Google Dashboard, friend or foe?

After Google announcing Dashboard, a new program that allows you to manage all your information associated with Google, Andrew Heining of The Christian Science Monitor asks, is having all your personal data accessible in one place a good thing?

While Heining points out that the most basic concern is how easy Dashboard makes it for someone to get find all your private information in one place, his biggest fear is Google having, and accessing, all of our information. Heining writes,

"Another unintended feature of Google Dashboard? Its ability to freak us out. Yes, the concerns have been there from the beginning: ‘Give Google access to every email I send?’ ‘Tell Google where I am?’ ‘Let Google record and transcribe my phone conversations?’ But now, with Dashboard aggregating all of the aspects of our lives that we’ve signed away to Google, it’s hard to just shrug off those concerns as “privacy wonk stuff.”"

To read the rest of the article click here

Ariana Huffington

Lets just bypass how late she was. I thought Arianna Huffington was such an inspiring person. Given how hard hitting her columns are, I was surprised by how sweet she came across. To be honest I was expecting Huffington to be very matter of fact, but it seemed like she was generally pleased to be here and answer our questions. For me, coming from Australia means I don't always have the opportunity of meet such influential people, so it was an amazing experience. The intimate setting and being able to ask her questions one on one was a fantastic opportunity.

So all the praise aside, lets discuss some of the things she spoke about. With so much criticism from traditional media outlets, I really appreciated Huffington's optimism for newspapers. Rather than saying they are doomed, Huffington stressed that journalism will only become stronger with new and old media coming together, sharing their best qualities. While online offers amazing opportunities for multimedia, reach and audience participation, traditional media can offer experience with investigative reporting and other news values.

I really agree with Huffington's answer to the question about whether balance is important. She said not all stories are balanced, and giving equal space to two unequal sides actually skews facts and mislead the audience. I do believe in objectivity in hard news, and I stress the difference between it and balance, I see objectivity as trying to keep your opinion out, but I thought her point that "facts are sacred" was spot on for opinion pieces.

I also thought it was great how Huffington talked about how young journalists are succeeding because of their skills online. It is extremely daunting knowing I will be entering the work force in a few months, so it's nice to know that I still have things to offer when competing with experienced journalists.

But most of all, just hearing and seeing Huffington's passion was of most value. And I'll end on a quote from her, "failure is not the opposite to success. It's the stepping stone to success" - a line I think young journalists should remind themselves of.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free

Simon Dumenco predicts the future in the article “Life After the Pay Wall: Ignorance Ain't Bliss After All” for the Advertising Age.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free. Michael Wolff, founder of the news-aggregation site Newser, is in prison, the first high-profile casualty of the 2011 anti-aggregation law. To avoid punishment the Huffington Post has turned into an Arianna Huffington fan-fiction site – and has better traffic than ever. It’s an era where news is luxury, where a yearly subscription to the New York Times cost $7,000. Mobsters are now trafficking pay-wall passwords because it’s more lucrative than counterfeit handbags. All paid-news consumers have to agree to a "Premium Content Code of Honor" that prohibits them from sharing news with non-subscribers. And shock horror, Fox News is now The Glenn Beck Channel.

Times publisher compares the newspaper to the Titanic

New York Magazine recently asked the New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, his advice for young people wanting to get into journalism. Here is his response:

"Um, what I would tell them is the industry is in the midst of a massive transition. But the core of the fundamental job is critical. We have to re-create ourselves, but the heart of what we're going to re-create is still journalism. The way people get information is changing, but the need for information will remain constant."

I think his response is spot on. Instead of going into the "bloggers are ruining traditional media," poor us, territory, Sulzberger acknowledges that it is traditional media that needs to change to please consumers. I also like that he points out that the need for information isn't changing, that the public aren't just simply giving up on reading the news.

He also uses a great analogy for the fate of physical newspaper:

"What was the critical flaw to the Titanic?," he asked NY Magazine. "Even if the Titanic came in safely to New York Harbor, it was still doomed. Twelve years earlier, two brothers invented the airplane."

The Washington Post is in for some competition

The Huffington Post got hold of a memo from Politico's publisher, Robert Allbritton, announcing to Politico staff that he is launching a local DC news site that is hoping to compete with the Washington Post. I wonder how the Post will feel about the new competitor being run by former Washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady?

The memo says that they will be merging "the current WJLA.com and News8.net websites into a site whose aim is to set a new standard for media coverage of local news, with a staff of more than 50 people."

Read the rest of the memo on the Huffington Post here.

"the age of the amafessional" - Wall Street Journal

Despite using the questionable term "amafessional," this article on bloggers for the Wall Street Journal is surprisingly positive. While acknowledging the threat they pose to almost all professions, the writer says that bloggers, with their talents, are providing trained professionals with some strong competition. The article ends on this note:

"In recent years we've experienced the growth of the professional class as the nature of work and American aspirations have shifted. But now come the amafessionals, who could produce even greater growth."

Side note: The article quotes a recent op-ed in the New York Times saying that the "shuttering of Gourmet [magazine] reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up." - Harsh