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Future of news Online news

Peek inside one of Texas’ online news startups

Mike Orren, founder of Pegasus News, talks to The Convergence Newsletter about the operation and how they’re using data and citizen journalism to run what they call a local news portal. Pegasus is pretty popular here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and it’s worth checking out if you’ve never done so before. Pegasus runs on some high-end software on the back end, but there are certainly some concepts that community newspapers could employ using free online tools.

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Future of news

Unlike the auto industry, newspapers can make a comeback

Alan Mutter (the same person who’s pitching an industry-owned ad venture) has an interesting analysis of newspapers’ cost structure on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, and points out that changing that cost structure could be the key to the industry’s comeback. Mutter is advocating a hybrid printed product that involves targeted, niche products combined with innovative online products. His plan is certainly easier to implement for small, community newspapers.

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Future of news Online news

Is Google a ‘market disruptor’ or ‘market destroyer’?

Rafe Needleman’s piece on Google’s business practices it quite interesting. He dissects the many industries Google has touched, and shows that journalism isn’t the only industry that has had the rug pulled out from under it by the Internet. On Needleman’s list: journalism (of course), telecommunications, computer operating systems, e-mail and advertising.

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Future of news Online news Social media

Creating news as a “user experience”

Cindy Royal, a faculty member at Texas State University in San Marcos, has a great piece in Online Journalism Review about how news organizations can create “user experiences” on their websites. Some of her examples, such as the New York Times products she references, may seem out of reach for community newspapers, but many of them are very easy to do with free online tools that are already out there.

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Future of news Page design

Can Design Save the Newspaper?

This comes from Steven Bridges at Goldthwaite, a thought-provoking video, “Can Design Save the Newspaper?”