I told myself that, this time, I really wasn’t going to blog about it. As with my recent post on the future of writing, I felt that there is sometimes too much hyperbole about the Web tolling the bell for familiar habits and industries… and that I had done my fair share of furthering the exaggerated panic. This time, though, is a little different.
Newspapers are dying.
This isn’t particularly breaking news: I remember discussing the topic in 2005 during a French class in Paris. The competition for French newspapers like Le Monde at that time was coming mostly from the free alternatives that were available on the street and in the Metro. Several American papers were quick to see this trend, and began to offer a free mini version of their full paper; the Washington Post Express, for example, is popular with commuters in D.C. Today, however, the newspaper industry’s number one enemy is — surprise surprise — the Internet. The speed with which readers are moving from getting their news in print to finding it online is bringing the industry’s predicament to a nasty head.
This is a continuation of year-end posts. As a I said in my music post, I wanted to reflect on (in this case) programs and services that I couldn’t live without in 2008. Some of these debuted in ’08, while others are simply new to me.
Web Services and Software
lala–JRod and I haven’t been bashful in our adoration of this site. There’s a reason: this is an amazing service for music lovers. DRM-free MP3 downloads (note to non-techies: that means you can burn, share, trade, etc at will) for $.89 (paging $.99 iTunes Music Store…), or unlimited streams for $.10 a song. It communicates flawlessly with iTunes, automatically loading newly-downloaded tunes into your library. It also uses Music Mover (a free-standing program) to find the music you already own and make it available anywhere there’s a web connection. My workday is now filled with the joyous sounds of Fleet Foxes and Sigur Ros, and I’m more productive because of it. Amen. (PS–as evidenced in my music post, lala also boasts a simple and great embed tool)
Mint–A great one stop shop for tracking multiple bank accounts, credit cards, and investments. I tried a similar site (Wesabe) for a while, and ultimately brought my personal finances home to roost at Mint. This site has improved remarkably throughout the year, adding much-needed features like the ability to customize categories of purchases, the inclusion of stocks, and student loan tracking. I don’t know that I could live without Mint at this point.
TripIt–Another indispensable addition to my life in 2008. Being in a long-distance relationship necessarily means lots of travel plans. On top of that, my work requires fairly regular time on the road. With TripIt, I simply forward every e-ticket, hotel reservation, and rental car arrangement from my email account to TripIt, and it’s automatically imported into a comprehensive itinerary that I can pull up quickly or print out for reference. I love this site.
GoodReads–Were niche social networks a trend of 2008 or was that “like soooo 2007″ already? In any case, I started using GoodReads in earnest in 2008 and it’s one of the few non-Facebook social networks [did anybody try that Doostang thing?] that holds my attention. GoodReads does one thing (tracks the books you and your friends have read/are reading/want to read) and does it well with a simple interface.
Everybody feels the need to write top 10/15/25/100 lists as the year winds to a close. Some of these lists I find interesting…most I do not. The problem, as I see it, is that so many lists rely on an artificial division in the way most of us consume music, movies, software, or anything else. Many great things/works come out in a given year, but each of us consumes or learns about those things on different schedules. So, my lists this year will be of things that I discovered in 2008. Not necessarily things that came to market this past year, but rather things that I either finally listened to/watched/used or discovered with the rest of the early-adopter-but-not-quite-cutting-edge public. I like to think of this and future lists of ‘What I Couldn’t Do Without in ’08.’
Music comes first. Tunes I couldn’t do without in 2008:
Fleet Foxes–Fleet Foxes. A mellow sound and a singer reminiscent of My Morning Jacket with great harmonies. The whole LP is good, but this song is pretty representative:
Merry Christmas, Tropophilia readers. As my gift to you, I’m sharing my family’s top secret, blow-your-mind, eat a bazillion cookies, gingerbread recipe. I maintain that this is the best holiday cookie recipe you’ll find. Enjoy and thanks for a great first year of Tropophilia!
Me and my brothers (I'm in the overalls), Christmas 1986
Ansley Gingerbread
Ingredients:
2/3 Cup Shortening
1 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
¼ Cup Molasses
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp. Ground Ginger
1 tsp. Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl, mix shortening and sugar. Add egg and molasses to sugar mixture; beat until smooth. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture; mix completely. Chill in refrigerator (at least 3 hours; best overnight).
Roll 1/8” thick slab (on sheet coated in flour or parchment paper); cut into fun shapes and bake atop parchment paper on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.
A few links for you this morning. I put a little cinnamon and nutmeg in my coffee grinder with the coffee beans this morning, so I’m fired up and ready to go. For those of you who are already on vacation…well, have pity on the rest of us. Links!
Duke Energy is facing a Renewable Energy and Efficiency Portfolio standard in NC that mandates 12.5% renewable energy in utilities’ portfolios by 2021. The law is finally pushing Duke to explore creative power generation:
The energy company is proposing to invest $50 million over a two-year period in as many as 425 solar energy arrays atop the rooftops of homes, schools, stores and factories — or on the ground at those properties — to establish a solar distributed generation program. [...]
Under the arrangement, the utility company would install, own, operate and maintain all equipment related to the solar array. The company, rather than the home- or property owner, would also use and own the electricity produced. The customer receives the rent paid for using the rooftop or land, and the compensation is based on the size of the installation.
Here’s a compelling new ad from WeCanSolveIt (Al Gore’s effort). TreeHugger quotes Van Jones: “The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun.”
The Federal government is a huge publisher of information (or, at least, it SHOULD be), but any student of policy or engaged citizen knows what a hassle it can be to search for information on agency websites. A group of cabinet-agency web directors (the Federal Web Managers Council) put together a white paper on online government that many expect the President-elect’s transition team to embrace; after all, during campaign season Obama’s team seemed to really get this stuff. Included in the report [PDF here] is this crucial piece (emphasis mine):
One of the biggest problems we face in improving government websites is that many agencies still view their website as an IT project rather than as a core business function. Many government websites lack a dedicated budget. Only a minority of agencies have developed strong web policies and management controls. Some have hundreds of “legacy” websites with outdated or irrelevant content. With limited resources, many find it difficult to solicit regular customer input and take quick action to improve their sites. While there are many effective government websites, most web teams are struggling to manage the amount of online content the government produces every day. [...]
Agencies should be required to appoint an editor-in-chief for every website they maintain, as do the top commercial websites. This person should be given appropriate funding and authority to
develop and enforce web policies and publishing standards, including ensuring that prime real estate on government websites is dedicated to helping people find the information they need.
Running this gargantuan online network means empowering a vast cadre of managers to do their work – it means giving them the power to make decisions about email and social media, for example. In theory, the Obama apparatus should be great at this. After all, the President-Elect’s operation maintained a keen top-down message throughout the campaign, even while allowing volunteer coordinators to do their thing without running every dash and and RSS feed past the campaign minders.
The Year in Pictures from the Boston Globe photographers is a great wya to spend 10 minutes [Hat Tip: Jarred].
I’m hoping to do some long-overdue music blogging over the holidays. I re-discovered one of my favorite MP3 blogs this weekend while cleaning out my Firefox bookmarks. I followed a number of MP3 blogs a few years ago…this one is apparently one of the few that’s still kicking. Check out the author’s top-25 songs of 2008. I particularly recommend the Anathallo song, which I’ve been listening to on repeat for about 2 weeks. You can also connect with me and Jarred on our favorite music site–Lala.
I told myself that, this time, I really wasn’t going to blog about it. As with my recent post on the future of writing, I felt that there is sometimes too much hyperbole about the Web tolling the bell for familiar habits and industries… and that I had done my fair share of furthering the exaggerated panic. This time, though, is a little different.
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