Daily Archives: July 8, 2006

Krugle is a new search engine for coders (via John Battelle). What’s most interesting, is that rather than take you to a page where you’re going to find the code and see it in action, the search results are the actual code itself. If you go there, try a search for “DHTML menu” and you’ll see what I mean.

For hard core coders who can read JavaScript like the rest of us read Hemingway, this is probably need no big deal. Me, I want to see my code in action before I hassle with putting it on my own page. A site like Dynamic Drive does that.

The other item of interest is that the site frames all its search results, so I can’t link to a search query for you. The actual sites are also framed, so you can’t bookmark your newly acquired favorite page. A bit nicer feature is how anything you click on becomes part of a tabbed menu.

Code writers must like this sort of search engine, though. There’s already Koders.com.

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There are nine good bloggers in Bakersfield. Seven is is leaving.

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Jay Small introduces us to Greg Sterling. Small calls the blog “a must-read for anyone following local search, directory and content businesses.” The introduction is part of Small’s post on the salient topic of new media advertising:

The space for ad messages online is cheap. Content adjacencies for ads online seem to add very little value compared to offline media. The distribution of ad messages online is cheap and getting cheaper. It’s hard to make money if that’s all you sell. Unfortunately, newspaper ad staffs are accustomed to selling space, adjacency and distribution. We must get past that.

I agree with Small that price points need not fall below sustainable levels, but the hard part is going to be to get there.

Follow the link above to Jay, read his post, then read Greg’s post.

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C.W. Nevius has more on the turmoil in Santa Barbara. The conclusion:

McCaw and the News-Press look like small time operators, who think they can turn a public trust into a country club newsletter. Roberts and the editors come across as paragons of journalism, standing up to bad bosses, censorship, and dumb editing. And everyone else around the country gets a good laugh.

One of the reasons I had heard that people wanted to work in SB was the fact that Jerry Roberts was the editor. Not only is Roberts now gone, a whole swath of potential hires have reason to suspect quality journalism is apparently under valued at the News-Press. That seems like it might hurt recruitment, which can’t really be good for the long-term health of the paper.

I once sat in a meeting with a publisher who told us that he could “get any mother off the street” to come in and write news stories. That newspaper is now out of business and, as far as I know, that publisher is out of newspapering.

The funny thing is, a lot of “mothers off the street” are part of media now, being part of that group we call the former audience, but I don’t think my old publisher quite had citizen media in mind when he made that statement.

Newspapers are community trusts. I consider the owners, whether public or private, as temporary trustees. The real owner is the community. And if you break trust with the community, the community will turn on you, or worse, forget you.

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