Barnako.com

Wi-Fi on planes not grounded yet

Panasonic is hoping to capitalize on Boeing's (BA) decision to shut down its Connexion business.  David Bruner, the head of strategic marketing for Panasonic Aviation Corp., told an industry magazine he's already got commitments from airlines for 150 airplanes to continue the in-flight Internet service. 

Bruner told  Shepard Inflight-Online his goal is 500 aircraft in 60 days. "We have a complete system designed, developed, and ready to go." Bruner said. Lufthansa and SAS are Connexion customers, accounting for about 80 planes. 

Panasonic is offering "preferential pricing" to airlines which agree to a five-year commitment to carry the service.  Bruner was quoted saying Panasonic was targeting a cost to the airlines of about $10 to $15 a day.  "That's a little easier to swallow than the $27, or whatever, Connexion wholesaled service to airlines at," said Wifinetnews.com.

Wired's Wiki experiment

Wired News is using a Wiki to produce a story about Wikis.  Wikis are Web sites that allow anyone to add, edit, or change information to a document online.

Written by Ryan Singel, the story has been available for review this week.  Almost 150 changes have been made by people who have registered.  He is responding to suggestions and criticism, and willing to do additional research.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do the job of a Wired News editor and whip it into shape,” explained Wired on its site. “Don't change the quotations, but feel free to reorganize it, make cuts, smooth the prose, or add links -- whatever it takes to make it a lively, engaging news piece," Wired instructed. "We'll release the edited story if the whole thing doesn't turn into a disaster ... on Wired News on September 7th."

Wired magazine's editor in chief, Chris Anderson, thinks Wired's online side is onto something.  In an interview, he said Wikis are "super-powerful" because they "tap the collective intelligence," encouraging collaboration and discussion. 

When writing The Long Tail, Anderson posted chapters online as he turned them out, inviting comments and advice.  He got it, and believes he produced a better book, “which I wrote on my laptop at Starbucks as God intended me to."

Anderson hinted there may be more "open source" journalism experiments from Wired. "I'm drawn to the transparency and showing we're not omniscient."

Listen to comments from Chris Anderson.

Online journalism award finalists named

USATODAY.com (GCI), MSNBC, the Star Tribune, The New York Times (NYT) and the Washington Post (WPO) have been nominated for the "General Excellence in Online Journalism" award at the upcoming convention of the Online News Association. The conference will be held in Washington, DC October 6th and 7th. The finalists in 18 categories were announced today.

New to the competition this year is the Knight Public Service Award, recognizing digital journalism that makes a difference to people where they live. Each of the finalists efforts include substantial examples of multi-media news coverage. Nominated were: “Hurricane Katrina: The Storm We Always Feared,” NOLA.com, “Toxic Legacy,” The Record," “Fire Alarm,” Newsday, and “Mortgage Fraud: The new street hustle,” Chicago Tribune, “Hurricane Katrina,” Sun Herald

Here’s a list of all the finalists.

Danny Sullivan quits

Mike Arrington ... Om Malik ... Bob Scoble ... Steve Gillmor ... now Danny Sullivan.  Guys with tech savvy, smarts, and ambition who decided to stop measuring their success with a company's W-2's and pay stubs.

Sullivan announced he's outta Search Engine Watch in about 90 days.  He explains how the business was sold, without him getting even a taste of the price,  "I wasn't going to help this new company grow the business out of the sheer kindness of my heart," he said.  He told the new owners how he felt, and a year later, he still has no "incentive for helping them to continue to grow."  So, Danny says, "I'm departing."  Taking with him ten years of experience, contacts, history and skill - which you can bet he will put to work for himself - just like Mike and Om and Bob and Steve have done.

After years of watching other people, these guys decided to get off the sidelines.  Their blogs gave them the platform from which to launch.  It's no secret that one reason companies have to be wary of encouraging blogging is that the writers can become "brands" too, the good ones.  Tom Peters recognized this almost 10 years ago.  Now another smart blogger is getting into the game.

And here's another angle to this.  Sullivan blogged about his decision.  Now, Incisive Media has a bit of a p-r problem, doesn't it - thanks to the blogosphere.  Any advice from Steve Rubel?

NFL teams set to sell Sirius shares

Bloomberg via the NY Post reports, "Vonage Holdings Corp. (VG) Chairman Jeffrey Citron bought $1.26 million of the Internet phone company's stock for less than $7 a share."  Today the shares are $6.87, just about where he purchased them.

And Sirius '(SIRI)  CEO has bought 2 million shares of his company’s stock this year. Mel Karmazin grabbed half at $4.468 a share at the end of May, another slug in January at $6.20.  Today the shares are $3.92.  That's a "loss" of about $3 million.

Not everyone's buying. 

Five NFL teams have filed to sell almost $2.75 million worth of Sirius stock since March.  The satcaster has had an exclusive deal for a 24/7 NFL channel for two years.  The stock sales were estimated to each be worth about $450,000 to the 49ers, the Rams, the Panthers, and the Falcons.  Dallas, however, was in line for almost $1 million.  In Texas, they do everything bigger.

Live by the Net, die by the Net

In today's WSJ, Aaron Rutkoff reports ways the bloggers jumped on Sen Ted Stevens' lame remarks about how the Internet works. Stevens has been in the Senate 37 years, last elected in 2002.

Digg's $60 million man - Not!

It ain't so, says Kevin Rose. 

On the latest "This Week in Tech" podcast, the founder of Digg.com says he's broke and "can't afford a couch in my new apartment."  Another statement in the Business Week article he disputes is that Digg is profitable.  "Actually Digg isn't even breaking even, so they got that wrong," he said.  "I'm not a multi-millionaire, I'm not a millionaire or even a thousand-aire." Rose saidthat on the day the article was posted on line., he got an e-mail from Goldman Sachs (GS) asking if he needed investment advice.

Why Business Week is a hot book

Update: Business Week's cover story podcast features the writers of the "Valley Boys".

Business Week's latest cover story is about the new "brat pack of Silicon Valley."

The magazine reports how the Web's current golden boy, Kevin Rose, and his two-years-in-the-making Digg.com "social bookmarking" news Web site, has made a lot of money.  Rose's idea is very hot.  So hot, that Time Warner's AOL ripped apart its Netscape.com portal to build a site borrowing many of Digg's ideas.

Others among BW's "new geek elite" include blog-mistress Mena Trott of Six Apart Ltd., Joshua Schachter who sold Del.icio.us to Yahoo for $31 million, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, and the co-founders of a consumer review site, Yelp.com.

It's a good read. But it's more than that. It's evidence of how Business Week has tapped into the new energy on the Web. Week after week, and even daily, the magazine is breaking tech news and offering interesting profiles of equally-interesting people.

Another example is that BW's staffers have been blogging and podcasting for 15 months. While the musical intros to the podcasts of executive editor John Byrne's podcasts tend to be cliches, his debriefings of cover story writers add color and context. My favorite question is, "What do you wish you could have gotten into the story you haven't."

Earlier, Byrne was editor in chief of Fast Company, leaving shortly after it was purchased by the founder of Morningstar. His move to Business Week was actually a homecoming, since he'd been a writer at the magazine for 18 years. MarketWatch's Jon Friedman reported Byrne's trials at FC.

BW also has 13 podcasts, including Heather Green's "Cutting Edge" which this week features an interview with a very hot video blogger, Ze Frank. Throughout the week, Green also blogs Net news.

A few months ago, I e-mailed Green that I liked her podcasts, but that Byrne's monotonous reading of his scripted opens made his shows awkward. But I have to think Byrne is also responsible for some of BW's bear hug on technology news in the magazine world. His FC tenure helped him see its coming importance. Being a bit bored by his voice is a small price to pay for the "editorial" voice that Business Week has brought to tech and Net news.

Now, my confession.  I don't subscribe to Business Week's print edition.  Used to, but now I get it on the Web ... and through its dozens of RSS feeds.  Ray Hennessey recently wrote that for publishers, it's now more about the brand than the delivery medium.  BW gets that.

Disclaimer: I own shares of Time Warner.

 

Don't you hate when this happens?

Patrick Phillips is "transparent" in explaining why his must-read "I Want Media " is ... well, un-readable this morning.

"I spilled coffee on my keyboard, taking my laptop out of commission temporarily. I'm still drinking coffee."

Un-wagging the Long Tail

Is JupiterResearch about to find fault with Chris Anderson's long tail?  Analyst David Card blogs an as-yet-unreleased report snippet saying, "It is not enough to simply say that limitless stocking capacity ... enables greater availability.  One has to prove there is significant demand fore non-blockbuster entertainment ... and that anyone can make money off the tail, without delivering the head also."  Perhaps like the Emperor’s, Anderson’s clothes may be a little ragged. Sounds like some analysts don't think Anderson's made his case.

If so, they're not alone. The editor of Wired gets a "proper Wall Street Journal takedown" from columnist Lee Gomes in today's issue. (That's Anderson's description.)  Gomes cites statistics from two online music services which said the percentage of the inventories that no one plays has increased as much as 600% in the two years since Anderson said Netflix data alerted him to the Long Tail concept.  To Gomes, this suggests Anderson is wrong, or at least premature, in downplaying the importance of hits in sales.  In reply, Anderson blogs that as time passes, trying "to define 'head' and 'tail' is meaningless in a market with unlimited inventory.

Reviews of "The Long Tail" have been generally positive. The Economist and Slate.com have been negative.  Even so the book rose to #1 at Amazon, was in 16th place yesterday and in 19th this morning.