Touts

“…I’m a little surprised that Patch’s expansion hasn’t received more, well, notes of concern among traditional local news organizations and journalism startups”. Bergman talks about the posting of 300 new jobs and the “veritable carpet-bombing run of new local and hyperlocal news sites”.

We hear about mobile, about using analytics, about learning from other media and, of course, lots on metering. That makes sense: A new Strib board member is Gordon Crovitz, a co-founder of Journalism Online, whose Press+-based metering approach will get a good test this year. If you could get a dollar for each of Klingensmith’s mention of “moving the dials,” you’d have a profitable morning.

In some sense, just as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, though still printed on newsprint, are no longer the same category of newspaper companies as the Philadelphia Inquirer or San Francisco Chronicle, neither is the Inquirer or the Chronicle really in the same business as the El Dorado News-Times or the Norwalk Reflector. The fact that they are all in still in newsprint no longer defines them; their size of market and audience, its scale and uniqueness does.

One quite timely addition to our daily Romenesko reading is Poynter Institute’s new Mobile Media blog, ably edited by Damon Kiesow, managing editor for online at the Nashua Telegraph, and Regina McCombs, a Poynter faculty member. The blog launched earlier this year — just in time for tabletmania. Great daily point of reference on the news biz and all things not PC.

Is the FTC looking at the trinity of Google’s ad play: Paid Search (AdWords) + Online Display (DoubleClick, acquired in 2007) + Mobile (Ad Mob, acquired in November)….Digital media aren’t bought silo by silo; they are bought to reach a set of would-be customers, across platforms and ad type.

You can see how public media is finally forging long-overdue connections: NPR, Frontline and PBS, and now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is putting money into local online news. That’s a potent combination brewing.

At long last — and thanks to all of you who pushed the magic “make this book available on the Kindle” button – “Newsonomics”, the book, is now up on the Kindle. And a bargain at that: $14.29, and no shipping. Also updated: the iPhone Newsonomics app, in the iTunes store — for free.

For all of us, as consumers and readers, we just need places to keep our stuff, organized well and the ability to connect up all parts of our work, family, financial and social lives. We don’t really want to be owned by anyone, but we’ve got to put that stuff somewhere, and that somewhere is increasingly in the cloud. Who owns the cloud(s)? That’s almost a metaphysical question, and one clearly unanswerable today.

The Stranger, out of Seattle, offers up a longish, but winning “The Great West Coast Newspaper War,” in part describing the mano a mano battle of Guardian editor Bruce Brugmann, now 74, and VVM impresario Mike Lacey, now 61, quoting one source calling the opponents “last two tyrant-osaurs.”

* Home broadband usage is up to 63% in 2010 compared to 5% in 2000
* 50% use “the cloud”, compared to 10% 10 years ago.