Neil Henry’s recent op-ed headlined “The Decline of News” has sparked some criticism in the blogosphere.

The Asbury Park Press has established a section of its Web site called “DataUniverse,” which consists of searchable databases of public records, such as public employee salaries, criminal convictions, crime reports and property assessments. In five months since DataUniverse went live in December 2006, it generated more than 25 million page views. DataUniverse is the subject of the most recent Audience Building Initiative case study from Prof. Rich Gordon of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

More good news on the online advertising front for newspaper Web sites!  

As of this moment, the most e-mailed article on washingtonpost.com is an article about people who have declared "e-mail bankruptcy" and either stopped using e-mail entirely or made serious efforts to cut down. I'm not sure if I should be laughing.  

This afternoon, I attended a mega-panel with the winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge grants (which I mentioned in this earlier blog post) at the Editor & Publisher/Mediaweek Interactive Media Conference.   The grants themselves ranged from $15,000 up to several million dollars – some grants were for one year, some were for longer. The central question posed to the panel: How did you come up with a $1 million idea?

The Knight Foundation announced the first winners of the Knight News Challenge today in Miami at the Editor & Publisher/Mediaweek Interactive Media Conference. The winners had a celebratory dinner yesterday evening, and the 15-minute presentation between conference sessions this morning was so inspiring.

Today on Editor & Publisher’s Web site is a must-read for any online newspaper editor considering, working on or launching a redesigned Web site.

If you need a break this morning, some brilliant minds at Stanford University released this mash-up video of various Disney characters explaining copyright law.

A 1,300-word op-ed in The Wall Street Journal from a mid-market newspaper publisher launched a four-day long, interesting, informative and thoughtful e-mail debate in the Digital Media Federation e-forum earlier this month.

Regardless of whether you agree with Clifton, Hussman, both or neither, the pieces are worth reading and thinking about. Sometimes the best critical thinking comes from understanding an opposing view.

Kathy Schwartz, Vice President of Audience & New Product Development at The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., contributed this top ten list based on NAA's recently released report, "Smart Strategies: A Fresh Look at Marketing for Online Newspapers."

The Los Angeles Times this week is running a “Dust-Up” series this week with Glenn Reynolds and Robert McChesney debating the future of media.  

Pew Internet & American Life Project has a quiz up online now that assesses your technology connectedness. Questions include how many devices you own, what you do online and more.  

Internet giants Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. are all vying to be newspapers' best friends.At a panel discussion on "Partnerships in Transition," the three companies made their pitches about why forming partnerships with newspapers makes sense for both sides.

Howard Owens of GateHouse Media has some interesting information on his blog about covering the devastating tornadoes in Greensburg, Kan. over the weekend.    

Segmenting the audience and developing products that reach beyond a newspaper's core product are two steps newspapers can take to boost the number of readers and advertisers they reach, experts said on the "Audience in Transition" panel Tuesday.

Newspapers have more tools than ever before to do the business of journalism, said Jennifer Carroll, director of news development for the Gannett Co. in McLean, Va.   “We have better tools and we have a responsibility to use them,” Carroll told attendees at NAA’s Annual Convention Monday afternoon at a session on journalism in transition.

Today, the Newspaper Association of America released new information from Nielsen//NetRatings’ @Plan service  about the attractive newspaper Web site audience. Nielsen//NetRatings based their analysis and data on 25 markets across the United States. Over the past several years, NAA has sponsored research to support the online newspaper value propostion, with a focus on the characteristics of online newspaper users. Below is a summary of findings from some of that earlier research.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark says the highly profitable Web company he founded that helps Internet users find jobs, apartments, furniture and dates, doesn’t have a business model. “We make it up as we go along,” he told attendees at NAA’s Annual Convention on Monday morning during a conversation with television host Charlie Rose. “We’re a community service.”

From NAA's Annual Convention, a look at what teenager's really want these days.  

A new study from the International Center for Media and Public Agenda concludes casual news consumers may be better off viewing news Web sites or Google news than relying on RSS feeds, with a few notable exceptions.  

At NAA's NEXPO conference last month, I was asked to provide an overview of the changing media landscape during a session on audience development strategies. As part of that presentation, I offered a "construct" for the newspaper franchise going forward.  

This week, The Economist and PRESSTIME magazines both have extended features on wireless technology. In addition, PRESSTIME features changing newsrooms and looks at how newspapers are changing for the future.  

Rupert Murdoch offered some thoughts on why News Corp. bid a huge amount of cash for Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal. The interview video is on the Fox News Web site. Neil Cuvato did the interview. Though the deal may not go through (early reports indicate the Bancroft family, which has a lot of voting power, is against the offer), it's interesting to at least get a media mogul's take on the newspaper industry and its future.  

The Newspaper Association of America published a press release on the Audit Bureau of Circulations figures that came out earlier this week.  And while by and large circulation is down again, the audience getting newspaper content -- whether it's from the newspaper Web site, through RSS feeds, partnerships with Yahoo or other places -- is reaching more people than ever.