Local news as we know it is dead.

But that’s not the biggest problem facing newspapers today. 

A bigger problem is that most readers are telling their local newspapers “I’m just not that into you”.

According to the latest stats from Pew Research, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

Those who on newspapers for their local news are much more likely to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss:

• More than half of regular newspaper readers (56%) say that if their local newspaper stopped publishing it would hurt the civic life of the community a lot;
• An almost identical percentage (55%) says they would personally miss reading the paper if it were no longer available.

What do you think? Is the loss of local newspapers a loss for communities?

Or are you, like most people, just not that into local newspapers?

Sirius announced plans today for an application to stream its satellite radio service to the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.

Sirius XM CFO David Frear made the comments on its earnings conference call, which covered Sirius’ fourth quarter results. The company reported a fourth quarter net loss of $245.8 million on revenue of $644 million.

Back in 2006, we asked if satellite radio could survive the onslaught of iPods and podcasting, noting:

Pods and podcasting threaten the future of satellite radio.

A large portion of both companies subscribers has come from people that purchase cars with pre-installed satellite radio. More and more cars have iPod support, which cuts into XM and Sirius subscriber growth. Internet audio in the form of podcasts and streaming audio also offers a free alternative to the services.

Satellite radio’s value was based on its coverage and its range of content.

At this point, people are overwhelmed by the range of content that’s available on the Internet. Devices like the iPhone can bring podcasts and Internet radio to you wherever you take your phone.

Is the Sirius iPhone app too little, too late?

Matthew Davidson, a blogging graphic artist and musician, made this great statement at his Stretta blog:

Technology decimates media in the order of bandwidth. First, newspapers, periodicals, books. Text and pictures compress tightly, and are low bandwidth. Next comes audio. After that comes video.

It’s a interesting statement, especially when you see the carnage going on in the world of newspapers right now.

There have been a lot of people over the last few years that have thought that bloggers were going to get rich, because they could publish news and information at a fraction of the cost of traditional news sources.

Some were making the same sort of predictions in 2006, with the rise of podcasting.

There are obviously people making money with blogging and podcasting – but the hype around blogging and podcasting assumes that value of traditional media will transfer straight over to new media.

Technology is decimating the traditional business value of media.

Your local newspaper was a valuable business, because it was the most convenient way to get your news.

Now you’ve got a thousand sources for much of that news, coming at you through the Internet, to your computer, your phone and even your television. And newspapers are dying as a result.

And, as Davidson notes, Technology decimates media in the order of bandwidth.

As it gets cheaper to connect devices to the Internet and as the Internet gets faster, the barriers to media competition are getting erased.

In other words, radio and television will soon face the same pressures that now face newspapers.

People will get rich from blogging, podcasting and new media.

But don’t expect the billions spent on traditional media to move directly over to new media. Much of that value has already been decimated.

Podcasting pioneer and author Michael Geoghegan contacted us this morning with awful news:

Brian Clark, a great friend and partner in GrapeRadio.com was involved in a horrible car accident in Central California last Friday. He is currently in the ICU and has received in excess of 13 units of blood and platelets.

Many of you know Brian as a core member of the Grape Radio podcast, recipient of the 2006 Podcast of the Year award and a 2008 James Beard Award.

Along with myself, Brian is also a member of the Orange County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team. He is the kind of guy who is always there, ready to help others in their time of need. As a member of our team he responds to calls at all hours of the day and night to help people he has never even met. I hope that we can return the favor.

When asking, “What can we do to help,” the only thing that his wife has requested was for us to give blood. A blood drive has been planned for Wednesday, March 18, from noon to 6pm. For local [Southern California] folks, the information is below. Due to limited time slots, it is important to have everyone make an appointment on line.

If the 18th will not work or you are out of the area, please contact your local American Red Cross or http://www.givelife.org where you can also donate. If you participate, please email me and let me know or post a comment below. It will be great to tell Brian how many people donated blood on his behalf.

We always hear about the “podcast community”, I would like to show the power of our network.

How you can help:

• Donate (Wherever you can)
• Link to this post. Tweet and Re-Tweet about it, Facebook, whatever your platform may be.
• While flowers are nice, blood may save the life of a loved one.

Please keep Brian and his family in your prayers.

Thank you in advance!

Michael W. Geoghegan

Michael adds, “Blood Drives aren’t so much about donating for a particular person as much as donating in the name of a person to help support a critical system in saving lives. So donate wherever you can and let us know so we can add it to the tally.”

Complete information about Clark’s situation is here.

Brian Clark Blood Drive
When: March 18th, Wednesday, Noon to 6:00pm

Location: Tustin Hospital, 14662 Newport Ave, Tustin, CA. 92780
Tel. 714. 669-5881

Sign Up: http://www.givelife.org
Use sponsor code: THMC

If you outside the Orange County [California] Area and wish to locate a place to give in your area, please visit http://www.GiveLife.org

We’ll try to keep you updated on Brian’s progress as information becomes available.

Apple today introduced an updated iPod shuffle, the world’s smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you.

The new VoiceOver feature lets the iPod shuffle speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life.

The new shuffle offers 4GB of storage, is smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and has all of its controls located on the earphone cord.

iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The Guardian  – a UK news organization – today announced a new initiative to make its content and data for free and weave it “into the fabric of the internet”.

The Guardian’s Open Platform launched with two separate content-sharing services, which will allow users to build their own applications in return for carrying Guardian advertising:

• An application programming interface (API) will let web developers build applications and services using Guardian content; and
• A Data Store will contain datasets curated by Guardian editors and open for others to use.

The Guardian content API includes not only articles but videos, galleries and other content.

This makes it easier for third parties to make an iPhone app, a Boxee channel or a news mashup based on Guardian content.

The Data Store provides statistics and data curated by Guardian editors. Traditionally this data has appeared in the newspaper or appeared in a table on a Guardian website. Now, these statistics will be made available for anyone to use.

The Data Store launched with 80 data sets, including figures on child poverty in England and world carbon emissions by country. Simon Rogers, news editor, graphics, at the Guardian, will highlight some of the data sets in a Datablog, suggesting ways that the sets could be combined, or mashed up. It will also be a place where the Guardian highlights some of the best projects from its partners.

The Guardian’s announcement is a bold move; it shows that there are some traditional news organizations that understand that they will need to change radically to survive in the context of the Internet.

The Guardian understands that local media media is dead, and that the future for news is making your content available globally, as many ways as possible.

John Hirst, head of global content and podcasts with the UK’s Global Radio group, says that podcasting has the potential to “create new and lucrative revenue streams” for newspaper, radio and television businesses. Global Radio has over sixty stations throughout Great Britain, including syndicated brands Capital Radio, Classic FM and LBC, and purports to have generated over £1million sterling from its podcasting efforts.

In an interview with Business and Leadership.com, Hirst recounted the podcast-monetization timeline at Global Radio, which has been producing audio and video podcasts for the past four years. After spending a year in the planning stages, the group had £40,000 sterling in sales in the second year, and £450,000 sterling in year three. Podcast revenue “is growing significantly at present,” he said.

Hirst thinks podcasting as a revenue stream is not limited to radio. He sees other media –  publishers, “gadget” companies, and a variety of other industries jumping into creation of their own podcast content.

Generating revenue from podcasting will “depend on the company’s existing resources,” according to Hirst, such as transitioning newspaper advertisers into podcast show sponsors, for example, or creating “podcast element[s]” for clients’ ad campaigns.

Global Radio also sells listener subscriptions to some of its content: news and talk station LBC in London boasts five thousand subscribers at £2 per month. For that fee, subscribers get access to all the station’s podcasts. “But the subscriber model really only works for speech stations with a lot of original content. I don’t think that model really works with any other station,” Hirst says.

Global Radio is trying a wide range of different tactics to turn podcasting into a source of revenue, whether offering free (ad-supported) podcasts, custom podcast production for sponsor/clients, premium subscriptions, or driving more loyal (“engaged”) listener behavior by offering exclusive content.

The article is worth a read, and you can find it here.

What are others doing to turn their podcast series to a revenue source?

photo: “Retro Radio,” by Petroleum Jelliffe

Computer World has published a smart piece by Mike Elgan that looks at why local newspapers are struggling:

The problem with newspapers is that they’re stuck on the old model, where every newspaper covers everything. And the more important the story, the less efficiently it gets covered.

Newspapers delude themselves into thinking that readers read nothing else. The assumption is that it’s not news until we cover it. So every newspaper covers the same story, wasting billions of dollars per year in duplicated effort industrywide.

And, for that matter, a related form of bigotry has always driven the whole “local” model for local radio and newspaper coverage. The model is based on pandering where the constantly reinforced message is that local people are better than people who aren’t local.

Now that the Internet has killed “local,” the survival adjustment that radio and newspaper companies must make is to cover local events for a global audience. Radio stations and newspapers must now consider the larger, newer audience, and stop the bigoted pandering. And they must also stop covering the larger world.

It’s time the so-called local media opened its eyes to the new reality: Nothing is local anymore. And it’s a huge opportunity. The new mantra should be: Cover local events exclusively, but for a global audience.

Elgan is right. When you’re used to getting your news over the Internet, watching the local TV news constantly try to work in a local angle for every story is painful. And getting yesterday’s news in your paper isn’t much better.

Local media is dead. Radio, TV, newspapers – all of it.

The Internet killed it.

The only way local media will survive is by operating with the same efficiency as new media companies and by delivering local news to the broadest possible audience – the world.

Think there’s still a future for the idea of local media? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Image: dreamsjung

IntenseDebate, a hosted comment platform for WordPress comments, has announced that it’s opened the platform to third-party plugins.

As part of the introduction, IntenseDebate has introduced several plugins:

• PollDaddy: Readers will be able to create polls right in the comment section.
• Seesmic: Readers the ability to record and post video comments.
• YouTube: Commenters can have the option to insert their favorite YouTube vids.
• Smileys: Add in a 😉 and let everyone know that you’re just being sarcastic and not mean! (Or maybe you are being mean…..)

The update makes IntenseDebate a lot more interesting, turning your comments into a rich multimedia platform. Check out the video above for a demo.

If you’ve given the update a try, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Boxee has released an update that brings back Hulu support, but in limited way, and has added an app store, something we’ve been calling on Apple to do with it’s Apple TV for a long time.

Boxee is an open source “social media center”, designed to be a platform for Internet television.

Here are the details of the update:

• Boxee has added an RSS reader optimized for video that lets you access videos from Hulu, YouTube and other sites. The RSS reader supports Google Video, Yahoo!, YouTube and feeds from many other websites.
• App Box – this is a first take at an application “store” that makes it easy for users to install new apps and plugins. There is also native support for 3rd party repositories, so you don’t have to rely on boxee as a gatekeeper for what goes into the official boxee app store.
• Auto Update – this will automatically check for new versions of Boxee and help you update it.

Boxee’s not ready for prime time – the new release is still early alpha – but it’s leapfrogging Apple TV and introducing features that could make Boxee the iPhone of Internet television.

Update: Boxee has announced that Hulu is blocking access to its feeds: