The Off Topic Topic

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/new-year-honours-list

Sir Captain Picard

[Josephus]

With the spate of death notices on here lately--- I thought Picard died. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Here's what I'm doing for New Year's---At the office installing SQL on a new server, moving existing databases into it and re-associating the apps that use said databases. Yay.

[Josephus]

Well, I'm gonna go get drunk now.

Let's hope we'll have plenty of good discussions and disagreements in the New Year.

See you all then.

[Ed Anger]

I'm staying sober. I could pop some Ambien and have freaky sex with a dog.

[Neil]

And you probably will have to pay for that in five years or less.

Which, as a print journalist, is a good thing.

That would be devastating.  The news media has decided that their service has no value, and a subscription service would crush ad revenue.

[MadImmortalMan]

Here's what I'm doing for New Year's---At the office installing SQL on a new server, moving existing databases into it and re-associating the apps that use said databases. Yay.

Well that's done. Much quicker than I thought. Time to party. Cheers y'all.

[Josephus]

And you probably will have to pay for that in five years or less.

Which, as a print journalist, is a good thing.

That would be devastating.  The news media has decided that their service has no value, and a subscription service would crush ad revenue.

True.

But ad revenue on the Internet is not making up for loss ad revenue in print.

[Neil]

And you probably will have to pay for that in five years or less.

Which, as a print journalist, is a good thing.

That would be devastating.  The news media has decided that their service has no value, and a subscription service would crush ad revenue.

True.

But ad revenue on the Internet is not making up for loss ad revenue in print.

Indeed, but what do you get when you lose print ad revenue, internet ad revenue, and are charging a subscription fee that nobody pays because your competitors are giving it away?  Bankruptcy.

[Josephus]

True. But I think in one last ditch attempt to protect itself, the newspaper media will form a collusion and all of them agree to stop putting up free news on their sites.

[Neil]

True. But I think in one last ditch attempt to protect itself, the newspaper media will form a collusion and all of them agree to stop putting up free news on their sites.

There are already so many free sources of news apart from just the papers that I doubt it would do any good.  Just pretending like the technology doesn't exist tends not to work.

Then again, I suppose the newspapers have to do something, don't they?

[Ed Anger]

I love the Canadian mullets on the ESPN Gretzky documentary.

WAH! JANET JONES ROBBED US! BOO HOO.

[Josquius]

True. But I think in one last ditch attempt to protect itself, the newspaper media will form a collusion and all of them agree to stop putting up free news on their sites.

As Neil says there are other sources...but these other sources largely get their news from the news.
Could lead to quite an interesting bit of legal wrangling with 'news piracy'- you can't own the news but if your blog is reporting what is said in a paper then they could have a go at you for ripping them off. Obvious that the papers would be in the wrong there but that rarely stops big companies trying.

[Josephus]

Would be interesting. Like I said, this would be the newspapers' last stand, and last stands are always desperate...consider it the Newspaper's Battle of the Bulge.

[Grey Fox]

News will still get reported somehow. If it's not paid journalism, it'll be something else.