WebNewser Announcements

The print and online publishing industries may be suffering these days, but the explosion of social networking sites, micro-blogs such as Twitter and traditional blogs are presenting web designers with more potential opportunities than ever.

Whether it's Twitter avatars, blog design or YouTube channel backgrounds, there's a ton of demand out there for graphics professionals. But what to charge for your services? Mediabistro offers some advice in this appropriately titled article, "What To Charge: Blog & Social Media Design." The article by Samantha Melamed is available to AvantGuild members. (If you're not an AG member, here's a link to sign up.)

Earlier today WebNewser wrote about a columnist who quit his Newsday gig because the Long Island newspaper is now charging non-subscribers $5 a week for full access to content on Newsday.com.

But Newsday may just be the first large daily paper to take the paywall plunge. The New York Times' public editor reports that executive editor Bill Keller has said the paper will decide "within weeks" whether to erect a paywall. And News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has gone on record in recent weeks as saying many of the newspapers his company owns will begin charging for content next year.

The issue has kicked off a heated debate in the journalism industry. Some believe newspapers won't be able to survive unless they start charging online readers, while others predict it will be the beginning of the end as readers flee to free sources of news -- with advertisers following suit.

Mediabistro is going to try to "crowdsource" the answer. The principle of the "wisdom of crowds" says a large group of people can correctly predict the answer to a question like this. So tell us what you think. And then get your colleagues and friends to answer as well. The more people who participate, the more likely we'll get the right answer.

Do You Think Paywalls Will Save Newspapers?(trends)

Mediabistro is offering an introductory-level online course on "Writing and Editing for the Web" beginning November 4.

The class, which runs through December 9, is designed to teach you how to create compelling content for the web. In this class you will learn:

* Why writing for the web is different from print
* The pros and cons of blogging and Twittering, and how to do them right
* How to use bulletin boards and online communities to find real people for your stories
* How to come up with interactive elements for your web ideas
* Social networking and traffic strategies

This is no trick, but here's a treat: Sign up today and you get 30% off the cost of the course. (We're crazy! Crazy, I tell you!) Just use promo code SAVE30 when submitting payment to receive your discount.

Our sister blog conducted an "exit interview" with our "mother," as FishbowlNY's Amanda Ernst spoke with mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby prior to her departure, with husband and BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine, on a six-month sabbatical, during which they will travel the globe.

Touby founded mediabistro.com in 1994 and launched the Website in 1996, eventually selling it to Jupitermedia (now WebMediaBrands) for $23 million in July 2007 and inking a two-year pact to remain with the company. She became a contractor for WebMediaBrands when that agreement expired, and she is now taking a break.

Highlights from Touby's conversation with Ernst:

I just feel like I've really gone balls to the wall for so many years and I just wanted a break, a real serious break, so I could come back fresh and renewed with new ideas and a new vision from this travel around the world. Who knows what that vision will be?

I've been looking forward to taking an extended break because I haven't taken a real vacation since I started the company in 1994. I really have been going full-speed ahead, always worried, always kind of logged in at home. Even if I was away from the office or "on vacation," I was always doing work constantly just like anyone who is tethered electronically to their job. Only this was my responsibility and I felt very much like it was a child in many ways. You feel this maternal feeling towards this company that you've started, especially as a woman. And especially as a woman with no other children.

I think the thing I'm most proud of is the fact that we've outlasted almost every other Internet company that started at the same time that we did. When you look back at the hundreds or thousands of Internet companies that were around when we started in 1994, there's not many of them left. There was Nerve and AOL, but The Knot wasn't there, Google wasn't there, YouTube didn't exist. I wish you could take a snapshot of the Web and see what was there at the time and what is still there. There's not a lot that's survived.

continued...

On February 24 at Tribeca Cinemas in New York, we'll raise our glasses to mediabistro.com's newest blog, WebNewser.

In addition to celebrating the launch of WebNewser, we'll be giving away two tickets to the TVNewser Summit (March 10, NYC).

Click here to sign up for the party...see you there!

A few months ago our boss, Laurel Touby, suggested that our blogs needed to be doing more stories on how the Web continues to transform how media companies run their businesses — whether through content distribution, consolidation, social networking, live video, Web-only exclusives, search & research (what did we do before Google and Wikipedia?)

But rather than add more content across the blogs, we suggested a blog devoted solely to the Web. Two years ago, when he was still writing TVNewser.com, Brian Stelter had suggested a similar idea.

And so, with the new year comes a new blog — WebNewser.

We'll bring you breaking news and new initiatives. We'll track which media companies are coming out ahead in the Web game and who's falling behind. Plus, we'll bring you job changes, Web ratings and inside stories from our 'web' of anonymous tipsters.

The word of the year in 2008 was 'change.' Our industry saw a lot of it this past year. Some of it in the form of job losses as media companies face an uncertain 2009. But what is certain is that the media will continue to pour resources into the Web — CNN.com is expanding; CBS Interactive is taking on-air advantage of its acquisition of CNET; and NBCU added one of the most valuable brands on the Web this year with Weather.com.

WebNewser will be your source for the news about Web news.