A lack of overall substance and the fact that comments offer web publications basically no help in reaching profitability are cited as reasons for his stance. Most damning, though, is that Johnson — after conferring with industry colleagues — concludes that so few people actually take time to read the discussion threads that they’re not even worth implementing in the first place. Yet even after having said all this, Johnson resigns himself to keeping comments around at ANIMAL — at least for now.

via Are comments ‘bad business’ for online media? | The Verge.

The gabby, gray-haired grand pooh-bahs of journalism sprang from the back flaps of their book jackets onto a real-life panel Tuesday afternoon in the air-conditioned guts of the Marriott Wardman Park, where the American Society of News Editors was holding its annual conference. The pooh-bahs oraculated, with both good humor and grandfatherly concern, that the Internet — while a purveyor and archivist of Truth — is not the mother of Truth.

via Woodward and Bernstein: Could the Web generation uncover a Watergate-type scandal? – The Washington Post.

I believe that Tom Foremski is right, that every company is now a media company. But his fine thought overlooks one painful fact: most companies are still very bad at being media companies. They write blogs that read like reception room brochures and they use social networks—the most conversational technologies in history—to do little more than push out marketing messages.

via Why the Enterprise Needs a Few Good Journalists – Forbes.

The idea for this piece came about while prepping IJNet’s internal social media guidelines: our Twitter followers are taking flight, so many people “like” us now on Facebook we blush, but across our languages no editor had the same strategy. Actually, their best practices often contradicted each other – “Don’t schedule” “Use scheduling,” “Avoid cross posting.” “Cross post, it’s a lifesaver.”. You get the idea.

via 4 Social Media Rules Journalists Should Break.

The Associated Press caused a minor furor recently when the news-wire service updated its social-media policy and forbade its writers from expressing any opinions on Twitter, including implied opinions caused by retweeting others. In the wake of that controversy, Jeff Sonderman at the Poynter Institute has suggested that journalists could use their own Twitter shorthand to prevent anyone from getting the wrong impression when a reporter retweets something. But as I’ve argued before, all we really have to do is admit that journalists of all kinds might have opinions, instead of trying to pretend that they don’t, or trying to force them not to.

via Twitter and journalism: It shouldn’t be that complicated — Tech News and Analysis.

The clever code is the handiwork of Narrative Science, a start-up in Evanston, Ill., that offers proof of the progress of artificial intelligence — the ability of computers to mimic human reasoning.

The company’s software takes data, like that from sports statistics, company financial reports and housing starts and sales, and turns it into articles. For years, programmers have experimented with software that wrote such articles, typically for sports events, but these efforts had a formulaic, fill-in-the-blank style. They read as if a machine wrote them.

via Computer-Generated Articles Are Gaining Traction – NYTimes.com.

Quora for PR ?

A reporter, editor and columnist from The New York Times will take to Quora, starting today, to answer your questions.

In one of the highest-profile partnerships yet for the nascent question and answer-based social network, Diana B. Henriques, Gretchen Morgenson and Adam Bryant will answer questions submitted via Quora. Henriques will be on today (July 19) from 3 to 4 p.m. ET, answering questions submitted at her page.

On his Quora page, The Times‘ Jim Schachter explains how the idea came about:

About six weeks ago, my New York Times colleague Aron Pilhofer and I visited Quora to brainstorm with Charlie Cheever and Marc Bodnick about how our organizations might work together. One idea we came up with was having Times journalists who’ve recently published books come on Quora to field questions from the community.

via New York Times Journalists Take To Quora To Answer Questions – 10,000 Words.

In a recent piece for Forbes magazine, Washington Post managing editor Raju Narisetti looks at the challenges that mainstream media of all kinds are facing — falling circulation, the gap between traditional print advertising and the smaller revenues from online advertising, and the difficulties of trying to be digital while still running a legacy business. So what are his solutions for what he calls the “broken business model of quality journalism?” Narisetti doesn’t really have any, which isn’t surprising: as the recent report from the FCC on the future of media showed, it’s a lot easier to describe the problems facing the media industry than it is to come up with answers. But one thing is becoming clear: incremental changes are not enough.

via Future of media: This is no time for incrementalism — Tech News and Analysis.

On May 19, Amazon announced an important milestone that many of us have been expecting: Sales of Kindle eBooks have surpassed both paperback and hardback books combined.

After spending the last few years attending cocktail parties where the only point of view on the traditional publishing industry was that it is dying, I was captivated by the content and discussion last week at the Media Technology Summit, hosted by Landmark Ventures.

I heard the most refreshing statement of the last decade: “We have all been given a gift, and this is the global age of publishing.” What a truly inspirational statement made by one of the top C level executives in the publishing sector! And with Amazon’s news, we can safely say that the publishing industry has gone “digital”…so now what?

via The Next Generation Of Readers: Progressive And Paperless.

The saying goes that any press is good press. While Facebook might disagree right now, in most cases PR can be an effective and inexpensive way to get the word out about your company.

Gone are the days of PR agencies being the only way to get in touch with journalists – these days anyone can find journalists online, build relationships with them and pitch story ideas.

Sure, your company is using social media tools to get the attention of potential consumers. But are you doing enough to attract the attention of the media?

via How to Make Your Social Media Efforts PR-Friendly.