In a very comprehensive article Extra, extra, read all about it - or, sadly, not @ Comment, John Ibbitson covers the woes of the current pulp media –

That’s about to change. Across the United States, newspaper revenues are declining, along with circulation. As the American economy totters on the edge of recession, those declines are becoming precipitous and more pronounced than elsewhere. The Newspaper Association of America reports that classified newspaper advertising shrank by 16.5 per cent in 2007.

Circulation declines are also accelerating: Nationwide, newspaper circulation as of March 31 was down 3.6 per cent from the same time the year before; the year before that, it was down only 2.1 per cent. The Standard & Poor’s Publishing & Printing Index is declining at three times the rate of decline of the S&P 1500.

The Sunday edition of The New York Times is arguably the best newspaper in the world. Its circulation has declined almost 10 per cent in the past year alone, although part of the reason was management’s decision to cut back on discounted papers.

We have covered that before of course no new news there. But what will survive/replace the pulp media?

Small town Editions

More on Pulp is Dead, Its Just Not Buried

Well just read it. No excuse for this is all I can say.

JUNE 5–A technology billionaire was a drug fiend who trafficked in cocaine, Ecstasy, and methamphetamine, spiked the drinks of business associates and employees, hired prostitutes for himself and others, and maintained several narcotics dens, including one in an underground lair at his Los Angeles mansion, prosecutors charge. In a remarkable federal indictment unsealed today in Los Angeles, Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III is portrayed as an out-of-control wild man who scored drug caches for Super Bowl parties and rock festivals and had his dealer invoice him for these illicit purchases. A copy of the felony drug conspiracy indictment against Nicholas, who is reportedly worth about $2 billion, can be found below. The 48-year-old Nicholas, who was charged with securities fraud in a separate U.S. District Court case, allegedly “used threats of physical violence and death and payments of money to attempt to conceal his unlawful conduct,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege that, in June 2002, Nicholas and Broadcom entered into a $1 million settlement agreement with an employee who was aware of the executive’s “unlawful narcotics activity.” The hefty payout, which Broadcom covered, contractually prevented the employee from speaking about Nicholas’s drug abuse. The billionaire apparently did little to conceal his drug transactions. On one occasion, in the lobby of Broadcom’s southern California headquarters, he directed a Broadcom employee to provide cash to a courier “in exchange for an envelope containing controlled substances,” the indictment charges. During a drug-fueled 2001 flight on a private plane–during which Nicholas allegedly used and distributed narcotics–the pilot was forced to don an oxygen mask due to the “marijuana smoke and fumes.” According to a March 2008 Forbes story, Nicholas, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion, is ranked 677 on the list of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

Somebody gets a couple of billion in their pockets and the next thing you know they want to blow most of it up their nose. But it could explain the erratic behavior of BroadCom in some ways eh?

The whole thing here.

Arun Sarin is stepping down as head cheese at Voda, effective July. Vittorio Colao will be the successor to Arun. It will be interesting to see if this change of leadership makes any changes to the Verizon Wireless - Voda relationship. –

Vodafone Group Plc will say goodbye to its fearless leader. After five years as CEO, Arun Sarin is retiring at the end of July. Vittorio Colao will take his place; Colao has been with Vodafone for almost two years, coming on as head of the carrier’s European business.

During Sarin’s stint with Vodafone he oversaw the acquisition of Hutchison Essar in India, the largest foreign investment made in the country, and expanded Vodafone into emerging markets including Romania, Czech Republic and Turkey.

More at RCR.

Parsons who is the current head of Time Warner has indicated that he will most likely leave that post by the end of the year. So another of the old guard are leaving the telcom fold. At this rate we might have to start a ‘Dead Pool’ website just to keep up with all the failed careers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc Chairman Richard Parsons said he is likely to step down in the next year, clearing the path for Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes to assume the role.

During opening remarks at the media company’s annual shareholders meeting in Atlanta, Parsons told shareholders he would be unlikely to still be its chairman by the time of the 2009 annual meeting.

“This is my last shot at this,” Parsons said. “I will be the outgoing chairman after this year, probably.”

He added: “The company is sound. The problems we had when I became CEO are behind us.”

Time Warner Inc shareholders also approved the company’s slate of 12 directors at its annual meeting, but failed to agree to a proposal to require that the roles of chairman and chief executive be split, according to preliminary results, the company said Friday.

I will only add that the problems in the board room might be solved but the problems to the customer base remain.

Linky.

At least the author of this piece thinks so here. To be quite honest, I have thought many in the IT business have infantile minds so maybe HS is a valid observation. Be that as it may, Ballmer having been rebuffed by Yahoo is now gunning for FaceBook? —

Which seems exactly the way to view the action these days around the Microsoft-Yahoo ordeal. Today’s news: Steve Ballmer has put out “feelers” about buying Facebook in the wake of ending his pursuit of Yahoo. Let’s parse the Reuters story with this perspective in mind.

Microsoft gauged Facebook’s interest in a possible acquisition after the software giant’s failed takeover attempt of Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Steve, frustrated and hurt after being spurned by Yahoo, got out the yearbook, found the most popular girl of the moment, and decided to go for her whether he really wanted to or not.

The newspaper reported on its website that Microsoft’s bankers put out subtle signals to Facebook, the social networking website, to see if it would be open to a full acquisition. Steve didn’t want to be rejected again, so he got his friends to feel out her interest.

So one has to ask what is Microsoft’s motive for either of the acquisitions? The Yahoo attempt made some sense as they had a revenue stream and a vehicle for internet ad space. But Facebook? Yes they have some of the largest eyeballs on the planet but their revenue architecture is leveraged by Google/Yahoo. Were MS to use FaceBook and their own service they face a big revenue hit up front before growth is realized by ad buyers to the MS platform. So if MS just hell bent to buy somebody? ANYBODY?

Did Ballmer even earn a ‘letter’ when he was in HS?

Addendum: This posting from the psumptive mouth of Bill tends to confirm my observation of a Buy Anybody mindset. –

From way over in Indonesia, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates let it be known that Microsoft never needed to buy Yahoo to make headway in search and advertising. It just kind of wanted to.

“We have always felt we could do very well on our own and now that’s the path we are focused on,” Gates told AP in Jakarta on Friday. “The standard strategy for us is to just hire great engineers and surprise people at how well we can compete, even with a company that’s got a strong lead.”

Linky.

Consumerist has a very interesting set of internal memos regarding the handling the discounts and offers that were provided by Verizon as an inducement to consumers to buy into FIOS. It appears that at best Verizon marketing does not get the word to the Retail Operations side as to when/where/what is available to offer consumers. That is compounded by the fact in many markets Verizon is using 3rd party door to door representation to get sales. Those 3rd parties are making offers in many cases that are not even valid the moment they are uttered.

Details here.

I wish to call attention to one item in the Consumerist article. –

‘ Mr Bonomo also said that there were ‘a number of inaccuracies’, but failed to identify any. All he did was state that customers entitled to the tv will get them, and acknowledges that delivering the set would take some time, and we said that as a part of the promotion.’

Let me tell you how easy it is for Verizon to solve this. Verizon does business with an IT supplier , SHI Inc. They one of the top 3 IT suppliers in the country. Think of them as CDW on steriods. Great company, excellent service. I have done business with them FOR Verizon. All Mr. Bonomo has to do is forward them the list of recipients and a funded purchase order and SHI will do the rest. Literally. I have pushed $5m programs thru them and it was that easy. Monthly reports, delivery notices and an assigned sales person to handle it.

That’s how simple it can be Mr. Bonomo.

See this guy on the left? Does he look happy to you? At a minimum he has that “What the HELL happen….!?” look about him. You know, the youngish exec, rocket star, who finally traipses out of the bubble and gets hand slapped by reality –

“Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview,” said Jason Pontin on Twitter. “Poor girl, flirtatiously awful tho’ she was.”

A quick search for “Zuckerberg” on Twitter search service Tweetscan reveals hundreds of posts written by those who witnessed the disastrous interview.

After some more shouted remarks, Lacy turned the microphones over to the members of the audience, challenging them to come up with better questions. Attendees rushed to the microphones and got right to it, asking Zuckerberg about privacy, data portability and requesting tools to help manage the growing flood of information on their Facebook profiles.

Blogger Robert Scoble offered his observations over Twitter: “The audience is asking Zuckerburg better questions than Lacy did.”

Her attempt at a friendly interview derailed, Lacy retreated to the role of moderator.

At least one heckler thought the backlash was because of Lacy’s gender instead of her questions. MyBlogLog founder Eric Marcoullier, who twittered a few swipes against Lacy during the talk, told Wired.com after the keynote that Lacy’s gender might have been behind the reaction of the geeky masses.

“I think some of the there’s some degree of sexism,” he said. “Because she’s a chick, her ingratiating nature is taken as ass-kissing. If it were some guy at Forbes asking the same questions in the same manner, we just would have thought he was drawing Mark out.”

There were some eye-opening moments during the talk, like when Zuckerberg addressed the issue of Beacon, Facebook’s advertising platform which launched to much controversy when media outlets decried it as an invasion of privacy. “We probably got a little ahead of ourselves,” Zuckerberg admitted. He talked about Yahoo’s bid for Facebook, confirming publicly for the first time the $1 billion offer price. Zuckerberg also touched on Microsoft’s investment in his company and fielded questions about the site’s application platform.

This twist of events happened at the SXSW conference down in Austin. As to sexism, well you know after that first round of Iowa television debates with ‘that woman’ moderator it is conclusive that some women just aren’t good with the hardball. Not saying women can’t learn the hardball trait; just watch Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer at work. They can slice and dice with the best of them. But men learn the road of hard knocks early and learn how to dish it out as a defensive requirement of survival.

To Zuckerberg. Here was a man clearly unprepared. Not that he does not know Facebook. But it is clear that the people under him are shielding him from the realities of the Facebook customer base. That is never good in any company of any size. Some filtering yes, but I think Zuckerberg is getting the fertilizer treatment. [You know it. Company produces a crap product. yada, yada. The memo that hits the CEO’s desk says– “Great fertilizer with improved growth!!”] I bet there will be some process changes at Facebook in the coming weeks on that score.

Well a commentator over at Public Knowledge says –

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Monday hearing in Cambridge, Mass., will be a reality check about how control of the Internet can be accomplished, by whom, and what the consequences will be.

Commissioners will have the chance to question, in public, representatives of businesses that could be affected by Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent and to make Comcast defend itself in the face of live criticism from those who know the Internet best. Comcast and the FCC will have to tell David Reed, who originated the “end to end” architecture idea for the Internet why it’s better to have Comcast and other network operators take control, rather than users and content suppliers. BitTorrent will note how the technology is going mainstream, used by such respectable customers as NASA.

We can certainly hope that it is the case. A little blood letting is always good for the tyrant(s). But I suspect that this will be more of a talking head kind of affair. Why? Well consider two facts –

1) The two antagonists Comcast vs Bittorret are on two seperate panels between 2 time intervals. You would really want the have those two representative on the panel at the same time.

2) Bittorrent is not a carrier but a tool. So how does that fit in a discussion from the FCC view as it relates to network management. Bittorrent is not a practice but the cause for having one. Bittorrent will not manage the network. Also keep in mind that Bittorrent is already making moves to defeat the current network mgt tools deployed by Comcast.

Mr. Brodsky, wish this was going to be an a ‘effective’ meeting but I am afraid it is going to be a droll CYA type discussion. The speaker alignment swages against it.

Linky.

‘maddog’ Hall is one of a rare breed of individual. Like Stallman, Torvaldals and Cerf who have made our digital life possible. What distinguishes maddog from most is his penchant for not offering interviews even though he is a prolific writer. Well here is a rare glimpse of the man, in full plumage. [on the right] –

Click To Play

Download Ogg Theora

For most of you Windows users you will need to download the appropriate OGG player. Mplayer is a good choice as they provide the CODEC with the package.

I met ‘maddog’ at a symposium in Philadelphia when we were both very much younger than we are today. He is a fervent Open Source proponent. But unlike Stallman has a keen business sense of how FOSS fits in an overall business plan.

Linky.

Meg Whitman, current CEO pulls the golden parachute March 31. Donahoe is already named as her successor. Interesting we don’t get the usual ‘more time with family’ nonsense. Instead we get –

“Ten years is about the right amount of time for a CEO to serve in this industry,” Whitman said on a conference call this afternoon. “It’s important that new perspective and new eyes come to the company. It’s tough to stay fresh, no matter who you are.”

eBay still makes bundles of cash. eBay also epitomizes many attributes of a ThirdPipe firm — virtual, cost reducer and expanding the little guy. But on a personal note I lost interest in eBay when the eStores became a dominant component of the listings. I used to use eBay to find those parts and pieces I could not find anywhere else. Yes I can still do that but the person to person feel is gone. Plus I have to wade thru 4-8 screens of 26 sellers all hawking a windup phone all within pennies of each other in price. I don’t have the time for such foolishness.

I hope that the new CEO will return eBay to its roots.

Linky.