Journalism Topic
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Convergence
The distribution of all media (television, audio, multimedia, and text) through one pipe or device. Also meaning a business dealings to enable one company to provide such services.
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Dow Jones buys MarketWatch
One of the sites I work on was heavily modelled on MarketWatch; in part because the former site’s editor worked on the latter, but also because the latter’s approach to covering the markets works. -
Meet Sympatico/MSN, register at the Globe
The Canadian Web is changing: Sympatico is MSN and get ready to register at the Globe and Mail’s sites -
The good and bad of Craig and CHUM
Eric Reguly has some very strong words about both the CRTC and Craig Media in terms of the Toronto 1 deal -
Bought by CHUM
Get one redesign done, and dive into work on another. Difference is this time, I like the design. More details to in the coming months (and, no, it still is not this site)… -
Microsoft AOL?
From Friday, a New York Post article speculating Microsoft might be offered AOL. Slashdot digests the news, which provoked little coverage elsewhere. -
Working for Asper
An email landed in my inbox today pointing to a wonderfully ironic story: not only does Leonard Asper love convergence, he’d also like to own the newspaper I work for -
Nielsen says patent; maybe CanCon rules are needed
Stupidest advice yet: Jakob Nielsen actually advocates that companies “patent usability innovations.” Great, just great. -
Mozilla 1.6 released; mitigating media concentration
Mozilla 1.6 is out, and features the ability to refresh the source code window (great for debugging) as well as numerous bug fixes (including one that prevented me from using an experimental new design for this site). -
Bell Globemedia break-up; Rebus Symbols;Nott’s hacks and filters
Earlier reports about the break-up of Bell Globemedia (my employer) are looking truer by the day. Over the weekend, the National Post reported that the company’s board has been dissolved. Could be another interesting Janaury/February here… -
Media rumours and trends; printing the Web; the Daily Standards
Recently, when talking with a co-worker about the possible sale of our employer, I said there was no big media companies left who would want the Globe — I had forgotten about Transcontinental, best known as the publisher of the TV Guide. -
Text presentation; Dictionary of Canadian Biography online; convergence defined
John Gruber, while ostensibly talking about Panther’s text rendering capabilities, explains everything you need to know about text presentation on computer displays. If you ever place words on a screen, read his article (via Coudal Partners). -
Google Deskbar; reasons against registration; cross-ownership in the media
For those who can’t get enough Google, there’s now a tool to search the engine, browser-free, via the Windows toolbar. Pretty clever. -
Dropping “AOL”; ROB loves PKP; analysis of market analysis
Is convergence dead or not? Even as AOL Time Warner drops the “AOL” from its name, the business press are fawning over PKP and the converged Quebecor Media’s IPO. -
System styles; stopping mega media mergers
A discussion on evolt’s thelist reverting forms to the system style introduced me to Jeff Howden’s chart of User-Defined Colors, Fonts, & Cursors. As I mentioned in a subsequent post, although system colours will be deprecated in CSS3 a new property called appearance will be introduced which allows, with one value, the author to specify the users default system’s “color, font, background, padding, border, and margin.” Also some of the values in Jeff’s table only IE6 currently supports have made their way into this draft (specifically the values in font and cursor). -
BCE ends convergence
Convergence, for BCE, is dead. Today BCE essentially announced the end of Bell Globemedia in anticipation of a future sell-off. Sympatico.ca goes back to BCE; The Globe and Mail (and its affiliated Web sites) will go one way; and CTV and its related sites will go the other. -
Creative Commons; two views of convergence
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Mozilla 1.2 released; arguing the benefits of cross-ownership
Mozilla 1.2 is out. Although 1.2 beta was a bit flaky, this build is much improved and is much better than the latest nightlies. If you still don’t use this amazing browser, perhaps its worth (re)reading the “101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot” as selected by fellow Torontonian Neil Deakin. -
AOL Time Warner Disney; gzip
Looks like AOL is looking for an MSNBC killer. -
Media mergers, and paying for PDA browsers
The McKinsey Quarterly has republished an excellent article on media mergers an article from The Wall Street Journal. What makes the piece worthwhile is its clear, concise explanation of why these companies are really merging and what challenges they face. -
Convergence culture clash
Five years ago, I was the managing editor at Canada’s first daily webzine about technology, called The Convergence (it was to be called Convergence, but the dot-com was taken). Ostensibly, it was about how the coming convergence of technology would affect our daily lives. -
Selling Quebecor
Talk about bizarre twist on the stale convergence theme. -
CRTC decision handicaps journalists
A CRTC decision prevents journalists from freely sharing information. -
CANOE, meet NetGraphe
Pierre Karl Peledeau's foray into convergence occured just as the markets peaked, and the move has left Quebecor $7 billion in debt. While the printing operations are in the black, the new media divison is $1.5 billion in the red, leaving Quebecor struggling to make payments. And on the heels of merging NetGraphe with CANOE in a bizarre reverse-IPO, the company's top brass are paying the Toronto troops a visit tomorrow. -
Convergence madness
At what point does the trend toward media convergence become silly? Despite genuine concerns raised about the creating a homogenous media voice, the industry is caught in a "me-too" mindset. -
Overturning CANOE
Ten days after writing a piece about the CANOE-Netgraphe merger, it seems the worst has happened. I wrote that another round of layoffs would devastate moral, but if Pierre Karl Péladeau didn’t let the markets dictate things, CANOE.ca could be okay. But he did, and most of the tech department, the head of the art department, and the vice president of content is gone. Those working on contracts will not be renewed. Management promises, again, this is the last of the lay-offs -
Canuck Portals
The portal wars begin in Canada. -
Converging companies
Well, the triumvirate is complete with the BCE/CTV-Globe deal, Quebecor’s purchase of Videotron, and CanWest purchasing most of Hollinger’s media assets. Canada’s three leading portals now all have print, broadcast, and online content as well as an ISP service. Unfortunately it seems these deals are more about collecting trophies than the results of a meaningful plan. I hope to be proven wrong on this.