Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/6d7kys.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year or two trying to figure out new media. But lately, I’ve been devoting more thought to the old media.
Why? The same reason people gawk at a bad accident. [...]

Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. It normally runs here on Tuesday, but we pushed it back a day this week because of election coverage. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/5ef8g3.
There’s never been a change in communications as dramatic and rapid as the rise of the Internet. As the [...]

 

[Editor's note: This is John Reinan's weekly marketing column for MinnPost. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/6x7p88.]
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The dark cloud over the traditional media business looks like a silver lining to Scott Severson.
As old-line media hemorrhage staff and ad revenue, Hopkins-based ARAnet is moving in with free print and Web content that carries client messages [...]

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: the crumbling of the newspaper industry isn’t because people have stopped reading the newspaper. Rather, it’s because advertisers are finding more options on the Web, and the online revenue that newspapers do get isn’t nearly enough to replace the lost revenue from lucrative print ads, especially classified. [...]

As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I’ve been horrified at how quickly my old business is imploding. Five years ago, few people in newsrooms worried much about the Web. Three years ago, we became aware that it was nipping at our heels. Today, there are newspapers and TV stations whose very existence is being threatened by the [...]

In other words, why do ordinary citizens travel hundreds or thousands of miles at their own expense to wrestle with questions of media and society? I mean, I understand why they’d spend all that money and time on someting important like a baseball game, but this?
For Valerie Traina of Denver, it’s because of a passion for [...]

I ran into John Kostouros, longtime Twin Cities journalist and now communications director for the Minnesota state court system. He’s here because even the judicial system — perhaps the most traditional institution in our society — needs to get with the new-media program.
Kostouros has been pushing the court system to expand and improve its Web [...]

I showed up at the National Conference on Media Reform to register and get my material. I had registered as a blogger, and when they gave me my name badge, it carried a little purple ribbon printed in gold letters with the magic word “PRESS.”
I honestly had a physical reaction when I saw it. I felt [...]

Well, not on Idea Peepshow.
But a few short blocks away, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, thousands of deep thinkers, do-gooders, bloggers and assorted social irritants from across the USA will be on hand for the National Conference for Media Reform, sponsored by Freepress.net.
Dan Rather and Bill Moyers are among those who will be there, promoting “diverse [...]

But broadband Internet did.

photo credit: Marcin Wichary
Alan Mutter, who’s one of the smartest industry analysts around, has more at his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur. According to Mutter, the tipping point was when about 25% of U.S. households got broadband Internet service. Actually, Mutter says that circulation began to crater when broadband penetration hit [...]