AOL's dynamic vision of the future: Flood the web with content designed to pop up high in Google search results, with editorial ideas generated by an algorithm based on what stupid people are looking for, on the internet. In our business we call this "stealing post ideas from Google Trends." Getcher Tiger Woods Mistress Pictures here! Tell us, WSJ, how will AOL improve the life of me, an average Park Slope Parent?

AOL says its new system determined that the most popular topic on the Web last Tuesday was "crib recalls," following news of a massive recall by Stork Craft Manufacturing of Canada. AOL had only one story on its sites on the recall. But, if the new system had been live, editors would have geared up to supply stories on the subject from a number of angles, the company says.

So not only is AOL basing its entire dismal future on the most base sort of styrofoam traffic-whoring; it's not even whoring in a new way. Demand Media, for one, has long been doing the exact same thing, with an algorithm-plus-sweatshop editorial production line that makes Gawker Media look like Aristotle's School of Taking Your Sweet Time Thinking About Things.

Ah well. Neither useless crap on the internet nor AOL sucking is anything new.

The most popular story on WSJ.com today has been their semi-exclusive about Joe Lieberman saying he's never going to vote for a health care bill with the public option. If you heard about Lieberman making news on health care today and went to Google "lieberman public option," you'd get these results. The shaded red boxes are the News Corp. properties: WSJ.com and Foxnews.com. Those would disappear, but there would be no shortage of results showing you what Lieberman told the WSJ in the top results.

But let's say you were really motivated to find the specific Wall Street Journal story about Joe Lieberman derailing health care and you searched "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal." That would currently bring up the story in question, as well as the Fox News result and an old WSJ blog post. But it would also bring up plenty of other sites that can tell you what was in the WSJ story. Those all likely will also provide a link to the WSJ story, but if they put up the pay wall Murdoch has promised, why would you bother to click through?

Lastly, here's a search for "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal," but with results from WSJ.com and FoxNews.com filtered out—in other words, what Google would return if they weren't allowed to index News Corp. pages.

All but the top two results — irrelevant HuffPo stories — show you exactly what Lieberman said in the Wall Street Journal. And would conceivably show you a link to the WSJ. So, no big loss.

For years, newspapers and other media companies have complained about Google reaping profits by indexing media content for free. Google has responded that media companies are free to remove themselves from Google's search engines if they wish. But media companies never actually did it, because the hit to their traffic would be too big. They'd prefer to just get paid by the search engines. Which is what Rupert Murdoch may now do.

Business Insider estimates that the Wall Street Journal, News Corp's most prized media property, would lose about $15 million by pulling out of Google—meaning that Bing could theoretically secure exclusive search engine rights for that price. The money is almost too small to matter. But this could be a trigger for much bigger things. Namely, the Great Search Engine Wars for media content.

Brian Lam argues that this move would hurt consumers. Instead of being able to go to Google to find everything, consumers would have to know which specific media outlets had exclusive deals with which search engines in order to track down their content.

And that's absolutely true! This trend, if it becomes widespread—every big media company hunting for the richest deal it can get from a search engine—would make life more inconvenient for media consumers like you and me. Which doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad. The fact is that the current situation cannot stand. Have you read our #layoffs tag lately? Rupert Murdoch—and other media owners—are tired of Google making money off their content, for free. The original idea was that the traffic driven to media sites by Google would provide enough revenue, through ads, to make everyone happy. That hasn't turned out to be the case. Online ad revenue is not doing the trick.

So media companies will need new revenue streams to survive. A big one will be paid content; i.e., if you want to read the New York Times online, you will have to pay some sort of subscription fee. But search engine deals like this—in which media companies make search engines pay for exclusive rights to access their content—are another online revenue stream that could become significant. News Corp's deal isn't big money, yet. But presumably if Google and its competitors realize they will have to engage in bidding wars to lock in rights to good media content, the value of those deals would increase considerably.

The bigger picture is this: Yes, the "journalism" industry will shrink. That's part of the future. Fine. But even with the wondrous world of blogs and nonprofit journalism foundations and every other new permutation of creating content, the fact remains that if people want to enjoy a fundamental baseline of serious news media in this country, they will have to pay for it, somehow. Yes, it's more inconvenient to have search engines with exclusive content deals. It's also inconvenient to have to pay to read online news. But these and other new revenue streams will have to come into place if we don't want to keep griping forever about journalists being laid off and news quality getting shittier. Everything cannot always be free and delivered directly to us on a platter when it costs money to make, okay! So try not to fear the portentous coming of the Search Engine Bidding Wars. We're just going through the bumpy phase of things now. You'll get used to it. And the annoying kid you sent to J-school might actually be able to land a job one day, too.

[My colleagues do not necessarily agree with me!]

The WSJ reports that the number of Wikipedia editors (real editors—not you) declined by nearly 50,000 in the first three months of this year alone. The trend is attributed to the fact that whereas in the past you used to be able to just hop in and edit shit, now you have to have your work "approved" by some superlayer of supereditors, many of whom take joy in shooting down the Wikipedia aspirations of the unapproved masses. Horror stories abound. So who are these Gatekeepers to all the internet's knowledge?

A survey the foundation conducted last year determined that the average age of an editor is 26.8 years, and that 87% of them are men.

As you suspected: nerds.

So, rather than joining themselves, this group often enlists friends and relatives to be their reluctant online couriers:

Anne Kott said she is happily married to the man she met at Bucknell University, where she first joined Facebook. However, she cannot help but feel as though she in his employ.

"I am his Facebook secretary," she complained. "His friends will send me a Facebook message, 'Do you have Tomek's number?' And, 'What's Tomek doing?' He occasionally looks over my shoulder to see what photos are up, but he has never shown interest in starting his own account."

Kott has resorted to starting a "Tomek must join Facebook" page — clearly a sign of aggression as tensions grow on both sides.

But not all users support Kott's brand of crusading. Georgetown junior Kiran Gandhi insists it's offensive to even ask a refusenik: When someone tells you that they don't have Facebook, it's untouchable. It's a sign of disrespect to try to convince them." So now the refuseniks have sympathizers on the other side. This will get ugly.

Image via nixc.co.uk's flickr.

Realizing that they've lost their edge as the world's great evil empire, Disney has called on Apple overlord Jobs, who joined the board back in 2006, to help them steer a new path toward consumerist greatness. And, to that end, Jobs gave Disney access to his Apple Store blueprints and encouraged engineers to "think bigger," which means stores are no longer retail centers, but "Imagination Centers" that bubble with "Pixar-esque winks and nods."

Yes, gone are the days of plush toy displays and in are the days of video clips on demand, fake trees that sing happy birthday and, while they're at it, olfactory experimentation:

There will be a scent component; if a clip from Disney's coming "A Christmas Carol" is playing in the theater, the whole store might suddenly be made to smell like a Christmas tree.

Wow! This all sounds totally necessary!

Taken with Disney's plans for a brand-centric Comic-Con, it seems the company's poised to recreate the broken world in its own nightmarish image. And, in a move that would finally validate all those "Disneyfication" critiques of New York, Disney may open a new flagship store in Times Square. Sigh.

And a new report out of Britain makes clear just how far today's tots are from the innocent, carefree, ensconced days of yore:

One in five children aged five to seven are accessing the internet without supervision from a parent, it has been revealed, raising concerns about access to adult material and grooming by paedophiles.

One in ten has a mobile phone despite a series of health warnings, and half have a TV in their bedroom, according to research by media regulator OfCom.

Some 85 per cent have access to a games console as children's lives are increasingly dominated by gadgets rather than physical play.

This data makes me want to cry, wretch and find religion. I've said it before and I'll say it again: fuck the war on drugs, let's target technology (except for the websites for which I work, of course).

Image via Vanderlin's flickr.

Yesterday news came that 10,000 Hotmail accounts had been compromised, but all of you internet snobs were like, "Hotmail? Haha, (some sort of internet snob joke about varieties of email, and which are cool and which are not)."

Well now your precious Gmail has also been compromised, the BBC reports. But, sayeth Google:

The firm stressed that the scam was "not a breach of Gmail security" but rather "a scam to get users to give away their personal information to hackers".

Stop being so dumb and you won't get "compromised," like that! Same advice dads have been giving to their daughters for years.
[Want more expert insight on this issue? Sorry, Ryan Tate's not awake yet.]

Jonathan G. Parker of some small town, Pennsylvania, was arrested for his alleged role in a local burglary. Why did they go after him? Because someone used the victim's computer to check Parker's Facebook page. And then that same someone forgot to log-out, which gave police a pretty good lead. And now Parker's in prison.

This isn't the first time Facebook has assisted in establishing social order. Up in dear old Canada, police arrested a man who, not realizing his privacy shield hadn't been activated, admitted to an aggravated assault. Meanwhile, Maine police officers tipped their hats to the site after three stupid teenagers posted pictures of themselves trashing a local hotel. And, in perhaps one of Facebook's most successful cases, prosecutors used picture of an alleged drunken driver dressed in a Halloween "jail bird" costume to reinforce their case against him. The driver went to jail for his crime.

Now, we could blame these take downs on brain dead criminals, but we'd rather shower technology with the praise. Because we fear its increasingly God-like attributes.

Image via Johnny Grim's flickr.

Perhaps you've heard the President talk about "net neutrality." That's the idea that the Internet should continue in on its merry way: people can go to the sites they like, do what they want and their web providers will allow them to do so. It's really quite utopian. Well, that practice could come to an end if evil telecommunications giants have their way.

The National Cable and Telecommunications Assn. and its ilk think that providers should reserve the right to pick-and-choose which sites get preferential treatment on their bandwidth. More than that, they're toying with the idea of increasing rates for video sites, meaning those of you who watch movies or television on your computer could pay more than people who use it simply for news and the such. According to the association, this is simply how the market works. And does it ever!

The current marketplace is working well to bring consumers the services and features they want at prices they can afford. Lawmakers should be very reluctant to replace that flexible, market-driven success story with a system of intrusive regulation.

Though the Obama administration insists it will fight for net neutrality, it may be in for quite the fight. Telecommunications companies give millions to lawmakers — Comcast employees and its PAC, which is fighting against net neutrality, spent $2.9 million in the political realm during the 2008 election and has already given about $700,000 since then — and, as we all know, lawmakers aren't immune to hefty checks. (It's worth noting that the FCC slapped Comcast's wrist last year, when the company put up barriers to block or slow down file-sharing services.)

Luckily for all of us, new FCC head Julius Genachowski vowed to back Obama and company, saying:

One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles.

This would please the New York Times, whose editorial team demanded this weekend that the President keep the Internet open and free.

The issue isn't simply about money — making it and spending it — but about which sites load faster or are more accessible. If, for example, one Internet provider prefers NBC News, that means CBS readers will be shit out of luck. And, if that's the case, we'll be one step closer to this "destroyed democracy" thing Glenn Beck and others keep barking about.

As much as some would like to believe it, the free market's not our democracy's defining characteristic. Nor should it be. And if there's one place to prove that, it's here, on the wild, wild Internet. Regardless of what happens, it's clear that the Internet won't be what it once was — and that makes us sad.

Image via aLii's flickr.

British insurance company Legal & General recently published a scary-sounding report called "The Digital Criminal" which asserts users of Facebook et al. are opening themselves up to disaster, like burglars.

You know, because burglars can see when and where you're on vacation, then find your home, break in, steal your stuff, pee on your toilet seat and overfeed your fish. Then you come back and you're shit's gone, your toilet's sticky, your fish is dead and you kick yourself, "Why did I tweet myself in the foot?"

Considering all the dangers lurking in — and, apparently, out — of the internet, Legal & General and other insurance companies are talking about raising rates for those who indulge in virtual networking. Still, they admit it's not so black and white:

Malcolm Cooper, director of pricing and underwriting at Legal & General, said: "It's a challenging one for the insurance industry. Just because someone is burgled, you can't prove that it's down to details posted on Facebook.

"It could be that we start asking how many youngsters are in the home for example."

Cooper obviously hasn't heard that it's not the young one who are responsible for the silly Twitter boom. It's The Olds! Although, we admit, his rationale does make a good argument for selling one's ingrate children.

Brad Stone of the New York Times has a piece in today's paper on the effects of modern technology on the family, specifically in the morning. Stone note how the addiction to gadgets and social networking are altering the great American family morning rituals. Instead of getting up immediately for breakfast or coffee or to read the morning paper, people are going straight to their gadgets to check email and to play around on Facebook and Twitter. In the course of his reporting, Stone profiles a few families, one of which are the Gudes of East Lansing, Michigan.

Today, Mr. Gude wakes at around 6 a.m. to check his work e-mail and his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The two boys, Cole and Erik, start each morning with text messages, video games and Facebook.

The Gudes' sons sleep with their phones next to their beds, so they start the day with text messages in place of alarm clocks. Mr. Gude, an instructor at Michigan State University, sends texts to his two sons to wake up.

"We use texting as an in-house intercom," he said. "I could just walk upstairs, but they always answer their texts."

Now, the Gude family may be the epitome of the modern, wired American family, but isn't the excerpt above kind of, well, sad. Personally, one of the my fondest memories of childhood was of my Mom coming into my room to wake me up each morning for breakfast and to get ready for school. The thought of being woken by freaking text message because Mom's too busy playing around on Twitter is utterly horrifying! How long before they start IMing each other at the damn dinner table? Ugh.

We're just out here promoting Radio Shack, or uh, The Shack, whatever you want to call it, you know. Anyhow we have to sit out in public talking to webcams all day, give us a fucking break.

This is the very first question from a Q&A with Anderson in the German mag Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Anderson, let's talk about the future of journalism.
Anderson: This is going to be a very annoying interview. I don't use the word journalism.

Uhh...

SPIEGEL: Okay, how about newspapers? They are in deep trouble both in the United States and worldwide.
Anderson: Sorry, I don't use the word media. I don't use the word news. I don't think that those words mean anything anymore...

SPIEGEL: Which other words would you use?
Anderson: There are no other words. We're in one of those strange eras where the words of the last century don't have meaning. What does news mean to you, when the vast majority of news is created by amateurs? Is news coming from a newspaper, or a news group or a friend? I just cannot come up with a definition for those words. Here at Wired, we stopped using them.

Uh huh. Then he goes on to talk his new age "Free" shit about how news just "comes to me," but media outlets themselves aren't important. Hey Chris Anderson, I haven't read your new book, but I hear from the internet or whatever that you plagiarized it, and that it sucks. That's that new journalism!
[Spiegel via Media Decoder. Pic: Getty]

We know that the paper's been looking to crack down on its wanton employee Twitterers ever since they went and Twittered away all the secrets of a newsroom meeting (in the old days it would have taken at least five minutes longer to have all the details sent to Romenesko). So Preston's job could include shutting down the free musings of the paper's more voluble reporters. Preston herself has a private Twitter page. ISN'T THAT FANCY? A chilling vision of David Carr's future?

But! Two points: One, they haven't actually said what the fuck a "Social Media Editor" does, so this is speculation. And two, the first announcement of Preston's new gig came on Jonathan Landman's Twitter.

Landman, you're fired.

UPDATE: Here's the internal memo on Preston's new gig, via Nieman Lab, which is just vague enough to confirm everyone's worst fears, whatever they may be:

To the Newsroom:

One of the bracing things about this topsy-turvy media landscape is that you can wake up one morning and find yourself actually doing something you never thought you'd even think about. Take Jennifer Preston. In 25 years in the news biz, she's been plenty of things: Reporter (cop shop, City Hall, Albany, etc.), editor (political editor, section editor, administrative editor, etc.) and even circulation marketing manager (at New York Newsday). But still, did she ever think she'd wake up one morning as "social media editor"?

No, she didn't but yes, she did. That morning was this one.

Jennifer is our first social media editor. What's that? It's someone who concentrates full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers.

Think of Twitter. Did you know that The New York Times is No. 2 on the Twitterholic.com Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers? (Behind Ashton Kutcher but ahead of Ellen DeGeneres.) Don't care? OK, but the point is that an awful lot of people are finding our work not by coming to our homepage or looking at our newspaper but through alerts and recommendations from their friends and colleagues. So we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well. At the same time, more of us are using social networks to find sources, contacts and information. Like this guy.

Jennifer will work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and others to use social tools to find sources, track trends, and break news as well as to gather it. She will help us get comfortable with the techniques, share best practices and guide us on how to more effectively engage a larger share of the audience on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Digg, and beyond.

A big part of her job will be keeping everyone up to date with the rapid developments taking place on the social media front. She will work closely with social media whizzes in the newsroom and other departments, including Soraya Darabi in marketing, Jake Harris in software and Heather Moore in comment moderation, on how news feeds work and how best to be part of the online conversation. She will also work closely with Dawn Williamson, Derek Gottfrid and others involved in building our own social network, Times People, as we continue to use crowd-sourcing techniques to increase the reach and quality of our work. She will work with Craig Whitney and others to ask and answer the many tricky questions that arise in this context: What is the proper balance between personal and professional? What best practices should we adopt or adapt? How can we do the new stuff in a way that honors the old stuff? Etc.

In a significant way Jennifer will apply the collaborative techniques of social-networking to her own job, because of course we all need to figure this out together.