what killed the dinosaurs?
over at dick howe's lowelldeeds blog, (always a worthwhile read for both the insight on lowell-area property trends, as well as the technologies related to advances in and around the registry of deeds and of interest to the people who work there), there's an interesting review of kodak's new printer business, and how they're trying to rescue their company from the implosion of the film business caused by digital photographic technology.
i may have started it, but in the comments dick quickly draws the obvious parallel to other disrupted businesses, such as newspapers, to which i could not resist to point out that the problem with newspapers is NOT the erosion of their ad revenue, but, rather, their complete cluelessness and inability to deliver the audience from which they could otherwise derive ad revenue. my first example was to revisit my recent observation that the "stepping out" insert in thursday's sun carries almost no useful local event information, as opposed to cometolowell.com's impressive, current and reliable listings, but there is seemingly no end to the easy examples. and, since i've recently been peeved by the sun's move of rob mills' policeline blog to a site without an RSS feed from which it's thus impossible to follow via simple web tools that even my elderly parents use like google reader, i figured it's as good an opportunity as any to gnash my teeth in public.
first of all, if you're a lowellian (or lowellite or loweller, and nods to cliff krieger of rightsideoflowell for sharing with me the word "demonym") you absolutely should avail yourself of the stellar reporting of rob mills and his the policeline blog. just don't try to keep up via google reader or other newsreading RSS-enabled software, because the cabal of digital ignorami at the head of the lowell sun management and editorial staff, who, by the way, are so often glib in their recent discussions to brag on how well their digital business is going to start to do, are so completely on-line clueless that they're trying the "publish" a blog (i.e. gain eyeballs that can be milked for ad revenue) without publishing it at all.
seriously: even my 89 year old father who cannot figure out how to use a cell phone uses RSS. there's no other practical way to be alerted to fresh web content from your preferred sources, and, without it, it's completely useless to try to visit every possible source you might like to see if maybe they've put something else new out there. but, there you have it--the lowell sun can't figure out how to use it.
it'd be funnier if it wasn't so sad...
i may have started it, but in the comments dick quickly draws the obvious parallel to other disrupted businesses, such as newspapers, to which i could not resist to point out that the problem with newspapers is NOT the erosion of their ad revenue, but, rather, their complete cluelessness and inability to deliver the audience from which they could otherwise derive ad revenue. my first example was to revisit my recent observation that the "stepping out" insert in thursday's sun carries almost no useful local event information, as opposed to cometolowell.com's impressive, current and reliable listings, but there is seemingly no end to the easy examples. and, since i've recently been peeved by the sun's move of rob mills' policeline blog to a site without an RSS feed from which it's thus impossible to follow via simple web tools that even my elderly parents use like google reader, i figured it's as good an opportunity as any to gnash my teeth in public.
first of all, if you're a lowellian (or lowellite or loweller, and nods to cliff krieger of rightsideoflowell for sharing with me the word "demonym") you absolutely should avail yourself of the stellar reporting of rob mills and his the policeline blog. just don't try to keep up via google reader or other newsreading RSS-enabled software, because the cabal of digital ignorami at the head of the lowell sun management and editorial staff, who, by the way, are so often glib in their recent discussions to brag on how well their digital business is going to start to do, are so completely on-line clueless that they're trying the "publish" a blog (i.e. gain eyeballs that can be milked for ad revenue) without publishing it at all.
seriously: even my 89 year old father who cannot figure out how to use a cell phone uses RSS. there's no other practical way to be alerted to fresh web content from your preferred sources, and, without it, it's completely useless to try to visit every possible source you might like to see if maybe they've put something else new out there. but, there you have it--the lowell sun can't figure out how to use it.
it'd be funnier if it wasn't so sad...
posted by kad barma at 9:10 AM
5 Comments:
It's so annoying that they have a RSS button that doesn't work on Rob's blog. I just used the work-around of adding the feed url - http://sunpoliceline.wordpress.com/feed/ - to my feed reader. I get the updates and don't have to head over to the Sun's site.
thanks very much for the tip! i'm conflicted about expending the extra energy to do this and accidentally reward the unprofessionalism of the paper in the process, but rob's stuff is too good to stand on any such principle and miss. thanks!
The RSS feed on Rob's blog is now working.
Thanks, Jen, for the update. To be accurate, the blog is NOT enabled even now. (I pasted the URL into my reader with the same no-soap results). Yes, someone has helpfully repaired a button so that it actually sends you to a (confusing and unstructured) page from which you can then initiate an "add" to certain reader software, including Google's, if you find the right control, but the gulf between this and "RSS-enabled" is as wide as the gulf between the Sun's "online" "expertise" and the actual sort.
Seriously--we're talking years behind the times here, and likely beyond most un-savvy web users to boot.
I was lost on the first paragraph. I must be too old.
I did note that Jen noted the blog post.
Regards — Cliff
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