’ve found mobile devices to be especially effective for on-the-street interviews. When New York City brought in a new system of letter grades for restaurant health inspections last year, the WNYC newsroom asked me to get reaction from New Yorkers. Using my iPad, I asked people on the street where they liked to eat and then looked up the restaurant’s inspection report online. I was able to capture their reactions when they heard the details — things like evidence of live vermin at their favorite restaurants. It was tape I could not have gotten in the moment without an iPad."

Martin Belam, writing in a purely personal capacity (you understand): "[if you're moderated] ask yourself, “Was I being a bit of a dick?”.<br />
"I’d define dick-ish behaviour on a news site as including, but not restricted to: personal attacks, using 'amusing' clichés like EUSSR and Tony Bliar, making the same off-topic point day after day, being rude and grumpy and unwelcoming to newcomers, mocking other people’s spelling, bullying and hectoring staff and journalists appearing in the comment threads, asking 'is this news?' on a story you are not interested in and which nobody forced you to read, hate speech, 'ironic' hate speech, anything that might now or in the future potentially land the publisher in legal hot water, and any comment which includes the phrase 'I don’t suppose the moderators will publish this but...'"

"The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) receives thousands of financial documents every day detailing the ins and outs of various publicly traded companies and publishes them on its website. Financial reporters who trawl through these SEC filings can often land a scoop, but it's a tedious and time-consuming task. Now, MarketBrief, a new start-up based in Mountain View, California, promises to publish over 1000 stories per day thanks to its software journalists.<br />
"It's easier than it sounds."<br />
<br />
Philip K Dick must be laughing somewhere; he coined the "homeopapes", self-driven journalist robots, which would do the interviews by doorstepping people too. 

Eli Pariser (of the Filter Bubble) on stuff that machines still lag at doing when it comes to offering you news.

"Google Fusion Tables allows you to create data visualisations including maps, graphs and timelines. It is currently in beta but is already being used by many journalists, including some from key news sites leading the way in data journalism." <br />
<br />
Neat, and not just because two of them involve The Guardian.

"Yesterday, I saw a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. fly across my Twitter feed:  "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." - Martin Luther King, Jr".  I was about to retweet it, but I hesitated.  It didn't sound right.  After some Googling, I determined that it was probably fake, which I blogged about last night.<br />
"Here's the story of how that quote was created."<br />
<br />
Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance.