I found this video that I thought was funny.

Supposedly, it is two AT&T executives discussing net neutrality.

Another magazine has folded last week.

This time, it’s National Geographic’s Adventure magazine. The National Geographic Society has been trying to sell the magazine but eventually decided just to fold it. Along with this new magazine death, there were also seventeen layoffs.

More and more magazines are dying. If the current ones that are alive plan to survive, they really need to start thinking of ways to keep their readers and their sales up. They should really consider the online newsstand, where there are digital copies of magazines for sale, much like the iTunes system.

Personally, I don’t really read magazines. When I do, I usually only read entertainment magazines like People or Touch (sad but true). If I subscribed to magazines, I would probably consider reading them online. But I would still prefer a hard copy. The people behind the online newsstand need to consider that their situation is similar to that of the newspaper. Some newspaper sites are charging for content but there’s always going to be another site where people can get information for free. Depending on the topic of the magazine, it goes for them as well. If there’s an online copy of US Weekly that people need to pay for, they may not necessarily pay for it when they can get that same information elsewhere (i.e. perezhilton.com)

Things are not looking up so far for print journalism…

If you’re into sports, you’ll be happy to know this:

Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated is in the midst of developing a digital version of their magazine for the tablet computers that are coming next year. The digital issues will have everything that the hard copies of the magazine will have, but more:

“Readers will have options they don’t get in print, like re-ordering and sorting the contents of the magazine, posting comments, pulling up related content from previous digital issues, getting alerts on live sports events, seeing tweets on the subject at hand and summoning relevant stats. The issues may even include games people can play that are tied to live sports events they’re watching on TV.”

I think this is a great idea. If other magazines want to survive in the future, they should do this as well or at least something similar. I wouldn’t mind not physically flipping the pages since I would be getting more content than a paper version.

This would definitely solve that whole paper cut issue.

So Professor Selvin had asked us a couple of weeks ago to blog about our thoughts on the class. It JUST occured to me that I never posted anything about it. Better late than never so here it is:

I like that the class mixes journalism and business into one (I’m a business major, what do you expect?) It let’s us see both sides of the story.

One of the things I find most interesting are the presentations. The website analysis and corporate histories show me things that I probably would never have looked at on my own. However, I don’t like the news briefings. They seem repetitive since they are already the stories we read on our own. I always thought it was a nice thing to come to class and learn something I didn’t already know before.

I liked the guest speakers. Listening to successful journalism people speak about what it is that they do is somewhat inspiring. It gives me hope that one day, if I ever do decide to pursue a career in journalism, there may be something out there for me. MAYBE.

Well, that’s my two cents!

It’s been seven months since the Seattle Post Intelligencer has been shut down. 140 people were left without a job.

Here are some statistics that I found interesting from a blog from savethenews.org

• 23 have new fulltime jobs for an employer, half working in journalism and the rest in corporate or nonprofit communications, business, etc.
• 3 are working part-time for an employer and 6 started their own businesses
• 18 are freelancing (blogs, photography) or working on journalism start-ups (Post-Globe, InvestigateWest) and collecting unemployment
• 14 are in school, including 10 who are also on unemployment. Studies include education, web design, marketing, paralegal, art
• 4 said a combination of unemployment/jobhunting/parenting while two retired and one has a journalism fellowship

To see the blog, click here

For years and years (or at least as long as I can remember), AOL has had that same triangle looking logo. But next month, there is going to be some changes. First, it will be spun off from Time Warner. They’re also getting rid of their old logo. And instead of “AOL” it will be “Aol.” complete with the period.

The reason for the new look is because they want to attract customers. The logo will be constant but there will be ever-changing background against the Aol. image. Most backgrounds have to deal with things that fly or float, such as falcons and balloons. This “suggests the breadth of their content.”

I don’t think changing the logo will do anything for AOL. For one thing, I don’t even use that e-mail account or the search engine for that matter, and I don’t know of anybody who does. AOL is old news. Google, Yahoo! and now bing.com are the new “it” thing.

To see some of their new background images, click here.

Up until now, Hulu has been a joint online venture with NBC, Fox and ABC that just basically offered free television shows.

But now, they are planning to offer music videos. They are making a deal with EMI, a small record label company to allow Norah Jones to have her own channel on the site. They plan to keep adding artists if it is successful.

YouTube should be scared right now. They don’t even offer full episodes of television shows or movies, but Hulu does. And Hulu is now venturing into music. Who knows what’s next? Maybe someday it will be bigger than YouTube. When this new deal goes through, people will be able to view music videos on the Hulu site. It seems that day by day, this site is getting bigger and better.

Step aside, MTV. There’s a new show in town.

YouTube is launching something called YouTube Direct where TV and online news editors can get footage shot by “citizen journalists.”

NPR, the Huffington Post, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle and several Boston television stations are just several that are testing the waters with this new service.

Basically, anybody with a video camera can now be a journalist. If you happen to be at an event and something you think newsworthy occurs, you can post it onto this new YouTube site. Then, who knows? It could appear on the 10 o’clock news.

This is the future of the news industry. If you rewind time back a few years, there was no such thing as a citizen journalists. Now, we have sites like pro-publica and people are doing their own reporting. This is where there’s a problem. With sites like YouTube Direct, anybody can shoot a video. It can be a staged video and there is no way of telling whether or not the author is recording a real event or if he is using props and actors. Then if trusted news outlets start using it, they too could lose credibility.

I’m not sure I like this whole sending in your own video thing. If all news outlets use this system in a couple of years, how would we know who to trust?

In a recent October online survey, it was discovered that only 48 percent of Americans are willing to pay for online news.

Well, Americans should start adjusting because the future of online journalism just may mean paying for a subscription. Many sites already charge a fee, such as the Wall Street Journal. According to Rupert Murdoch, “Quality journalism is not cheap.”

And Murdoch is 100 percent correct. If people expect quality journalism, they should expect to pay, especially when the news industry is struggling. It ties into the saying that nothing in this world is free.

Also in the study, it was discovered that about 60 percent of people in other countries such as Britain and Australia would be willing to pay for online news. They’re more willing than Americans to pay. Aside from that, the survey also showed that Americans are only willing to pay at most $3, while Europeans would pay at most $7.

This shows that Americans are used to getting their content for free, whether its television shows, music or news. We have Hulu.com, and numerous peer to peer programs where you can download music for free.

But all that will change soon. We may have to start paying for online news sooner than you might think.

Well for starters, I actually am graduating in December which really scares me. But that’s a whole other story.

If I become a journalist, I would like to have a career in broadcasting. The reason why I am interested is because I am currently taking the Broadcast Journalism class. I learned the basics and actually get to go outside and shoot footage with a real video camera. One of the assignments was to make a short voice over on the campus landscaping. In order to do so, I had to write a script and go out and shoot different landscaping scenes. After that, I had to put everything together so that it looked like it would go into a television news program.

I would rather do broadcast than print or photo journalism because I feel like video would better capture a story.

However, since I am not looking to be a journalist (my major is business management – marketing), I am looking for a job in advertising.

I wish I could stay in college forever! (well, not really….)