A few interesting articles didn't make it into today's Online Publishing Update (it was already getting kind of long). But these articles are still worth a peek this week. (If you would like to join the Digital Media Federation and start receiving the OPU, go here to sign up!)

All of these are somehow related to social networking and/or the changing (multi-)media landscape:

Blogs Can Top the Presses (The Los Angeles Times): Reporters for the blog Talking Points Memo, who broke the story about the firing of U.S. Attorneys, "used the usual tools of good journalists everywhere — determination, insight, ingenuity — plus a powerful new force that was not available to reporters until blogging came along: the ability to communicate almost instantaneously with readers via the Internet and to deputize those readers as editorial researchers, in effect multiplying the reporting power by an order of magnitude," The Los Angeles Times reported.

All the World's a Story (The New York Times): For the new Jay Rosen/Wired Magazine project Assignment Zero, "the largest share of the reporting is the responsibility to folks who simply raised their hands," The New York Times reported. “This is an experiment in doing things differently, and maybe better. It doesn’t invalidate the way things have been done, but it allows us to bring in some nontraditional sources and approaches,” said Wired Editor Chris Anderson in the article.

Obama Ad Hints at Things to Come in Cyberpolitics (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer): An apparently amateur-produced video, designed to bring attention to Barack Obama's presidential campaign (but seemingly produced by someone unaffiliated with Obama's camp), has "dramatized a brave new world in which passionate activists outside the structure of traditional campaigns have the power to shape the message -- even for a presidential candidate," The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Monday.

The ad is proof that "anybody can do powerful emotional ads ... and the campaigns are no longer in control," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a political advocacy group for the Democratic party. "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th-century broadcast model."

In a Crowded Online Field, It's More Than a Pet Project (The Washington Post): Pet-related social networking and information site AnimalAttraction.com is competing in a crowded online market, according to The Washington Post. But Juper Research Analyst Emily Riley said the can make money with quality members and content. "About 8 percent of online users use niche networks, such as pet owners," Riley said, adding that AnimalAttraction's current roster of 50,000 members is "small . . . not bad, but not enough to make advertising cover costs."

AnimalAttraction.com founder Dan Cohen said, "Our membership threshold to be highly profitable is much less than a general mass market site because we're able to sell advertising to pet industry companies for 30 to 40 times the rates that a general mass market site charges its advertisers."

New York Times media and business columnist David Carr wrote, "The Web has transformed a lot of things, including journalism, turning it into a self-cleaning and occasionally overheated oven. Those of us who perpetrate journalism know in our hearts that it is a craft, not a profession, one that requires a finite set of skills to do competently and a lot of passion to do well."