Normalkid:Arnold Kim

Here are a few random thoughts I’ve had recently about blogging, online media and traditional print media.

Online Ads vs Newspaper Ads

Here’s a promising chart for all online-media folk published by Alley Insider.

Newspaper ads dropping, online ads keep growing… and they it looks like they’ll intersect in a few years. It’s no surprise, but interesting to see in chart form. So, good news for those who depend on online ad revenue.

Blogs vs. Mainstream

Like many, I do vanity-searches on my own name from time to time. One article that I ran across late last year was written by a journalist by the name of Amy Eagleburger. She wrote an article about how the mainstream media has been slow to adopt online and blogs. Nothing particularly groundbreaking but an interesting comment about MacRumors:

One of the many complaints from journalists is that they don’t have time to blog and write stories. So why aren’t newspapers hiring more professional bloggers? MacRumors.com is a blog Dr. Arnold Kim started as a hobby. It was so successful that he gave up his medical career to blog full time. He’s not just a guy in his pajamas but someone with a knack for news gathering. Why did that blog not start at a newspaper? I’ll admit that when I wanted to read about the new iPhone, I went to Kim’s blog before other publications.

That’s the million dollar question. Why wasn’t MacRumors (or any major blog) started by a newspaper? Or another mainstream media source?

In some ways, it seems absurd. Indeed, if you had asked the same question 5 years ago, the answer would have been simple: there’s no money in a “blogs” like MacRumors. In 2009, however, the answer is entirely different. There’s an enormous amount of money in online media which is becoming increasingly dominated by blog-like publications. And as a result, money is now being invested in these markets.

But besides money, however, I think a site like MacRumors succeeded because it was started by someone who was a genuine enthusiast of the topic and not just going for a paycheck. Especially then, there was no incentive for a traditional journalist to stay up late at night to report on the latest news and rumors. Those stories, if deemed news-worthy, would be published the following day. That fact wasn’t lost on the audience either, and MacRumors generated a reputation of frequently being the first source for news and also the place to connect with others.

Of course, there’s a million other reasons why traditional media was slow to adapt. It’s just the nature of the beast. People stick with what they know. Blog-style news simply didn’t fit into their belief system. Meanwhile, those without traditional journalism training just made it up as they went along.

It may have been lost on some, but Apple’s release of the iPod Touch brings a close to one of the longest running rumors in Apple’s history… the return of Newton.

Oh, we knew it was coming when they released the iPhone… but the iPod Touch is essentially Apple’s return to the PDA market and effectively ends future Apple PDA rumors.

iPod Touch is based on Apple’s new Touch OS X platform which we first saw with the iPhone. It’s OS X at its core, driven by a multi-touch screen. I think its inevitable that an official SDK will be released. I am excited to see where Apple takes this new platform.

Of course, this will only add fuel to the fire of Apple Tablet rumors….

I was wrong. Or, I guess, my conclusion was wrong in Final Verdict: Keyboard Fake. iPod UI Real.

The prototype keyboard photos that were posted to Chinese forum were real.

It really is a significant event that will make the rumor-mill a bit more exciting. For the first time, Apple has let photos of a pre-release product be widely distributed, and not take any efforts to suppress their distribution. Good or bad, this is going to make future “spy shots” harder to assess.

Whether or not the iPod UI will be a shipping product remains to be seen, but I think we’ll see the iPod UI shortly.

Gizmodo posted and then retracted a rumor that they posted from someone who emailed them and purported to be from a Google Product Marketing Manager.

Engadget goes on to “debunk” this rumor, making a big deal about it.

Gizmodo even goes so far as to say that this is the reason why you should “Never ever trust rumors.” I’ll counter and say, this is why you should never ever trust rumors from sites that don’t regularly deal in Apple rumors. Now I think Gizmodo and Engadget do a great job in general, but they’ve never been a reliable source of original Apple rumors.

It’s no shock to me that someone submitted fake rumors to a popular gadget site. Submitting fake Apple rumors has been a long time sport. MacRumors gets fake submissions on a daily basis. If we posted every submission that sounded at all plausible, we would lose a lot of respect from our regulars.