Over the weekend, I finally finished "Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online," by Anastasia Goodstein. Goodstein (a fellow Medill alum) runs the blog Ypulse: Media for the Next Generation, which focuses on news and commentary for media and marketing professionals interested in reaching teens and twenty-somethings. The book itself is geared primarily toward parents of teenagers who want to understand what their kids are doing online and with other technology (cell phones, iPods, etc.). However, there's plenty of interesting information for media and marketing professionals.

Every six months when the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases statistics (NAA members can get information from NADBase), media critics write essays on how to "save" the newspaper industry. The ABC stats came out in April, and the essays followed. And followed. There were a lot of them this month. I hope these give you something to think about, challenge your own views or give you some good ideas....

I stumbled upon this video about RSS this morning (while, coincidentally, scanning my Bloglines RSS feeds for items for this morning’s Online Publishing Update) on Scott Karp's Publishing 2.0 blog.  

The New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger and President and CEO Janet Robinson spoke at the company shareholders’ meeting yesterday. Both gave some interesting comments about the future of the company’s digital earnings and strategy.

There was an interesting discussion this morning on Howard Owens' blog about whether newspapers should dump resources into podcasts or video -- or both. We say do both -- just do both wisely.  

The online newspaper audience set new records in the first quarter of 2007, according to custom analysis from Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America. Not only is the audience for newspaper Web sites increasing, but also the audience is spending more and more time on the sites.

For those of us who couldn't make it to Orlando, there's plenty online about NAA's Nexpo 2007. The technology and innovation conference started yesterday and continues through Tuesday.

We released a new 'Snapshot' today on the Digital Edge Web site. "Twittering the News" is about Twitter, a social networking/status blogging service that has gotten a lot of positive attention among tech-savvy people. In the past month, a handful of newspaper Web sites have started using it to alert readers to breaking news.'Snapshots' focus on new projects and initiatives on the digital side of newspaper publishing. If your company is launching a new feature or site, please let us know – we may feature your project in an upcoming article. Past articles include The Bakersfield Californian's Inside Guide and the Florida Times-Union's My Clay Sun.

First, I applaud Tribune Co. for venturing into the area of hyperlocal, community journalism and user-generated content at all – so many newspaper companies are still hesitant or dismissive of the hyperlocal trend and are reluctant to allow community members to contribute anywhere outside the editorial pages. But, the first paragraph of the article about the official launch of Triblocal is frustratingly timid in tone.

The Va. Tech tragedy has highlighted a number of ethical questions and issues worth discussing. Among the questions: Where should the disturbing (to put it lightly) video of the Va. Tech shooter go? Or should it have gone anywhere?  

Yesterday on the Digital Edge, we posted a few quick links to interesting user-generated and student coverage of the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. Today, newspapers and blogs are looking at how covering these kind of tragic events has changed in the past few years.  

The Roanoke Times reported on its breaking news blog that by 12:30 today, Wikipedia had a page devoted to the unfortunate shootings at Virginia Tech earlier today. The page featured a timeline, several links to media articles from CNN, the BBC, MSNBC and others. The Roanoke Times was not on the list as of 2:30 this afternoon, but the newspaper's coverage was impressive.

Despite the information revolution of the 1990s and the proliferation of news and information sources (especially online) in the past two decades, the public’s knowledge of current affairs isn’t getting any better.

If the Internet and print newspapers are both tops among likely voters looking for information on candidates and issues (as a recent Burst Media survey reveals), imagine what a newspaper’s Web site can do -- and then do it.  

Poynter is slowly releasing more findings from the EyeTrack07 study this week, while the institute is hosting a seminar on the findings and the implications. Early reports indicated there weren’t too many surprises in the study – but some editors’ theories were proven correct.... Unfortunately for those interested in digital media/online advertising, there’s very little coming from Poynter about that subject so far.

Since the Times article came out yesterday (A1, above the fold, by the way), the blogosphere – perhaps not surprisingly – has responded with posts on both sides of the fence. So, here are some highlights from prominent journalism/digital media bloggers that I thought were interesting.

The past few weeks have brought a renewed call for a code of conduct for bloggers and people who choose to comment on blogger’s posts.

While traveling earlier this week (and snowbound in Maine!), I finally read "News, Improved: How America's Newsrooms are Learning to Change," the new book out from the Knight Foundation, written by Michele McLellan and Tim Porter.  

We've posted a few new things on the Digital Edge Web site!