Notable Quotable

"I just don't believe the economics of a paywall are going to work, unless your content is unique, highly differentiated, difficult to duplicate. As good as I believe our content is, if there are reasonable substitutes available for free it's tough to get people to pay."

-- Randy Michaels, CEO of Tribune Co. (WSJ, 7/26/10)

Notable Quotable

"Communication tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of a tool doesn't create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It's when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming,"

-- Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Shirky wrote this in regards to the Web, broadcast television, radio and the telephone. Is the iPad going to join that list someday?

Notable Quotable

"It boils down to something simple: readers (or viewers or listeners) collectively know more than media professionals do. This is true by definition: they are many, and we are often just one. We need to recognize and, in the best sense of the word, use their knowledge. If we don't, our former audience will bolt when they realize they don't have to settle for half-baked coverage; they can come into the kitchen themselves."

-- Dan Gillmor, We the Media

Hmm ... not sure I completely agree with this idea but I see where he's going with it.

Notable Quotable

"There's something fundamentally important about being supported by the community you're covering,"

-- Mary Morgan, publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, a two-person website focused on local government in Ann Arbor, MI.