While USA Today and WSJ circulation numbers are climbing or holding steady, respectively, the outlook is dire at other dailies.

BizzyBlog has more details.

As a former reporter, I have mixed emotions. In the late 90s, I participated in website content development for a major daily intent on transitioning its print presence. Clearly, papers recognized a decade ago that they were headed for a primarily electronic existence, but I’ll still raise a glass to the smell of fresh newsprint.

As a former PR flack, I’m wondering how agencies are adjusting their promotional fire. The explosion of web-based user-driven outlets has created plenty of new placement potential. Unfortunately, the overall audience is about the same size. So, instead of two million people reading an article on the front page of one daily paper, you get one person deciding which of two million sources he or she might get information. Does that mean more pickup for a press release, or is finding a way to make all those editors happy even possible?

Did you ever stop to think about what we are leaving behind in the way of tangible communication? Egyptian hieroglyphs, cuneiform on ancient clay tablets, the Rosetta Stone, and even Paleolithic cave paintings preserved information from past eons thanks to their rocky media. Today, however, we bombard each other with PowerPoint presentations, emails, text messages, and vlogs that live only in the electronic ether.

It seems only our past is worthy of imprinting on long-lasting material like monument stones. Why aren’t people chiseling Snoop Dogg lyrics onto bricks or blasting the word “McLovin” on the side of a quarry face?

If they knew about Harold Innis, they may start doing just that. Harold was a well-respected political economist from Toronto via the University of Chicago, who in the later, more cynical years of his life took a stab at mass media analysis. He probably hung around with people like Marshall McLuhan, drinking Latrobes, soul searching at Wrigley Field, and dreaming up fun titles for their dry books like The Gutenberg Galaxy.

Nevertheless, Harold made an interesting assumption: When communication is conveyed using durable materials like tablets of stone, they will be preserved over time and disseminated through an intimate if not respectful community that has access to view the information first hand. This is “time-biased” or “time-binding” media. Paper and electronic media, conversely, are light and fast, meant to be distributed over a larger community more quickly; this gives way to the theory of “space-biased” or “space-binding” media.

Harold went on to propose that space-biased media is the media that builds empires because the institutions of politics, religion, and commerce are influenced by the organization and vast distribution of information and hence create a social bias of the time-space continuum. In other galactic terms, time=no space, space-time=power, and power=a two-dollar hot dog at Wrigley Field.

What does this mean? I am not sure, but I think when something is written in stone, we trust it’s wiser than the moment in which it lives. We think it needs to be preserved in hard media, but it’s really only a sign for the times. Today, we let the legion electronic personal devices convey and capture every scrap of information so that everyone knows everything about anything. This numbs us to the authorities and institutions that bind us to their will. Depressed yet? Just wait…realize tombstones are a time-binding media, and make sure your epitaph inspires anyone who comes to visit. Oh, and don’t worry about launching empires.

Everyone’s talking about tonight’s debut of ABC’s Cavemen! Well, everyone is talking about how tonight’s debut of Cavemen will probably stink beyond comprehension. While sitcoms have inspired commercials aplenty, never in television history has a commercial mutated into a sitcom.

Critical outlook for these comedic Cro-Mags is grim. The original pilot has been available online for months; it was decimated by critics. Feel like punishing yourself for some unspoken sin? Catch a half-minute here:

Tonight’s kickoff episode? ABC hasn’t even bothered with a pre-release. That’s either an acknowledgment of inanity or an impossibly weak attempt to build “what’s behind the curtain” buzz.

The funniest thing about Cavemen may be that, for the next few hours at least, plenty of people will talk about it. And while we’re all bracing ourselves against the stench, more than a few folks will embrace their inner gaper’s blocker and actually tune in. That’s good news for advertisers—perhaps. Or it could undermine years of brand goodwill built up by an amphibian with an English accent.

If you’re one of the brave souls who cave in to these knuckle-draggers, let us know what the morning after felt like.

Round pegs. Square holes. You know the story. Someone over at The New Yorker decided it would be uber-cute to add life to their cartoons, rendering these one-panel one-liners as quick animated clips. Yeah, I hear crickets chirping too.

I love animation and video, multimedia in all its multivariate forms, but this is overkill. New Yorker cartoons work because they are so easy to digest—a quick, witty fistful of mental popcorn, and the printed page or static computer screen is more than adequate. Gumming up instantaneous entertainment makes them almost tedious. And if your Flash player isn’t up to snuff, or the feed is getting crushed, the payoff is a mile away.

I do understand their animation temptation. The executable simplicity of enlivening and streaming these magazine mainstays must have made this idea an easy sell. But here, the media gets in the way of the message.

This is literally a case where the idea only works on paper.

SPOILER WARNING: None of the links below reveal the plot of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, however, if you go on a clicking frenzy, you might stumble on some shocking revelations.

As an ardent Harry Potter fan, I am looking forward with bated breath to July 21st. I cannot wait to hold a copy of book seven, and am prepared to drink my first cup of kopi luwak so I can stay awake and finish it.

Unfortunately, there are some out there who don’t share my appreciation of anticipation — and they’re using Web 2.0 technologies to try and spoil the fun for the rest of us. Indulging in some truly dark mischief, someone has taken pictures of the book and has published them on photobucket and on the BitTorrent (peer-to-peer file sharing) site the pirate bay.

Salon’s Machinist tech blog spells it out.

Of course, Scholastic has already moved ahead to take legal action, but dare I say that the mischief has been managed already? JK Rowling herself appears unphased:

“Some, perhaps, will read this and take the view that all publicity is good publicity,” she said. “However, spoilers won’t stop people buying the book, they never have — all it will do is diminish their pleasure in the book.”

The good news is that these spoil sports are learning that their efforts can backfire in a big way. Digg users are already on the case — testament to the power of social networks!

I recently googled a journalist friend, Gary Arlen, and found a piece he wrote from June of 2006 covering the Digital Media Conference. One of the speakers referred to the “Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) generation”. Here how Gary encapsulated the concept:

While the policy sessions generated passionate arguments, the conference’s content and business panels underscored the revitalization of the interactive business itself. Chris Maxcy, VP-business development of YouTube, acknowledged that his site is now serving up to 70 million streams per day, with typical sessions averaging one to two minutes long – and thus catering to the ADD generation.

The term “ADD generation,” as you probably figured out, describes an apparently younger demographic that only pays attention to media in short spurts (generally less than two minutes). The phrase was once all over the web, but strangely the most recent reference I found about the “ADD generation” was almost a year ago. Where is the ADD generation today?
Maybe we replaced it with another term, but I didn’t get the memo. More likely, it’s faded because it was never really applicable. The consumption of media under two minutes is the norm, constituting the mobile and online media experiences we all have with increasing frequency, but they are nothing new.

Short form media enthusiasts have been around since 60s political news coverage; the political sound byte engineered for broadcast tv and radio news was perfected for a public that could only absorb information in increments of 60 seconds or less. As soon as the news started cutting 5 minute statements into 15 second sound bytes, politicians wised up and began placing natural pauses before and after their desired sound byte. Broadcast news evolved for the public–and then those interviewed evolved.

As communications technologies progressed that same “sound byte” evolution applied to quotes online and then eventually audio files and video. The last person to the party was entertainment media. Could you imagine a broadcast or cable network or even program that just ran snippets of funny or engaging video? Did you say no? If so, you have forgotten a staple of TV during the 70s and 80s. How about network blooper shows or America’s funniest videos.

It goes to a matter of interest — not distribution technology. I don’t watch a 30 second video on YouTube because it is the only place I can see it (although it is the only place I can see it whenever and wherever I want). I watch that video because whatever it’s content I don’t want to watch it for five minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. If the video was about my interests, maybe I would watch it for an hour, but I could watch that hour on broadcast/cable TV, online or TivoCast (my new favorite service).

The ADD generation is gone because it never was. As a culture, we’ve been evolving toward shorter content bursts since electronic media emerged. Sure, we’ll dig in for longer experiences if they really suit our interests. Otherwise, if you want anyone to pay attention – regardless of age demographic – keep it simple, straightforward, and short.

With apologies to Mr. Springsteen, I’m wondering just how hard cable networks are hurting for programming. Witness ESPN’s forthcoming coverage of (yep) the USA Rock Paper Scissors Championship.

As new parents, my husband and I are already debating over how much we should let our daughter watch TV when she gets older. Looks like we’ve been debating over the wrong medium.

According to a recent study, the Internet is close to surpassing television as the “most essential medium” for news and entertainment among Americans. In fact, Americans aged 12-44 have already identified the internet as the most essential medium in their lives, heralding a major paradigm shift, especially given the fact that just five years ago, the internet came in as least essential.

So, why is the internet gaining such rapid ground?

Perhaps it’s because the internet is much more than a visual medium. We just watch television, but the internet’s interactivity allows us to become participants.

For example, instead of watching a children’s program about eating healthy, kids can go online and play Dora the Explorer’s food pyramid game and develop their own healthy picnic menu. In addition, parents can get tips and recipes and get a lot more information on how to incorporate healthy eating into their family’s lifestyle.

Certainly playing on the internet is not healthier than playing outside, but is it better than plopping a kid down in front of the TV?

Reuters cites stats that ring a proverbial death knell for traditional TV.

CBS and ABC are the second and third networks to reach their lowest levels since Nielsen’s introduction of “people meters” set-top devices during the 1987-88 season. NBC already had its worst week this month thanks to low-rated Stanley Cup hockey finals.

Does anyone watch anymore?

WaPo has again successfully meshed its print presence with richer interactive content available only online. The cover feature of today’s Health section profiles the DC Blast, an under-16 girls soccer team (full disclosure: they’re coached by my neighbor and friend Ian Oliver) traveling to Africa to spread the gospel of footy and help African girls understand the realities of AIDS/HIV.

In terms of content, it’s riveting example of cultural exchange; it terms of media, it represents an ideal balance of print and pixel.