That counts as news, given that Auckland City Council were presumably briefed before they decided to invest public money in Aotea Square as the only CBD fanzone with its new, expensive big screen. Did something change, or did Councillors make a 7-figure decision without proper information?

The concrete in the…

I want a mayor who has a vision for the future and who understands that the city is comprised of many villages, each with its own character and parochial tribe.

Being a mayor of this city will be like being Brad Pitt or Angelina…

Martin Snedden has provided a 180-degree 'clarification'

Not necessarily contradictory, but certainly worthy of journalistic follow-up (wonder who'll get there first this time?).

Is Snedden's RWC2011 organisation contractually obliged to provide a "party central"? No – not a piss up site the way it has been portrayed. As Russell has…

Naturally the Onion said that much better..

Added Crowley, "[Who gives a shit]." is my favourite ever line of theirs.

Ask anyone who utters that sort of statement whether they have curtains at home.

My father used to say that all the time. Then again, he made curtains for a…

"Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear."

Ask anyone who utters that sort of statement whether they have curtains at home.

What's the deal with 4Square? Is there actually a point to it

It's just another tacky FlyBuys "loyalty" scheme – deals for frequent users, free beers.

Adding elements like 'Mayor' probably appeals to the image-obsessed urbanites who the service started with in NY. I wonder which areas have greatest uptake…

What's the deal with 4Square?

The Onion had a carefully considered piece.

I was kidding!

Oh. Sorry.

I was kidding! I know full well we buy voluntarily into these instruments of societal surveillance

What's the deal with 4Square? Is there actually a point to it, beyond the infantile achievement of becoming "mayor" of some shop or cafe? I really, really don't get…

Sigh ... There are plenty of location-based services on the internet already.

and yer basic cellphone as well...
at least we don't have chips in our shoulders yet...
;- )

Hence Apple's new slogan – "Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear."

Sigh ... There are plenty of location-based services on the internet already. And you can always simply decline.

"To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."

Hence Apple's new slogan – "Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear."

Snedden [said on Media7] "The answer is absolutely no. We were not obligated to provide a party central."

However, he provided a written…

I'll be buying an iPad on Friday (also my birthday!) and I'm looking forward to it.

Whenever we want to know exactly where you are we can just ask Steve Jobs...
... __ "To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees…

the signed Andy Haden books that we seemed to be knee deep in

So is dear wee Andy becoming the Ted Heath of NZ? With unsigned books going for 20x the price of the signed ones?

I suspect they have fled, sussurating into the cold streets of the City That Doesn't Care searching for the starch that keeps Christchurch so stiff...

lovely

It does surprise me that The Guardian and the FT will write this stories without getting technical background from their own web people, who'd be able to tell them.

Well the good old Graun seems more than willing to let it's general, sports and odds and sods journos write…

Ian has quite the eye for old books

Not doubting that for moment :)
I always felt customers at Smiths operated like gold prospectors- sifting through and extracting the best bits, leaving a steadily increasing proportion of tailings.
So plenty of dross.
But whenever you looked hard (as opposed to…

Were you the 'dross-filter' (as well as the biblio-transporter) Ian?

Ian has quite the eye for old books, actually. He's sorted me out more than once ...

aimed at me not others....

Blimmin' progress.

So true...
Once the shelves come off the walls I'd have serious worries about the integrity of the building (which is to be earthquake strengthened next)...
and I did find a few bookish gems as we went along, heck I even got a really nice old…

I still think a comic is the artefact

As with music and movies, the coming years should prove interesting as increasingly they become units of experience that you can go back to any time you like without having to "own" a physical object.

Of course we still need real broadband…

*worry not bibliophiles, they have only moved half a block to a single floor site at 117 Manchester Street, with a lot less dross...

But... that was part of the beauty of the Smith's experience, the feeling that the entire three floors could fall on you at any moment, drowning…

I suppose it leaves print comics in the same place as vinyl LPs, which still sell.

I'm about to sell a whole bunch of comics, but looking at Trade Me it seems the only comics getting bids are mostly Commando comics for some reason, of which I have none...

OTOH,…

but can you print from the iPad?

There's a variety of printing solutions, but I'm not sure how or if they apply to the Marvel app.

can one on-sell a bought digital comic?

I don't think so from the Marvel app, but there's nothing to stop indie publishers from enabling…

Denis Welch had some commentary

Can you point me in the right direction please? Not having any luck finding him by myself

Of course. I would point out that the comics press seems to have warmly embraced the Marvel Comics app on the iPad. I think graphic media are going to work really well on this device.

but can you print from the iPad?

can one on-sell a bought…

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (Peter Cook): ... It was shortly after World War Two.

So it does exist ... in our collective imaginations.

and actually makes a virtue of its letters page.

You mean like any newspaper worthy of the name would? That's so rad!

Coincidentally, Denis Welch had some commentary on the handling of letters yesterday, and said that The Press does a much better job than anyone else, and actually makes a virtue of its letters page.

Yes, it does make a big deal of its Letters page (almost two pages in the…

90% of The Times' online audience has gone.

Yikes! Quite a gamble, isn't it?

I had a flash of a different time.
Long gone now....

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (Peter Cook): ... It was shortly after World War Two. Do you remember that? Absolutely ghastly business — I was against the whole thing.

Interviewer (Dudley Moore): I think we all were.

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling: Yes,…

I thought it is a more authoratative protest to write a letter

Ooooo that's so sweet.

I can see it all now, as a Disney Epic.
"Hold the press's" an' everything.....
And no, I'm not being scarky. I had a flash of a different time.
Long gone now....

I'd be very surprised if he does.

Me too. He's in Wellington, for one thing.

Coincidentally, Denis Welch had some commentary on the handling of letters yesterday, and said that The Press does a much better job than anyone else, and actually makes a virtue of its letters page.

Doesn't Armstrong have a hand in it?

I'd be very surprised if he does.

To try and keep it on topic.

Perhaps best not to be laying down the law when you've only just arrived, Martin.

These work best in the US, where the majority of the panel data comes from, but Nielson and (I think) Hitwise both have NZ-specific data available, but be prepared to put your hands in your pockets.

Nielsen has a reasonable panel in NZ now, but any demographic information I've seen…

Anyway had to laugh at the edit I got on this letter. Only the first and third sentences made it in.

I absolutely DETEST the letters editors who do that to me. After it happens enough I give up on a publication for a few years – if someone is…

So does anyone know the best way to measure online traffic?

Let's face it, it's very important to have that information if you are a marketer, its basically critical and online needs to start presenting clean and readable data so it's easy to sell to ad buyers.

Marketing & publishing have…

. . . ludicrous rates paid for freelance journalism . . . Freelancers physically can't do good, deep feature stories for the word rates being paid . . . The celebrity part really took off with the launch of the Herald on Sunday

I may be missing something here Russell,…

Let's face it, it's very important to have that information if you are a marketer, its basically critical and online needs to start presenting clean and readable data so it's easy to sell to ad buyers.

That being said though, as a recent owner of smartphone (HTC Desire) I suspect that some of my media consumption…

Oh dear. So they (as in Garth George) turned a reasonable argued piece into one of the typically incomprehensible non-sequiturs that their letters page specialises in.

(I tend to characterise letters writers into "bigoted", "bigoted & ignorant", "illiterate", "bigoted, ignorant and illiterate" etc. But maybe it's just the editing.

(Which…

Anyway had to laugh at the edit I got on this letter. Only the first and third sentences…

I don't think there'll ever be a shortage of actual, factual information.

No there won't, but that's not what people like Philip Kitchin do. It's information + context + the "who, what, where, when, why and how" that makes it meaningful.

I do like the new Metro, but there are…

Not all UK cards have the passphrase (eg my personal one does, but the company one doesn't). It's visa or whoever your provider is who is doing the asking – times (and anyone else overhere) just gets a reply back saying "all good, but you need to redirect them…

I admit to finding this out the hard way

Be consoled then Joe, that your pain has added to the knowledge of your fellow readers.

Seems like a shocking screw-up, that.

Freelancers physically can't do good, deep feature stories for the word rates being paid — and they're…

those columns which are of the 'meandering and wittering' ilk

says "paid per word" to me

I like that (a) ad-supported content as an alternative to a paywall is being undone by, for example, Readability and Instapaper (which I use to read PA, but not PAS because then it defaults back to PA),

I'll have to ask the lads about that. Safari 5's Reader, which does…

I know everyone says 'I could do that better!' but dude, I so could

So would the people who are actual doing it. Whilst I am not particularly fond of his politics, I have absolutely no doubt that Ralston for instance could be an excellent commentator; it's just that so…

And where do freelance journalists fit into the mix?

That was why I said a large organization to buy the stories was needed. Yes they could sell direct, if they were specialists in self-promotion and distribution, rather than writing and investigating.

I find the quality of the reporting and especially of the commentary here to be an embarassment. But that perhaps is just me.

It's not just you. The commentary particularly is awful, awful, awful. I know everyone says 'I could do that better!' but dude, I so could! (Particularly those…

the quality of investigative reporting has dropped. That sort of thing needs a large organization behind it, to buy the stories.

Yes and no. Yes it helps to have the resources of a large organization. But it very much depends on the organization. Some large organizations create environments where there…

It may be however that the Web has accelerated some of the trends that were already in place.

Well it drove down the cost of delivering shite. That's sort of good. If we have to eat shite it should at least be cheap. Are you suggested it may have led…

I haven't been in New Zealand for long enough to judge long-term trends, but I find the quality of the reporting and especially of the commentary here to be an embarassment. But that perhaps is just me.

It's not just you. I'm changing my tune a little here to say…

I think that's one way to go; restricting the news to people who pay won't work, because you can get the news elsewhere. Giving subscribers additional content if they subscribe (Raw interview footage, epub versions of the articles or sections you are interested in, et al) works, I think

I…

I don't think there'll ever be a shortage of actual, factual information.

So you reckon that in the case of Watergate for instance the facts would have just outed themselves, by virtue of being there, without journalists having to be involved?

And similarly, a lot of people buy the Guardian Weekly – they're willing to pay for a solid product.

In this day and age I don't understand why so many of them get it posted to them weekly though.

Surely financially, keeping up with a newspaper that's overseas is a…

The Australian Financial Review is run at the largesse of the owners, and as a result has the best reporting and analysis in Australia. It also has a high earning subscriber base, and puts itself behind the paywall.

Actually, it's run at our largesse. Over the years, Fairfax has creamed…

Let's bring back old fashioned patronage! We could all be the new Medicis or whatever the investigative equivalent is.

The Australian Financial Review is run at the largesse of the owners, and as a result has the best reporting and analysis in Australia. It also has a high earning subscriber…

Also I'd like to drag'n drop away sections that I'd never read, like sports and racing and normally business, and swoosh them away with a satisfying flick.

Which company was it that had that TV ad campaign 10 or so years ago, with the customised newspaper that showed up to…

There was an ad on television a few years ago in which "Dave"? got his 15 cent paper delivered with only the sports section and few other articles, and it cost him 15 cents.

Daily Keno adverts – "You call the shots". Another ad concerned Avocados IIRC.

That's kind of depressing. When it was good I was happy to pay for it. Similarly when I'm in Italy I buy La Repubblica, which is an excellent newspaper and is not online. Just demanding that things be online seems a little extreme.

And similarly, a lot of people buy…

Why can't we subscribe to the investigative journalist directly?

Let's bring back old fashioned patronage! We could all be the new Medicis or whatever the investigative equivalent is.

I'm sure Mr Brown has a mortgage and renovations to pay for just like the rest of us. In these tough times, all income streams need to be maximised.

It's rough that it's getting harder to profit from quality. But only for the journalists and newspapers. People wanting news, including quality news, have never had it so good.

If you're after quantity, yes. I look at Italy and I think the quality has gone down a lot. They say…

There was an ad on television a few years ago in which "Dave"? got his 15 cent paper delivered with only the sports…

Who's doing the investigative reporting while everybody is busy doing the commentary?

Why can't we subscribe to the investigative journalist directly?

Do they have to deliver the whole piece at once or can that kind of discovery be a conversation with the reader as well. Perhaps with reader input.

See, that's just madness. News is not a scarce commodity, but good reporting is, and the problem of how to pay for it is a very real one.

I don't think good reporting is anywhere near as scarce as it was. There is just more bad reporting so it makes…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zrMlEEWBgY

Which looks interesting but I couldn't actually get them to take my money.

I reckon the future for online journalism is about having fantastic conversation starters and then starting great conversations between interesting people (with money to spend).

Who's doing the investigative reporting while everybody is busy doing the commentary?

This is exactly right and it's a total pain in the arse. When you're supposed to report on 'time on site' as a measure, and you know that it's essentially meaningless ...

Despite all the high-precision numbers, web analytics is more like meteorology than accounting (or possibly numerology) – but…

I reckon the future for online journalism is about having fantastic conversation starters and then starting great conversations between interesting people (with money to spend). Supported by advertising and/or donations. I don't think the iPad is the saviour for these.

You mean like ... Public Address!

And why wouldn't it…

Which might not be great now, but imagine if newspapers can no longer survive by belonging to a city. You might end up with two competing news organisations producing a national daily paper, with a local insert of a page of…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

So far, there are only two options for monetising content; ad-supported or subscription. The former doesn't seem to work well enough, and the latter doesn't seem to work at all (since when…

head/desk simulator

We must ask Craig, he would be the obvious person to know if this already exists . . .

Wearing my web analytics hat, most web analytics systems only track a user once per page (as close to the start of the page load as possible), and time-on-page is the difference between the load time of one page, and the load time of the next.

I read online papers…

Seems the iPad is ideal for the magazine format. Will pay for the convenience and ease of use.

Paying for news though,…

Are you trying to say you wouldn't like a beautifully presented application in which to read Karl Du Fresne's and Deborah Hill Cone's musings? Come on..

Pig with lipstick on is still a ...........

Can anyone direct me to something that explains why a pay per page plug-in system wouldn't…

It does surprise me that The Guardian and the FT will write this stories without getting technical background from their own web people, who'd be able to tell them.

[T]he Times insists average duration of visits has stayed relatively consistent

Wearing my web analytics hat, most web analytics systems only track a user once per page (as close to the start of the page load as possible), and time-on-page is the difference between the load time of one page,…

A head/desk simulator could work.

Also I'd like to drag'n drop away sections that I'd never read, like sports and racing and normally business, and swoosh them away with a satisfying flick.

Are you trying to say you wouldn't like a beautifully presented application in which to read Karl Du Fresne's and Deborah Hill Cone's musings? Come on..

Would set application contain an accelerometor with which to gauge how hard you punch it every time you read something by them? Cos if…

I also remain puzzled by the idea that you would pay for content on your iPad that you'd get for free on your regular computer, but clearly there's so much of the Apple experience I…

Even if I liked its change in editorial direction, its not online, and so dead to me.

That's kind of depressing. When it was good I was happy to pay for it. Similarly when I'm in Italy I buy La Repubblica, which is an excellent newspaper and is not online.…

I suspect you haven't picked up a North & South for a while (ie: since Robyn Langwell was editor). It's actually been bloody good this year.

I agree. The article about vaccination, in the June issue, was very good too.

People still read the Listener?

Even if I liked its change in editorial direction, its not online, and so dead to me.

Clearly the Listener content would be pretty useless for it.

Are you trying to say you wouldn't like a beautifully presented application in which to read Karl Du Fresne's and Deborah Hill Cone's musings? Come on..

Also, you know who's doing really well out of the existing ad-funded model? The Daily Mail. I can see why. The content may be trite and offensive; the site's well sticky.

Heh, I'm pleased you mentioned this. To my shame I found myself going back again and again to the…

I don't want to pay, I usually go to these sites for specific articles or writers,…

I must say, I would regard developing content for a Listener app as a dream gig. .

Clearly the Listener content would be pretty useless for it.

I would point out that the comics press seems to have warmly embraced the Marvel Comics app on the iPad. I think graphic media are going to work really well on this device.

I can see how comics would work quite well. And frankly I'm still waiting for other forms…

I'll be buying an iPad on Friday (also my birthday!) and I'm looking forward to it.

So, what are you doing with your old one?

(Imagine I have carefully laid out the above comment on a solid foundation of "to each their own", however.)

Of course. I would point out that the comics press seems to have warmly embraced the Marvel Comics app on the iPad. I think graphic media are going to work really…

I don't think I'd pay to read the New Yorker online, but but I'd pay for an iPad app that decently replicated the print version I pay for now.

I used to subscribe to an Italian newspaper that did that and longed mightily for the newspaper content in a proper…

North & South's app –currently in iTunes Store approval limbo

If Jobs has added "bigoted right-wing drivel" to his banned list I may even buy an iPad

I suspect you haven't picked up a North & South for a while (ie: since Robyn Langwell was editor). It's actually been bloody good this…

I also remain puzzled by the idea that you would pay for content on your iPad that you'd get for free on your regular computer, but clearly there's so much of the Apple experience I just don't get.

It's not the Apple experience as such — it's getting a premium…

North & South's app –currently in iTunes Store approval limbo

If Jobs has added "bigoted right-wing drivel" to his banned list I may even buy an iPad

It seems worth noting that Black's column has not been widely quoted – or at all – because you won't be able to read it online until Saturday, a couple of weeks after its publication.

Not because she's an asinine writer bereft of interesting or original ideas, then? Whereas I'll…