New York Times makes another puzzling move

In the latest questionable use of energy by the New York Times, the paper's online edition has launched Times Skimmer, a page viewer that yet again tries to approximate the experience of reading the hard copy of the paper. While the Times can be rather forward thinking when it comes to multimedia, this latest moves seems like the product of editors who still cling to the idea that the problem is people prefer to read the news in print rather than online. While that may be the line that some people offer up as to why they don't like online newspapers, it's not the real problem and shouldn't be the focus of any time or energy for a paper that's been on the brink of serious financial problems for the past couple years. People don't read the news because they don't read the news, not because they don't like the presentation.

Google Wave: Can it help journalists?

I've had a Google Wave account for about three weeks now. It's still full of bugs. Embedding video is far from easy, and if more than a few people get going on a wave at one time, the whole thing stalls. A lot of folks are saying that there is some potential for wave to be a useful tool for journalists, although I'm not entirely convinced.

There are two main potential uses from which other ideas spring. First, that it can be used as a reporting tool between a group of journalists when covering an event such as Austin's annual SXSW music, interactive and film festival. Second, that it could be used as a new way to connect with readers (there's also the potential use as a newsroom budget tool, but that's less interesting to me).

My main concern is that while these are fine ideas, it all represents yet another skill that needs to be learned in order to be utilized. We're already spending a lot of time learning how to best take advantage of Twitter, etc. Is it really worth it to throw this into the mix as well?

Google to limit some news access

Google announced late Tuesday it was changing its policy on charging users who click through to news sites via its Google News aggregation site. Previously, clicks from there would be regarded as free. Now, after five clicks, users will see a registration wall if the site chooses. The move is seen as a bid to stop Rupert Murdoch from abandoning Google all together. Five clicks still doesn't seem like that good of a deal—nonpaying users will still be able to see quite a bit of content before having to pay. (via New York Times)